The Golden Age of Music Streaming: Which Side Are You On?

[DCnightwing23]

With Apple Music having been released this past 30th of June I felt this should be a topic of discussion. It's simple. How do you feel about this rise of music streaming? Monthly subscriptions, unlimited music? What service do you currently use and why?

Here are the top music streaming services (in no particular order)

TIDAL

This one is for those who appreciate sound quality, which is a rare point of focus as online music has become the norm. At two price points, $9.99 for normal sound, and $19.99 for high quality streaming. This is the newest of the bunch and has a lot of support from big name artists which makes sense considering Jay-Z and Chris Martin co own this service.

Google Play Music

W/ a price point of $9.99, Play Music has been around a few years now. Which it's service across multiple platforms. It's the more underrated of the bunch, are goes under the radar with the likes of Spotify and Apple Music as well as the emergence of Tidal ahead of it in terms of awareness.

Spotify

Spotify has been around since 2008. And has become, up until now, the biggest streaming service across social media. W/ the ability to post playlists to facebook and share what you're listening with friends. Spotify is $9.99, with promos year round for students starting at $4.99. Spotify also has a free account option which is a huge draw for the simple radio stations and playlists available to users that arent sold on the monthly fee of $9.99 a month.

Apple Music

Apple Music is the newest of the bunch. With a free 3 month trial, it's definitely a draw to those looking to jump into streaming for the first time. After the trial it's the standard $9.99 after the fact. Apple, much like TIDAL is a massive draw for big name artists and Apple has been pushing this as a huge opportunity for indie artists to share their music and connect with their fans using their Connect service within the app.


So there you have it. This is the rise of music streaming. There are definitely more specifics as to why you may want or are currently with a specific service, but let's open it up to conversation. Are you a fan of the way online music has and continues to be heading?

 

[the dmg]

I use Slacker with their Premium service. The main reason I have them is for offline mode, which is great for a subway rider like myself. I've tried Spotify, Rdio and Tidal a few times, but always go back to Slacker. Google Play Music is great, but didn't support FLAC at the time (not sure if it does now), so I couldn't transfer my music library to their service and made it unnecessary. Whatever albums I don't have available on Slacker, I have on my SD card, so it's no big deal.

 

[MadVillainy]

Google Music hands down.

I can stream any of my personal songs from anywhere in the US (and other international places) as well as being to access their collection of songs. ANd they also havea store if I want to buy a song.

It's a no brainer to me. I don't know why people use anything else.

The only thing lacking with Google Music for me is: collaborative playlists like Spotify has and they have no desktop app

 

[ComicChick]

i'm not a fan of streaming music at all really

 

[Marvolo]

Ive been using Spotify for 2 years, and I'm very happy with it. Some movie scores aren't on there, but they offer most stuff I want to listen to. I listen to 40 hours of music every week on the job which is bout 160 hours a month. $9.99 is a very small price to pay for 160 hours of music. I couldn't buy all the music I listen to for that price.

Tidal seems to be going the way of the dodo.

 

[DCnightwing23]

Exactly, I'm the same way. Streaming unlimited movie for a single 9.99$ price is a small price to pay when I find myself listening to tons of music a month. What I am finding interesting with all these services is the exclusivity beginning to form between Apple Music, Spotify and Tidal with some major artists going to one and not the others. Also, Apple Music has about 65% of their music library on Apple Music, which annoys me. Just allow users access to it all imo. I'm currently using Google Play Music and I love it. I've about tried them all and it seems to have everything. Heck it's so under the radar from the other 3 services that it even has a large Prince library, meanwhile Spotify and Apple Music don't.

 

[ComicChick]

i'm still not a fan of streaming, however when i did, i used Pandora rarely, and used the phone app Songza (free) more

 

[MrSharigan]

I used to use Pandora and then moved to Spotify.
I think Spotify is much better...