Do any of you Dopers know of a good website that allows me to make a playlist of songs that I actually pick? I have a Pandora account, but don’t like that I can’t actually search for a song and put it in my list. Does Spotify work same as Pandora, or would it be a good suggestion?
I think pretty much any of the subscription services will work for you. Spotify, Rhapsody, Google Music, etc.
rdio has a nicer interface than Spotify
Are Rdio and Spotify free, or is the free users limited in their function.
I have used Spotify for a few years now, the free version, and I really like it. My choices are wide-ranging and tend to change frequently, and it’s fun to be able to create a very specific playlist without buying a million songs.
There are ads on the free version but they don’t bother me.
I say it’s worth the almost zero risk of trying it to see if you like it. Why not?
For what you want to do, it probably won’t be free. But it’s not to expensive, most subscriptions are $10 per month, and some might offer free trials. Check them out and use the one you like the best on the platform you use. I use Rhapsody, and like their Android app. Making playlists is really easy to do.
Google, Amazon and Apple all have music streaming services now. You’ll have to check out their pricing though, I’m not familiar (I just use free for now). I was using Spotify (free) a lot but have been using Amazon more because I have an Amazon Echo.
Small highjack, but does anyone know of a service which allows one to play random music from their entire catalog?
I don’t care about genre of music, just the quality of the artist, and it’s annoying when things recommend another band to my just by genre/similarity. If I’m already listening to this band, it’s because this is the good band of this style. Similar bands are just worse versions of the same thing. Why would I want that?
So genuinely, truly, genre-free, context-free, no relationship to the previous song, no relationship to bands it thinks I’ll like, just random.
For the OP, here is a recent comparison of subscription services.
Note that all have a free trial period.
I’m not an expert on this, but I have had decent luck being able to find and play songs and albums on Spotify. Recently, I’ve played albums I’ve wanted to hear by the Beach Boys, Little Feat, The Decemberists and others. I find the Spotify interface a little confusing and cumbersome, but it is nice to search and play what I’m looking for. And I’m talking about the free version, as I haven’t paid for a subscription.
Well, with Amazon (which happens to be the one I’m familiar with) you can go add any and all of their available-for-streaming songs to your library, and play it on shuffle. This isn’t the same as “their entire catalog” - because I think their entire catalog of free music is huuuuuge and you’d have to hunt down everything and add it manually - but it may actually be better because you can add only stuff you’re truly interested in (say, no Christmas music and no kid’s music) and get it all randomized.
I’ve added about 1350 songs to my Amazon Prime Music Library in about a month or so. Granted, mostly added as albums so I didn’t click 1350 titles. But I heard of some new artists here and there (thanks to a free subscription to Rolling Stone and late night talk shows) and looked them up and added whatever they had for free. Then while I’m there I’ll see some other stuff that’s free and add that. Then I was like “I think I want to add some Johnny Cash” so I went and found what was free and added him.
Then when I’m like “Alexa, shuffle all music” my Echo plays back a random glop of the music I’ve bought on Amazon over the years plus these 1300 new songs I’ve added.
So you could cruise Amazon for all the free stuff from any quality artists you like and then add them to your library and play your library randomly. For $25/year you can upload up to 250,000 of your own songs from your computer to the library (stuff you’ve ripped from CD that is not free on Amazon). Then you could really have the stuff you love.
ETA: Amazon Prime Music is part of a Prime membership ($99/year). You don’t need an Echo to play your library.
I like Spotify and you can easily share your playlists with others or even make them so others can contribute.