Mo Streaming Mo Money
PrimePhonic – Best Streaming Service for Classical Music Lovers
According to the 2019 mid-year report by the Recording Industry Association of America , in the first six months of this year, the U.S. music industry saw continued growth in revenue, primarily driven by an increase in paid subscriptions, which exceeded 60 million for the first time in streaming history. Specifically, total revenues from music streaming grew to $5.4 billion, a number that represents 80% of the overall music revenue.
And the growth seems to be unstoppable for the foreseeable future. Another report by Goldman Sachs, titled Music in the Air predicts that by the year 2030 there will be 1.5 billion paid subscriptions generating up to $27.5 billion globally.
The best takeaway from these reports seems to be the fact that people prefer paid subscriptions to freemium tiers. That’s great news if the predictions are correct, the music industry is set for a very profitable future.
Best Music Streaming Services The Top 10
Cristian Poow
Until not so long ago, some of us downloaded tons of MP3 to build our personal music collections. All that has changed and the internet offers the very infinite in terms of audio and video sources, something we wont get to listen to in our entire lifetimes. This article will have a look at music streaming and some of the best music streaming platforms, comparing price, audio quality, catalogue and more. Lets see some of the music streaming services compared
Best Educational Resources: Idagio
Idagio is a beautiful app dedicated to streaming the best classical music out there. Its minimalistic interface is a pleasure to use, with a smart design, clean labeling, and powerful search function. As you listen to music, you can save pieces to your collection, and find them at any time from the sidebar, where Idagio breaks your collection down into tracks, recordings, playlists, albums, and artists. You can find these easily on Idagios web player, or in its iOS and Android apps.
When you first open the service, youll land on the Discover tab, where youll see options like Featured New Albums,Playlists for Your Day,Composer Essentials,Critically Acclaimed Albums and others worth exploring. These focused categories do an excellent job of breaking things down, making it easy for you to find something that piques your interest.
Primephonic offers the biggest catalog of the two streaming services, with over 3.5 million tracks . It prides itself on not just having fan favorites and the latest releases, but also the most obscure recordings. The service makes it easy to discover tracks and albums, browse the catalog, and save your favorite tracks in one centralized place for future listening sessions. Primephonic works online and on its iOS and Android mobile apps, so you can jam with Beethoven anywhere.
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Further Insight Into Our Methodology
One thing we discovered early on while researching this topic is that, when it comes to music streaming, its the little details that count: the perfect song playing at exactly the right time, a seamless transition from your mobile device to your car, discovering a new artist youve never heard of before, the ability to find out what your friends are listening to at any given moment.
Moreover, since music is a very personal experience, and with predictive-algorithm technologies being as effective as they are today, we also realized that the best streaming service in 2019 cannot be any other than the one that plays exactly what you want, how you want it, when you want it. It should cater to your needs, and anything less should be discarded.
In other words, there is no one best of the best service, but rather an amalgam of similar options that differ mainly in their intended target audience. Lets take Spotify as an example. As we saw in the reviews above, even the Swedish green giant is inadequate and lacking when it comes to hardcore classical music fans, who would be better served by a much less popular streaming platform like Idagio. In short, a streaming services beauty is in the ear of the beholder.
Without further ado, lets take a deeper look at our criteria:
Music Lockers: Your Mp3s In The Cloud
Amazon was one of the first services to offer uploading your MP3 collection into the cloud, but this was officially discontinued in 2018. Meanwhile, the Apple and Google services listed either allow you to combine your personal music collection with the streaming catalog, though tagging and organization can be a time-consuming challenge . Still, if you’ve invested money in digital music over the years, those two services offer a patch to continue enjoying that music online.
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Music Discovery & Personalization
Right now, it’s not enough for a music streaming service to simply carry tens of millions of songs in order to stand out in a crowded market, it must also guide listeners in their musical journeys, helping every person sort through the seemingly endless music catalogs
For this reason, some of the best streaming companies employ music experts and/or machine learning algorithms to maximize your experience by 1) learning and adapting to the specific way you listen to music , and 2) hitting the desired sweet spot between familiarity and surprise
Streaming companies tackle the issue of music discovery in various ways. Some of the most popular platforms make you answer a simple musical-taste questionnaire prior to your subscribing so that they have a head start on what genre or genres it will play for you. However, we found out it always takes time for the customization to feel effective in the same way new shoes need to be broken in by constant wear, the more you use a streaming service and provide feedback , the more it will play exactly what you want, or, at least, what it thinks you want.
The Limelight Guide To Streaming Classical Music
As online streaming becomes the dominant way people listen to music, Limelight investigates how these changes are affecting the classical music industry.
