Music Streaming Services

[Benji]

Curious as to what people use. I use Google Play Music and like the features, especially having upload space for my own music, but hate the lack of social elements on it, as well as the UI being but ugly and awkward (seriously, chain-linking similar artists is a nightmare to get back from). Seriously contemplating the switch to Spotify, which I've used before, but similarly hated the UI and doesn't have the upload space as far as I know.

Particularly interested in people who've used Rdio as the interface and learning abilities of the app sound really interesting to me.

[MalaCloudy Black]

Pandora. That's about it. I can't be arsed to fuck around with iTunes radio or Spotify or Google Play Music or [iNSERT SERVICE]. I'm used to clicking THUMBS UP when I like a song and THUMBS DOWN when I hate it and that's good enough for me. >_>

[apsham]

Spotify is the only way to go for me. I tried Google Play Music a couple of times but it was awkward and I had issues with it deleting the music I had downloaded to my phone and meh. Spotify does absolutely everything I'd want it to, has a great interface and has given me some amazing recommendations.

[Lint]

I see none of you use Tidal. Clearly none of you are audiophiles and don't care if Taylor Swift can't get that 3rd solid gold toilet

[Cymbols]

I use the free version of Spotify. Whilst I definitely use it enough to warrant getting premium, I actually kind of like getting ads, I've discovered some good stuff through ads surprisingly.

[Schlitzbrille]

Spotify for me. Only real nitpick I have is a lack of later Manowar...

[VerbalPuke]

Pandora. That's about it. I can't be arsed to fuck around with iTunes radio or Spotify or Google Play Music or [iNSERT SERVICE]. I'm used to clicking THUMBS UP when I like a song and THUMBS DOWN when I hate it and that's good enough for me. >_>

This, it's worked well for me, it more often than not gives me pretty good stuff for each station.

I am curious about Spotify though, what is the different between it and Pandora?

[Benji]

I tried Spotify for a second time earlier and it froze on the first song >_>

[apsham]

That's odd - I have never had that happen to me. Well at least while using the Android app or the desktop application. I don't mess with the web player because that's a bit too based on your browser and the 1,000,000 variables that could mess with that.

[=BK=]

I've used Pandora for a few years now. I love it to death, it introduced me to Sohodolls and Emilie Autumn. Since I got my tablet I've been using Spotify as well. If I want a mix I use Pandora, if I want a particular artist then I use Spotify.

[thatshortguy]

Pandora. That's about it. I can't be arsed to fuck around with iTunes radio or Spotify or Google Play Music or [iNSERT SERVICE]. I'm used to clicking THUMBS UP when I like a song and THUMBS DOWN when I hate it and that's good enough for me. >_>

This, it's worked well for me, it more often than not gives me pretty good stuff for each station.

I am curious about Spotify though, what is the different between it and Pandora?

Think of Pandora as more akin to the radio in your car, while Spotify is a little closer to what you could do with a music collection in an mp3 player. Spotify lets you curate/save playlists as well as do artist-centric stations, but the playback is not as clear as Pandora. If you dig Pandora, you may actually want to check out Rdio. The paid version ($5 a month, I think?) lets you start artist stations and dictate how far it branches out from the artist you've chosen.

That's odd - I have never had that happen to me. Well at least while using the Android app or the desktop application. I don't mess with the web player because that's a bit too based on your browser and the 1,000,000 variables that could mess with that.

Any browser that supports Adblock & Ghostery = Spotify Web Player = adless Spotify. Just saying.

[apsham]

I'd still pay for it because of awesome service and the downloading songs aspect, which is essential for work.

[K]

Spotify premium is heaven. More than worth the cost.

[apsham]

For money reasons I have to take a month off Spotify and do a free 30 days of Play Music All Access again.

Still kind of archaic with no way to download specific songs or just all of them at once, but hey... at least it has The Rock's version of Wild Ones.

[METALMAN]

I toyed with Spotify when they had that good offer over Christmas. However, I'm still stuck fast to my own collection on itunes for the vast majority of my listening. Spotify is good, but it just has too many glaring gaps in its library for me.

[VerbalPuke]

Does spotify let you choose songs, or is it more like "pick an artist and we play a bunch of their music at random". Can you shuffle different artists for variety?

[apsham]

Spotify lets you add songs to a Library that you can then shuffle. Or you can make a playlist and do it. Or shuffle by artists, genre, etc. It's pretty versatile and it tracks what you listen to like last.fm to give you suggestions. Plus you can access other user's curated playlists.

Play Music.. I'm not even going to be bothering much with this trial. The interface is such ass. On my laptop everything is so fucking HUGE that it's cumbersome to get through and on the phone it takes fifty screens to do a single thing I wanna do. That combined with the relatively large size of the music file downloads compared to Spotify and no. Not worth it.

[VerbalPuke]

Using spotify now, love it. Incredible that we have apps like spotify and pandora now. Definitely softens the blow of my Ipod dying, dven if I cant choose my own songs, still great to have as a music fan. I added so much shit tonight to Spotify, and havd rediscovered some stuff i liked years ago.

[Lint]

Using spotify now, love it. Incredible that we have apps like spotify and pandora now. Definitely softens the blow of my Ipod dying, dven if I cant choose my own songs, still great to have as a music fan. I added so much shit tonight to Spotify, and havd rediscovered some stuff i liked years ago.

Go Premium and you can choose from Spotifys catalog. My playlist...I don't make separate ones except for stuff I want to play offline, is currently 1880 songs or, since the Windows app tells me this, 92 hours 48 minutes

[VerbalPuke]

I'm considering it honestly, maybe not right away, but once I get a few other financial loose ends tied up. As it stands now, it serves a good purpose for me. Some stuff has been a bit harder to find, or is just not there, but I'm not completely shocked by that.