Free Online Music Services Listeners Guide Discussion

By Jay Garmon

Pandora or Slacker? Last.FM or Grooveshark? There is a host of free streaming music services on the Web, but which one has the best features to go with its giveaway price? We sound it out in this listeners guide.

There are a few basic features common to most of online music services. Usually you can't request a specific song or band, but you can request that one or both are part of your music mix. Rating songs will entice these services to play them more or less often, but you can only skip or ban so many songs per hour (usually about 3-4) before you violate the service's play license and you're stuck with whatever music it gives you. Almost all of these services let you purchase MP3 versions of songs from Amazon and iTunes. Nearly all of them have display and audio ads, which you can ban by upgrading to a monthly subscription service. Most of the music services are available only in the United States or North America (due to licensing restrictions). Finally, virtually all of these services have iPhone and Blackberry mobile versions, with most of them appearing on Android as well. Beyond this feature set, it's the unique differences that make or break an online music service. I detail the various flavors below.

Read the full content of this Article: Free Online Music Services Listeners Guide

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I really think MySpace Music should have made this list. True, it does not really fit in with the rest of the free online music services listed, but it is still a free online music service nonetheless. I mean where else can you listen to whole albums for free? Besides, with Myspace's acquisition of imeem and iLike it is probably online a matter of time before it rules the online music service area.

I thing an honorable mention would be not-quite-free lala. At 10 cents a song you can build a nice web-library. And you get all the music you already own free. But since it is now owned by Apple I am a little hesitant of it as I am not sure how much longer it will be around.

Good article BTW.

 

I considered both of those services in the review (along with maybe Spotify). I left off Lala because it wasn't free (and suspect Apple will convert it into a streaming, subscription counterpart version of iTunes any day now, to take the war to Rhapsody). I left of MySpace Music mostly because it isn't that user-friendly or encyclopedic, though it's getting better. If I do this roundup again next year, I suspect MySpace will make the cut, and that some of this years entrants may have withered and gone.

 

Yea, I use Grooveshark, it's freakin amazing.

 

Very nice article, though you might (or maybe should) mention something about the community in each of these services! For example Grooveshark, while amazing, doesn't really have a community. Last.fm, on the other hand, is literally a social network for music. I can't comment on the others because I live in Canada. That might be another thing you can add, I know you stated in the preface that most were only available in the US, but, for example, it's literal for Pandora, but on Last.fm you can pay a $3 subscription if you live outside of the US/UK/Germany.

Very good article though. Grooveshark is absolutely amazing. Though I agree the widget for uploading your iTunes is clunky. If Grooveshark offered scrobbling to Last.fm, it would be perfect (until of course it gets taken down...)

 

Oh wow - thanks for reviewing these. I'm testing out GrooveShark, and it's fantastic! It even has Korean and Chinese music

 

I love Lala, Slacker, Last.fm, and Last Pandora (Pandora w/ scrobbling to Last.fm). Basically I scrobble with all three, and also sometimes listen to Aol and Yahoo Radio's. I hope Apple doesn't ruin Lala, because it is really good.

 

Grooveshark VIP FTW

 

Thanks for this review... I tried out Grooveshark last night, it was very cool... I'll be trying out some of the others too soon.

 

Indeed, Grooveshark is awesome. I don't have any music on my hard drive oddly enough, usually if I want to listen to something, Grooveshark has it, and I can easily listen to a artist's albums with it.

That said, I also use Slacker (ended up shying away due to hearing the same songs over and over-i have to fine tune it more i guess ) and now pretty much use Last.FM and Pandora. I'm currently using Pandora with a firefox extension that scrobbles songs I listen to on it to Last.FM.

I do wish that more of these services mobile offerings were available on Windows Mobile. Of all the ones you mentioned, only one has an "official" client-Pandora. And that client was preloaded on a select number of Win Mo phones, it's possible to install it on a unsupported phone just like any Win Mo app (ie-in 3 taps/clicks) but the sound quality is kinda poor, even on wi-fi.

Last.FM unofficially is on Win Mo via. Pocket Scrobbler, however, because it's not a official application, your required to be a Last.FM subscriber. At $3.00 a month, it really isn't that bad of a deal, but I haven't committed yet, lol.

GrooveShark's unofficial WinMo app is called GrooveFish. While it works ok, it's still a bit buggy.

Slacker's app is reportedly still under development. It was expected to be released before the end of 09, but it's not ready yet.

I hope Windows Mobile 7 jumpstarts app development for these new web services, who all seem to gravitate toward iPhone OS, Blackberry OS and Android. Win Mo users need app love too, lol.

 

Wow! I am definitely going to check out Grooveshark.

Hopefully they will last for a little while at least (until they attract attention).

Edit: Oh Wow! It has just about everything, and it is really slick to boot.

My new favorite music streaming site.

I just found a song I haven't heard in five years.

I LOVE this site!!

 

Grooveshark is great...a fellow forum member introduced me...but I also really enjoy lastfm.com!


Cin...

 

Chalk me up as another member who checked out grooveshark as a result of this review. It is indeed a useful site! (Both NBR and Grooveshark, I mean )Many thanks!

 

Grooveshack sounds great. There is a somewhat similar site cal Jukefly that sounds pretty similar. Jukefly allows you to search by artist, song or album. It includes lyrics and a youtube video. You can upload your music or just use it online.

Jukefly's main limitation is that it does not have all songs (seems dependent on if a video is on youtube.)

 

I have Pandora One and I like it. It frees up the harddisk on the laptop, but I wanted Santana and it played some Nickelback, strange.

My friend has the paid Groove Shark and after seeing my Pandora he got the Pandora.

 

I have a paid Pandora One account. It plays the music I like, however it gets repetitive after a while. The forums/ blogs at Pandora suggest not marking too many songs as "Thumbs Up" to preserve variety - that sounds a little counter intuitive!

 

You can still mark them but there is the option to select "bored with this one?"

 

Same here.

It really is a pleasure to use; the interface is especially clean.

 

Is there any way to use keyboard hot keys with Grooveshark?

 

That would be great.

Sadly, I don't think you can.

 

Why wasen't Spotify included?

Is it the same deal in the US as with Last.fm here in Norway; that you have to pay for it?

Spotify, atleast here in Scandinavia, is pretty much like Grooveshack. 2 versions; one free (where you get a commercial every 3-4 songs or so) or you can pay for a premium account which eliminates the commercial, so technically it's free (again, not sure about license in the US).

There's even apps for spotify for your mobile (although this requires the 10€ monthly fee) which enables you to search/listen for new/alredy added songs and also an offline mode which allows you to listen to your whole library without a wifi connection / connection to the internet.

 

Spotify is not out in the US yet. I have been anticipating it since they said it would launch before last year was over, but who knows when it will get here? And due to greedy music executives, when it launches in the US, it might be pay only with no free version.