It seems in the digital age that music has had one of the highest levels of controversy about access.
Back in the day, you had to buy a physical record (or disc … or tape) to listen to the music. The rise of the internet led to much digital piracy of illegally copied music. Today, however, there are a number of streaming options. Many of them are free.
Pandora
Pandora is one of the oldest and most well established of the free streaming services. The premise of Pandora is you can create your own stations not by picking a specific list of songs, but rather teaching the station what you like.
First you seed a station with a song or band. Then Pandora plays songs that are similar. You then say whether you like the song or not. This way the types of songs played by each station gets tweaked over time.
The free version of Pandora does have advertising and you are limited in songs you can skip. Paid plans give you more options and range from $4.99 to $9.99 a month.
Spotify
Spotify is another option to consider. It gives you a bit more freedom than Pandora in the fact you can pick individual songs. However, the free version is limited and you do eventually run out the number of times you can skip songs.
You can create playlists and after a while Spotify will start suggesting songs you may like. You also can listen to pre-made stations that are created by genre or popularity.
Finally, in addition to music, Spotify includes podcasts on a variety of topics from philosophy to pop culture. The free version of Spotify is supported by ads. Spotify paid plans start at $9.99.
Google Music
Google of course has its own version of music streaming that it provides through YouTube Music. Like Spotify, YouTube Music includes prebuilt stations, podcasts and top hits.
Like Pandora, you can “like” or “dislike” songs which helps Google build a sense of your preferences. You are limited by the number of times you can skip songs you do not like. After that, if you pick a song, you will only get songs like it rather than the actual song. The most convenient part of YouTube is that if you have a Google account, you already are set up.
You also can find the app built into your Android phone as YT Music. It is also $9.99 a month.
Amazon Music
Finally, Amazon has its own service called Amazon Music. You can get access to the basic version through your Amazon Prime account. You can upgrade to Amazon Music Unlimited, which gives you access to more songs, unlimited skips and allows for offline listening.
One of the best parts of Amazon Music is it works natively with Amazon Alexa. Having my 3-year-old yell at Alexa what songs she wants to hear has given us hours of entertainment.
Amazon Prime customers pay $7.99 a month for unlimited and non-prime members pay $9.99.
There sure are a lot of options when it comes to streaming music. You can take a more traditional radio format that is ad supported or you can pay a little bit a month and curate your own stations and music lists.
Many plans, regardless of the provider, offer family plans where household members can share music and parents can control access.
These options are so cheap and easy to access that the days of illegally downloading music seem to have gone out of style.
