In days past the only way to really access music was by listening to your personal collection, or dealing with whatever the local radio station was playing. Today we're in much better straits thanks to streaming music giving you access to precisely the tracks you want to hear wherever you happen to be. From personalized radio stations, to playlists, to full albums, there is plenty to love about streaming music apps.
Spotify Music
Spotify Music pulls to the head of the pack with its huge collection of music and the wide variety of features that it employs. The biggest perk is the wide variety of ways that you can find new music while exploring the app.
You've got genre and mood stations that are great if you're throwing a party and want to turn on music to play for a while. It's also easy to build playlists or listen to an entire album from beginning to end. With the emphasis on social connection, you can even share your music to your favorite social network, or browse the music that your friends are listening to.
Pandora Radio
If you're looking for the best option for streaming music on a budget, then you need look no further then Pandora Radio. Pandora was one of the first streaming music platforms, and it's still popular for a good reason. You can create a station for a song or artist and then you'll get music that is related. By liking or disliking the music that plays you can curate stations so that you only hear the music that you enjoy.
Pandora Radio includes not only music but also some audio you might not expect like Epic Rap Battles from YouTube and stand-up comedy sets. On top of creating and curating stations, you can also browse stations by genre or mood. As you like music you'll also get access to Thumbprint radio, a station filled with only the songs that you have liked on other stations.
While you are limited to a specific number of song skips with the free version of Pandora, once you have curated your stations this shouldn't be a real issue. You can have as many stations as you like, and it's easy to add variety to an existing station if you want to hear something new.
Google Play Music
Google Play Music has an impressive catalog when it comes to music, and may actually come installed when you get a new phone. While it does many things very well, (especially since Songza was added to the mix) Google Play Music really shines for those of you that also enjoy listening to podcasts.
From Nightvale to The Joe Rogan Experience, Google Play Music has a full section available for podcasts built in. This means that you can search by charts, category, or by specifically looking up your favorite podcast. You can easily add podcasts to a favorite list to make them easy to find again. You're also able to manage your subscribed podcasts by auto downloading or receiving notifications about new episodes, as well as choosing the order that episodes are displayed in.
Tidal
In terms of streaming music services, Tidal is still one of the younger players on the block. Don't let that trick you, though. On top of their catalog of exclusive music like Beyonce's Lemonade, or Prince's full album list, they are also hands-down the absolute best experience for audiophiles.
Tidal delivers high fidelity sound on both its songs and its music videos. While they don't have quite as large of a catalog as some other services, the 40 million tracks that they do have are top notch in quality. Tidal also boasts a ton of great music that is exclusive to the service.
Apple Music
Apple Music might not sound like it should belong on an Android phone, and that's where you would be so very, very, wrong. Apple Music has a solid collection of music with 30 million tracks, but it's their playlists that should get you intrigued. Building personal playlists can be fun, but there are times you just want to find awesome music with as little work as possible.
Apple Music brings you thousands of different playlists that have been curated for pretty much every genre or activity on the planet. As you find and listen to music, you'll also get special playlist recommendations that can help you to discover entirely new music. Apple Music also gives you access to a number of exclusive artists, records, and tracks, that you won't be able to find streaming elsewhere.