With CD sales waning and downloads already going the way of the cassette tape, its easy to imagine a recording industry in decline. Figures from the Australian Recording Industry Association paint a different picture, however, with the industry notching up four years of consecutive growth.
Its substantial, too ARIAs 2018 wholesale figures show 12.26 percent growth on the previous year. Whats driving this? Changing listening habits have seen online streaming become the dominant way people listen to music, now accounting for 71.4 percent of overall market value in Australia.
Streaming is essentially the on-demand consumption of audio or video that allows the content to begin playing while the remainder of the file is being downloaded the most famous example is YouTube, but streaming has become ubiquitous in peoples lives with services like Netflix and Stan disrupting the television industry, and music players like Spotify, Apple Music and others changing the way people listen to music. While some services are free with advertising many now follow a subscription model, allowing users access to vast catalogues of music for a monthly fee , with different payment tiers for multiple users or higher audio quality.
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The Machines Are Listening
With music discovery and playlists becoming the most prominent aspects of music streaming, it’s no wonder the major companies are investing a lot of effort and money into perfecting these features. Two methods are used to customize your online listening experience, one as ancient as music itself and the other a fairly modern one: curation by humans and music discovery algorithms.
In the prehistoric era , most music recommendations came from friends, magazines, radio DJs, or music television. The more they knew you, the better the recommendations. Now, machines are supplanting humans in this aspect: while some of the reviewed streaming companies feature live, flesh-and-bone humans to do some of the playlist curating, all of the companies employ some type of algorithm to help you on your listening journey.
The most sophisticated of these are the ones by the Music Genome Project and The Echo Nest . But, as recommendations from an acquaintance are more accurate the more the person got to know your tastes, machines also need to listen to what youre listening to the more you engage with the algorithms , the better the suggested songs will be.
In short, and to put it simply: while these technologies are getting better day by day, as of this moment nothing beats a good old friends telling you Oh, you gotta listen to this.
Idagiothe Spotify For Classical Musichas Changed My Life
Tidal – The Best Music Streaming Service!?
I really dont mean to get all Music Appreciation 101 on you, but I need to ask: Have you listened to classical lately? On purpose, I mean. A local string quartet playing Vivaldi during cocktail hour at your college roommates weddingor a Mozart piano concerto broadcast through the surprisingly decent sound system at your local gourmet produce marketdoesnt count.
Until quite recently, I listened to a ton of classical musicboth live and, more often, on recordings: opera, symphonies, choral works, string quartets, piano trios, and solo pieces, for starters, from a wide range of orchestras and conductors and choruses and performers from around the world as recorded by scores of labels.
What happened? Quite simply, streaming music happened. And heres where I hear a plaintive lacrimoso recitative: Dont streaming music services have a wealth of classical offerings?
Yesand, effectively, no. Both Apple Music and Spotify boast thousands upon thousands of all of the above and more. And theyre wonderful to listen to if you know exactly what youre looking for. If you dontif youre relying on either of these streaming services to help you discover new composers or new performers or new works, or if youre looking to use their interface to explore these things on your ownyoure likely out of luck.
In short: Bravo.
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Best For Former Google Play Music Subscribers
Pros
- Can seamlessly switch between audio and music videos
- Cool location- and time-based playlists
- Can search for songs by lyrics
- Collaborative playlists
- Doesn’t offer much non-music programming
- Lacks Hi-Res Audio
Pros
- Many live and curated artist streams.
- Podcasts.
- Informative news articles and event listings.
- Lyrics.
- Plus plan lacks a web version.
- Unable to rewind live radio.
- Bland interface.
On the surface, the streaming music field is packed with services that let you perform basic, similar functions. You fire up an app, press play, and then enjoy tunes. Simple, right? However, a deep dive reveals that many top streaming music apps offer standout features that make selecting a service a bit more challenging than you would think. This guide will help you select a service from among the many competitors.
Apple To Launch New Classical Music Streaming Service With Primephonic Acquisition
Apple has announced the acquisition of classical music streaming service Primephonic.
| Topic: Social Enterprise
Apple has announced the acquisition of classical music streaming service Primephonic, with plans to shutter the existing platform and launch a new service in its place next year.
The company said Primephonic offers an “outstanding listening experience with search and browse functionality optimised for classical, premium-quality audio, handpicked expert recommendations, and extensive contextual details on repertoire and recordings”.
Primephonic is no longer available for new subscribers, as of now, and will be taken offline from September 7.
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“Artists love the Primephonic service and what we’ve done in classical, and now we have the ability to join with Apple to deliver the absolute best experience to millions of listeners,” Primephonic co-founder and CEO Thomas Steffens said. “We get to bring classical music to the mainstream and connect a new generation of musicians with the next generation of audience.”
