Music is a beautiful art because it is a way for us to express feelings, thoughts, individuality, and much more. Music is an escape I always turn to whether I'm angry, happy, or sad about a fight between my boyfriend and me. From Drake, to 21 pilots, to Luke Bryan, to yes, Justin Bieber... I listen to it all. Music is something I couldn't go a car ride or a day without. There are many platforms on which music can be distributed and shared. These applications are ones I have found to be the most user-friendly and well-liked.
1. Spotify
Spotify is by far my number one. Yes, you have to pay $9.99 a month for it, but there is a student discount you should utilize so that you'll only have to pay $4.99 a month, giving you access to endless features. Spotify is like Pandora, SoundCloud, iTunes, and all other music apps compounded together.
They have almost every song you could ever imagine, expect for T-Swift and some other select artists/individual songs. You can save your own music, create shareable playlists that your friends can add songs to, and much, much more. It takes up less space on your phone, which I know we could all use.
You can also "download" songs or save them to your device so if you don't have service, you can still listen to your favorite tunes. My favorite thing about Spotify are the playlists they create, like Pandora stations. My favorite station is "New Music Friday," which contains songs most of your friends won't know, and I know we all love to share new music we found. I highly suggest getting this app. If you don't want to pay for it, you can listen to stations and playlists for free, you just won't be able to download or choose specific songs. Go try out the 30-day-trial!
2. Pandora Radio
We all love Pandora because it is a great way to create your own "playlists" or, as we know them, stations. These stations combine artist of similar genres in one. You can also change your preference on the stations by adding artists you like or giving tracks a thumbs-up. The downside to this app is that you only get a certain amount of skips per station, but you can create as many stations as you want. Another downside is that it plays ads. Otherwise, Pandora is a pretty good app with stations for parties, break-ups, and more!
3. SoundCloud
SoundCloud is free. This is a good place to listen to those songs that aren't on Spotify, iTunes, Pandora, ect. People upload their own brand new material, including remixes and originals, to this app for people to stream. I use SoundCloud to find remixes or update myself on when favorite artists release new songs. Sometimes the quality of the songs aren't great, and sometimes you can't find the song you're looking for. This application is also a bit hard to navigate, but after a while, you'll get the hang of it.
4. iHeartRadio
I haven't utilized this app much, but it is similar to Pandora because it is an actual radio station. You can view local or worldwide radio stations and then select the genre you'd like to hear. If you prefer to listen to the radio, then this is surely the app for you.
5. iTunes
I'm not a fan of iTunes because you have to purchase all of your songs which racks up after a while. There is an iTunes radio, which is pretty much iHeartRadio but through iTunes. If you like having full access to all of your songs right on your phone without having to download an app, and you don't mind buying songs, this is the app for you.
There are many more music apps to choose from, such as Youtube, Shazam, 8tracks, ect. In my opinion, Spotify will fit all of your needs and is affordable for a college kid! It doesn't hurt to try and download some of these apps to see which best suits you.
