Online Music Players: Spotify, Grooveshark, Slacker, and Pandora

Spotify

Out of all the music players that I have to blog about, Spotify I have used a lot for 3 years.  The one thing I really liked and noticed with Spotify is how you can connect with your friends on there through Facebook   As if having your own little social network through music.  You can see each other's playlist and share it.  Follow one another and see the music playing live on Facebook.  I use the desktop app which is the closest thing to iTunes interface.  But the difference is, Spotify is more focused on music only.  No books, movies, etc.  The one thing I disliked on there is the radio feature.  I think it's poorly done when it comes to finding genres in the search bar because I searched for indie folk and it came up with massaging music and relaxing moods music haha.  BUT you know what, they do redeem themselves with the "apps" where it provides different types genres and playlists.

Spotify has a pretty good massive music collection.  I was able to find everything I wanted on there and my music taste is a lot different from mainstream music, so that's a bonus.  It's really nice to be able to see not only the music album, but the history about the band or singer.  In the picture is the desktop app and it's unlimited streaming with ads.  The ads aren't bad at all or keep popping up constantly while playing the music.  The mobile app is what brings Spotify down for me where you only have a trial for free users.  The only way to have offline play and unlimited music on the mobile app is upgrading.  As mentioned on the site, "Spotify Free users can listen for 14 days. 9.99 premium plan, 30-day trial on any device."  Here is the premium plan:

The great thing about Spotify Premium is you can listen to albums before they even come out and of course as it says above, it allows you to listen offline saving your music on there. The music is 320Kbps and that's freakin' nice.  Another feature with using Spotify is the fact you can plug up your Apple product like iPhone, iPod, etc.  It syncs all your stuff on there and even photos.  The web player is pretty nice too and the interface very simple.  It's just right with how it looks and I like the huge thumbnails of the related music it shows on mine. Overall, I do enjoy Spotify and I haven't had any issues with it other than the mobile app and having to sign-up in order to use it.

Grooveshark

After checking out Grooveshark, I really enjoyed the site and the way it looked.  It basically shows all of the music upfront right there and even music videos.  I like the setup where it's more compact compared to Slacker. It's more colorful than Pandora and Spotify.  Anyway, there's so much variety in the music especially with the radio stations with all genres. 

The music streamed nicely on my pc with no issues. The benefit with Grooveshark is being able to play unlimited music by using your mobile browser which is awesome!  I really love that.  I like how you can drag the songs to the bottom and creates playlist of all the songs you want.  I haven't heard an ad after playing 5 songs. 

The list of genre radio stations below is not a whole lot at first until you click on "Related Genres."

I searched for random artists that are not so big among mainstream groups and found all the albums.  That was surprising to me.  I listened to one of the radio stations on there and the music didn't match the genre which was weird.  I honestly don't like the whole thumbs up and down to vote for the next song, or not being able to skip on to the next.  But hey, you can just look up that one song you like anyway and stream it for free :).  In order to vote, you have to sign-up on the website.  I really do enjoy the site and find it pretty useful.  I'd even suggest it better than Spotify where I have that music player listed in my top 3.

Slacker

As soon as I entered the website, I noticed I liked the interface, not so much as Grooveshark, but overall it stood out to me.  It took a bit for the site to load, but just could be my connection.  It took me awhile to load at school as well, but that's okay.  Everything seems so big with the album's thumbnails popping out, but below it quickly shows the many genres towards the bottom.  

The great thing about Slacker is, it's all about the radio stations on there.  There's so much variety listed besides just music.  There's the news, sports, and even listening to comedy stand-up on there.  Slacker pretty much wins in that category.  The only issue I have is the "skip" method.  If you don't like the song they're playing within the radio station genre, you have a limit of 6 skips per hour. 

I'd more than likely use Slacker for radio use especially on my phone.  I already had Slacker downloaded on my smartphone when I bought it.  Even if there isn't a lot of skipping in the free account, it does have a lot of great playlists with the variety of genres I have played around with such as indie rock, oldies, and the 90's.  Here is the subscriptions to using Slacker:

Pandora

Pandora I have pretty much heard a lot about by word of mouth with friends and then on TV.  The interface of the site is a bit dark compared to the other sites.  I just seem to like different colors, but Pandora is easy on the eyes with it being more sleek.  I really wasn't feeling the site once I got on there because it just seemed so plain to me when searching for music:

Pandora is pretty good with their radio stations and many genres.  After playing a few songs, it wouldn't let me continue to keep playing anymore until I signed-up.  Music sounded great playing, but there was a lot of songs I searched for that fooled me into believing they had it.  Once I clicked on it showing it was supposedly listed in the search bar, it came up with this:

I like a music player to actually provide music for every type of genre out there for all the millions of people out there.  It's sometimes rare and I can understand they're always trying to update their database with more music.  Finding that one song you love that is not mainstream, is golden.  You can't just have one song from that album and fool you into believing there's more listed by automatically popping up the name as you type it.  That's misleading to me, but that's alright haha, I'll live.  Pandora has the mobile app or you can stream live from your mobile browser personalizing your music list with genres. For subscription to Pandora, here is the upgrade:

Pandora is best known for their Music Genome Project where it uses a algorithm to organize the music by the characteristics of the songs and connecting it among other similiar "genes" based on users tastes.

Among all the music players, I would consider using Grooveshark as my top for all music where I didn't even have to sign-up for it, then Spotify, and Slacker more so for radio use. All four of them sounded great playing music and among my top three, it had most of the music I like.  They were all easy to use and manage as well with finding music and different radio stations to your liking.