Apple Music plans to launch a dedicated classical music app next year combining Primephonic’s UI, with Apple’s brand, but in the meantime, it is offering current Primephonic subscribers six months of Apple Music for free.
The company touted the new offering would boast better browsing and search capabilities, detailed displays of classical music metadata, plus new features and benefits.
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Siriusxm Select And Siriusxm Premier
Price: SiriusXM is best known for its satellite radio service for cars, but it also has cheaper packages that let users listen through an app or a web browser.
The packages SiriusXM offers change so frequently it isnt worth keeping track of the specifics. For around $11 per month you can get a subscription that will let you listen on your phone, with access to hundreds of channels, including music, comedy, sports, talk radio, on-demand shows, and ad-free music with skippable tracks. Sometimes that price gets you access to the Howard Stern channels , but sometimes you need to pay more for that.
Theres also an extra charge if you want to stream directly to a car radio . Last we checked, that cost a total of $17 per month.
There are free trials, discounted rates for the first year, and family plans.
Who its best for: Consumers who like terrestrial radio stations but want more options and a commercial-free experience with the option of skipping tracks. SiriusXM is also the only game in town for Howard Stern fans.
Pros: SiriusXM has a wide variety of offerings that will probably be a significant upgrade over your local radio stations. And if you have good cell service on your commute, plus an unlimited data plan, you could stream to your car stereo from your phone. Youll get cheaper access to the same content offered in the companys satellite radio packages.
Runner Up: Apple Music
Apple fans , hear us out. You might be asking why Apple Music, which effectively replaced iTunes as the tech companys music streaming service in 2015 and is one of the leading music streaming platforms in the US, did not make our best of list, and here well explain exactly why. But first, a brief review of the service.
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Spotify Playlists And Algorithms
And the algorithms? Well, we know that each music streaming app has different playlists adapted to the users experience. In the case of Spotify, there are several and they plan to add even more according to the data they obtain each year from research.
- Weekly Discovery: a playlist that recommends several dozen songs each week, based on what we previously heard, offering a kind of liaison between similar artists and songs.
- Release Radar: a unique playlist for each user according to their activity during the week. It is updated every Friday.
- Daily Mix: one or more playlists based on the users recent activity. Even our music may appear .
- User-Generated Playlists: created by users, some with many followers . A good starting point to become familiar with future hits. This is also a great way to promote your music if you can convince them to add your tracks.
In addition, Spotify offers Editorial Playlists, with people specifically hired for this task: curating music by hand and promoting it. This includes the so-called Mood playlists, where we can access songs they considered for moments of happiness, sadness, joy, anger, peace and many others.
Rating UX 4/5 Rating UI 4/5. Nice quality overall but some of the playlists are quite similar. Spotify for Artists makes the difference.
Find out how to get your music onto Spotify in our article.
Best Music Streaming Services : Free Streams To Hi
Best music streaming services Buying Guide: Welcome to What Hi-Fi?’s round-up of the best music streaming services you can subscribe to in 2021.
It’s easy to see why when it comes to getting your music fix, even those with an affinity for physical formats find it hard to resist the lure of music streaming services. Access to tens of millions of tracks at the tap of a touchscreen means it has never been easier to hunt down old favourites or discover brand new bands and artists.
There’s a wide range of streaming services to choose from, with those such as Amazon, Apple, Spotify and our 2021 Award-winning service Tidal offering unlimited access to huge catalogues of music, which can be streamed over the internet or a mobile network or downloaded directly to your device for offline listening.
So how much can you expect to pay? Some services offer limited free music apps or free trials of up to three months, but in the main, you pay a set monthly subscription fee.
The quality of these streams varies between services. Those concerned less by the outright quality and more with getting bang for your buck can listen to compressed streams at 320kbps from the likes of Spotify.
But you don’t have to sacrifice quality. Tidal, Deezer and Qobuz all have subscription tiers that allow you to access CD-quality streams and, where the content is available, even hi-res music.
Reasons to avoid
Read the full review: Tidal
Reasons to avoid
Read the full review: Spotify
Reasons to avoid
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What Is Music Streaming
Music streaming is a way of playing music directly online, in real-time without having to download it first. It has been the end-to-end solution that Major labels and stores found in order to get some income again for what is reproduced. Streaming also relates to music videos that contain songs.
To stream music online is like how it was listening to music on the radio station 20 or 30 years ago. At least in terms of quick access to everything that is top-notch stuff. Nowadays you can pretty much get access to all music available, as much as you want and whenever you want.