Top Five Streaming Music Services

Some streaming music services to use

There are an incredible amount of streaming music services now, but unfortunately a lot of them tend to be subpar because of minimal content and bad-user experience. Here are some strong, free music streaming services for music folks who love streaming at work and on the go.

1. Spotify

Spotify is one of the best music streaming services available. If you know what you like by artist, album and track, you don’t need programming. That’s the magic of Spotify. It’s comparable to a free iTunes Store. If you’re not using Spotify, you’re seriously missing out. The best thing about Spotify is their immense library, good taste, amazing quality and their iPad app version just to name a few. With Spotify, you don’t even need the paid service at all. And if you do pay, it’s not that expensive. Try it out!

2. Pandora

Pandora is the streaming radio mecca of the online world and is where music streaming began to get serious. It may be safe to assume that most people have a Pandora subscription and a mobile app as the iPad app interface is amazing.

3. Songza

Songza has Internet radio playlists compiled by music critics, legendary DJs, musicians and music lovers. You can even submit a playlist (i.e. a 70s Turkish Psych playlist of your favorite artists like Selda and Baris Manco). They also have some amazing playlist categories like working, boosting your energy, hanging out or taking a sunny stroll. Even cooler offerings are the Record-store Clerk categories, like Classic Prog, Krautrock and Early West Coast Punk (i.e. The Germs, Gun Club, Black Flag). Plus, the mobile app for iPad and iPhone are both totally amazing.

4. Whyd

Whyd is like the Pinterest of music and could be the solution for all of your endless YouTube and Soundcloud bookmarks. The service is part organization tool—like an RSS reader—and part social network. It can save anything from YouTube, Vimeo or SoundCloud and is totally free. Check out their website to request an invitation so you can start uploading.

5. Songdrop

Songdrop is another tool with a bit of a fancier UI/UX and the spinning records are super-cool. What makes Songdrop different is the “drop” feature, which is very similar to the Pinterest “pin” feature.

There are many more music streaming services and many more soon to come, but for now, try these out and start developing your own process for collecting and listening to free streaming music.

Alan Henry and his life-changing article called The Best Streaming Services You Aren’t Using (But Should) was an influence while writing this article.