Which music streaming service do you use?

I rarely use them but I kind of want to just for playlists of older music. Any thoughts on Apple Music?

I am a Spotify power user. I have had them for a little over 10 years and I am on a family plan so my wife and three kids can each have their own accounts. When it started it was $12.99 for the family plan but it is now up to $21.99 per month. I still find it worth it for 5 accounts.

I basically use it to supplant my record collection when I am in the car, at work or traveling. It used to be frustrating to manage my favorite music but I have since discovered it is much more manageable to sort the music I like into folders and then play lists within those folders.

So, for example, I created a folder for 80s college rock and in that folder I have a playlist of each of my favorite 80s College Rock albums, arranged chronologically. Same for UK Post Punk or 90s Alternative, etc.

This also allows me to create playlists of albums that could have been, like a personal version of the Beach Boys "Smile" or the mythical lost Velvet Underground album that would have come out before "Loaded".

At this point I have about 1100 playlists.

It is also fun to discover music from other people's playlists so I do a fair amount of searching other people's playlists. I have found that almost everything is available on Spotify as well with only a few hold outs still not allowing their music for streaming.

Spotify is king for me; I used platforms like Pandora and Last FM (and All Music to a certain degree) back in the day, but none of them have the sheer depth that the "king" has. Many of the songs that I included on my playlist from last night's set were found there...everything from Chinese techno to African desert blues and much more...it's an incredible achievement for the music community, despite it's drawbacks of mercilessly underpaying artists for stream count and it's lack of hi-fidelity.

Not long ago, I posted about a site called Chosic, I highly recommend it, the database is huge and it makes it very easy to search for music similar to our own tastes: I did a quick hunt for songs similar to "Straight Line Was A Lie" by the Beths. It brought up several terrific results, half of which i had never heard of but the music was excellent.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/11/2026 12:08AM by Fleeingbandit.

I prefer Apple Music to Spotify. Better fidelity, cheaper price (though not by much), higher payouts to artists, and no ICE recruitment ads.

don't know if Bandcamp is considered "streaming," but that's my go-to. I could rant and rave about how I hate Spotify and the like, but I'll just leave it at: Bandcamp, and go about my merry way.

MOOD MACHINE is a must-read.

Spotify, but I use it primarily for podcasts these days. My music listening is mostly on physical media. That said, I do use it quite a lot just to check out music I haven't heard before to see if I like it. But those are "quick hits," not repeated listens to entire albums.