10 Music Streaming Services You Should Be Using
Whether played on portable speakers or flowing through awesome headphones, music is a constant element in life. Not only can and do we access it almost anywhere on our smartphones and computers, we control, customize and create stations and playlists to perfectly fit our moods. Music streaming services make it that much easier for instant listening satisfaction, but, if popular platforms like Pandora or Spotify aren’t hitting the right notes for you, here are 10 more that will be music to your ears.
1. Best for entire albums —Grooveshark: Though you can do a simple search for any genre, Grooveshark is best for album listening. The service plays albums from any artist straight from track one to the end, all without ad interruption. Yes, that’s correct. No ads ever.
2. Best for moods and genre —8tracks: This service is made by the people, for the people. You can choose categories that match your current mood or genres you’d like to listen to. 8tracks pulls together a list of user-created playlists that display how many plays each has received and how many tracks it contains.
3. Best for matching your mood(s) —Stereomood: This is perfect for those of you who feel all the feelings. Through a search of “I feel…,” Stereomood suggests playlists for those sad-rainy days, those excited-to-wake-up-and-start-the-day days and those in-the-mood-for-some-loving days.
4. Best for DJ mixes + music festival sets —SoundCloud: While this site is a great source for anyone to share their personal music, SoundCloud is a growing tool for DJs and music festivals. For the fest set, Tomorrowland and SXSW are a few profiles that feature uninterrupted artist sets and often display track names found in a setlist. So if you couldn’t make it to Coachella or EDC, cheer up, buttercup.
5. Best for new music and aspiring artists —Thesixtyone: If you really want to discover new music, thesixtyone is an open space for rising musicians to share their work with the world. Unlike other services, thesixtyone is more about randomization than searches. At any time, the homepage displays a musician, his or her song, a photo and facts about the musician.
6. Best for activities —Songza: Along with its adorable unidentifiable animal mascot, Songza bases its music off of activities. Whether you’re cooking, working out or unwinding, there’s a playlist for that. The category search goes one level deeper by asking what genre fits your mood and then offering playlists you might like.
7. Best for songs and music videos —Bop.fm: With its front page featuring a collective mosaic of popular artists and trending songs, bop.fm takes your first pick and highlights songs you may also be interested in. Even better, it plays the song’s music video on the side of the screen for your viewing pleasures.
8. Best for radio stations and podcasts —TuneIn: Featuring over 100,00 radio stations and more than two million podcasts, TuneIn is the hub for live listening without being in a car. It displays songs minute by minute and covers not only music, but also sports, news and talk shows by location.
9. Best for expert-curated music stations — Slacker: Don’t want to create your own playlist? What if it was developed by music experts? Slacker features stations put together by its team of music pros that spans everything from ’80s and ‘90s to the 101 greatest cover songs.
10. Best for playlists and podcasts —Mixcloud: As a one-stop shop for podcasts, DJ sets, playlists and genres, Mixcloud enables users to explore its “cloudcasts.” These categories are split into music (any genre) and talk (comedy, business, food, etc) and you can also upload your own “cloudcast.”
Do you use these streaming services? Leave us your favorite music websites in the comments below!
