Best music streaming services

[retroenzo]

Hi all

I've been a long term user of Google's Play Music service on my Samsung phone but have changed my card recently. This cancelled my Google Play Music account for me as I hadn't updated the new card details with them.

As a result, I'm looking at whether to reactivate Google Play Music or look at other options such as Deezer or Spotify. I should mention that I'm not looking at iTunes/Apple Music at all. (I have my reasons).

What does everyone use and would you recommend it?

I currently like these aspects of Google Play Music though. The radio stations which play music for moods, activities, genres and tastes. I also like that I can use it to listen to comedy, as well as my own music library which I uploaded to Google.

Based on that, I'd love some great suggestions for music streaming services available in the UK.

 

[gblews]

I have a premium account with Spotify that I pay about $10 a month for. I like it a lot. Never thought I'd ever find a situation where there was too much music. But Spotify comes close. Easy to save songs into your library and create playlists from there, or artist "radios".

I also use Pandora which was my first music streaming experience. They may have more music than Spotify, but I don't have premium service with them. I think it is easier to create artist "radios' wiht Pandora. But without the premium service, they tend to play the same songs a lot. Also, the ads are very annoying. I think they do this to coerce you into a premium account.

 

[Spot's Meow]

I used to just listen to the free version of Pandora, but recently I got an Amazon Prime subscription (for other reasons) and discovered their Prime Music service. It has the typical "stations" you can find from other services. But what's different for me, and what I really appreciate, is that you can stream specific songs on demand. They have to be "prime eligible" or whatever they call it, but so far 80% of the songs I've thought up that I just felt like listening to on a whim were available to stream to my heart's content. You can add them to your "cloud" so that they can be added to your playlists.

The other thing I like is that I was able to upload my own existing music library from my desktop to the cloud. This is awesome because I can listen to a combination of new songs that they suggest for me, prime songs I've added to my cloud, AND my own music at the same time. This is especially useful when I'm away from home. For instance when I'm at work I can log in to the music website on my work computer and have access to all of the MP3s that were previously inaccessible to me on my home computer.

The service isn't perfect, but I was pleasantly surprised by it, and it's pretty much replaced my use of Pandora.