Music fans have more options than ever to explore their favorite tunes online.
Most students are familiar with programs that play music saved to a computer, like iTunes, but other Internet-based services offer unique features and sharing strategies. Here’s a sampling of some of the most popular online music players.
1. SPOTIFY
Originally a Europe-only service, Swedish-born Spotify launched in the United States on July 14, 2011.
Like iTunes, Spotify can be used to organize a music library on a computer. But instead of a store, Spotify streams music from a variety of major and independent music labels for free with intermittent ads. Artist or song radio stations can also be created, which create a near-limitless playlist of similar-sounding music.
Paying $4.99 a month gets rid of the ads, and $9.99 allows playlists to be saved offline and gives access to the Spotify App on mobile devices.
Spotify is available on Windows, Mac, Linux and most mobile operating systems.
Biology sophomore Timothy Harris likes Spotify’s huge library of songs.
“You have access to any song you want, unlike Pandora, where you’re ushered into the next song,” he said. “You have a lot more freedom to what you want to listen to.”
Spotify has stolen my heart with its enourmous library and snappy interface. Very few songs I’ve wanted to listen to are absent from the application, and the fact that it combines my personal library with any music I’ve starred seals the deal.
2. GROOVESHARK
Grooveshark is a music search engine and streaming service available over the web. Users can create a profile and save songs and playlists to that profile, then access them on any computer.
It’s like Spotify, but it’s Web-based instead of a downloadable application. It offers an extensive music library, streaming between 150 and 160 million songs per month, and it has a radio feature similar to Spotify. As of May 2011, Grooveshark boasted 35,000,000 registered users.
Grooveshark is also being sued by many major music labels. On Jan. 5, EMI sued Grooveshark over non-payment of royalties, and Universal Music Group filed a copyright infringement lawsuit the next day.
Grooveshark is ad-supported and free. The site is an old flame of mine, getting me through the early years of my musical history. Being able to access my playlists on any computer is a huge perk, but I found several tracks were only available as the live version. Spotify has taken its spot in my life, but Grooveshark still has a thriving community.
3. 8TRACKS
8tracks is an Internet radio website that revolves around creating playlists at least eight tracks long instead of algorithm-based stations.
Users can upload their own music for the playlists or use SoundCloud, a music streaming app, then share with other users to form a music-based social network.
The site also has a subscription service – for $25, ads are removed for six months.
This site is completely new to me. I haven’t delved too far into the details of 8tracks, but being added to Time Magazine’s “Best 50 Websites” list in 2011 is no small feat.
4. LAST.FM
Unlike the other music players, Last.fm is an Internet radio application that looks at the music users listen to using other services (iTunes, Spotify, etc.) and builds a music profile around those numbers. That information is transferred or “scrobbled” to Last.fm’s database, where it recommends new artists or songs to listen to based of the songs and artists previously listened to.
Last.fm is free in the United Kingdom, United States and Germany.
While I haven’t used Last.fm extensively, building a musical profile is an intriguing process. It’s fun to find other people with similar tastes in music and talk about it. Plus, its recommendation system is scary accurate at finding music I’ll enjoy.
5. PANDORA
Pandora is an Internet radio service that builds radio stations around users’ musical tastes.
It’s part of the Music Genome Project, which uses a combination of 400 different musical attributes and an algorithm to build playlists. Users can then give a thumbs up or thumbs down for each song, which changes the style of the playlist.
In the 2011 fiscal year, Pandora grabbed $138 million in revenue.
Geography sophomore Andrew Loreno said he likes that Pandora chooses music for him.
“Sometimes it’ll give me a bad song, but it also gives me new artists to listen to,” he said. “Plus, I can use it on my phone.”
Unlike iTunes, Pandora requires Internet access and is only available in the United States.
I find Pandora to be best for discovering new music or rediscovering favorites. My “I Believe In A Thing Called Love” station satisfies my classic rock cravings and even gives me Blink 182 songs from my high school days.
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Contact Taylor Balkom at [email protected]