It’s difficult to imagine the early days of wireless communication and entertainment, when families would gather around the radio to listen to the news, hear folksy chat shows or tune in to dramatic readings of plays and stories. Today’s radio is fast-paced, portable, highly customizable and, of course, digital. Music fans both casual and obsessive want a service that caters to them – their tastes, their preferences, their lifestyles. To that end, Internet radio services have proliferated and intensely competed for users. While Pandora has long been considered the gold standard in the industry, with its simple, free and user-friendly base format, music mavens eager to try alternatives should check out the following:
1. Spotify is the most buzzed-about of the bunch, the It Girl captivating everyone’s attention with her sleek European cool. A Swedish import established in 2008, Spotify made its highly anticipated U.S. debut in July. Since then, it has been featured everywhere from Wired and Rolling Stone to Time and garnered the praise of musicians and record executives as well as technology icons like Mark Zuckerberg. What sets Spotify apart from the others is its “freemium” model, which allows users to access its vast catalog (more than 15 million songs and counting) for up to 10 hours a month and make and share playlists with friends and other members, all completely free of charge. It’s as if you owned the entire iTunes catalog and were capable of looking into thousands of other people’s libraries, playlists and musical treasures and sharing yours with them to create your own, completely custom radio “station.” Spotify’s premium version starts at $4.99 a month and removes the ads that play every few songs as well as the 10-hour cap. For $9.99 a month, users can upgrade the premium version and get a mobile app, higher sound quality, an offline mode that functions without internet connection and travel access.
2. Slacker Radio is distinct for its use of real disc jockeys and music experts in addition to the music taste prediction algorithms Pandora is known for. Slacker users can choose from existing stations organized by genre – hip-hop, indie rock, today’s top hits, etc. – or customize their own listening experience from its catalog of more than four million songs. The basic model is free and includes a free app for most mobile devices. For $3.99 a month, subscribers get Slacker Radio Plus, which means no ads, unlimited song skips (free users get only six), hourly news updates and access to news radio, the ability to store stations on mobile device memory cards and complete song lyrics for every song played (free users get partial lyrics). A $5.99 per month fee upgrades users to Slacker Premium Radio and allows them to access artists and songs on demand and to create custom playlists a la Spotify, although without the sharing component.
3. MOG synthesizes several popular online music elements into a one-stop shop for music addicts. “Moggers,” as the site dubs users, can switch between a musical library-like format (akin to Spotify or iTunes) and a more radio-like format (like Pandora or Slacker), combining the best of both worlds in an easy-to-use system. MOG’s catalog is currently more than 11 million songs and counting and is supplemented with blog entries (a nod to its blog origins) and news posts. Famed music producer Rick Rubin is on the board of directors, which is no small stamp of approval. A free 14-day trial is available and lets users listen to and download songs from the library, listen to millions of radio stations powered by MOG Mobius and browse playlists created by MOG, artists and other Moggers. After the trial, MOG is $4.99 per month for the aforementioned services. A monthly fee of $9.99 includes those and mobile device access.
4. Last.fm is the ultimate music recommendation service that kicks the predictor algorithms of Pandora up a notch by tracking every single song played by every single user around the world. This is accomplished through its Scrobbler software, which sends “scrobbles,” or little notes, about what users are playing that help the service make suggestions for what to listen to next. Users also get personal “top” charts, concert recommendations (including lists of users who are attending concerts and comments about them) and connections to what the site calls “musical neighbors,” or users with similar tastes. There are currently more than 10 million tracks on Last.fm and the entire service is free – no trial periods or premium packages.
5. Live365, perhaps the most basic of the bunch, is unique in that it goes beyond providing a host of radio stations and playlists for its patrons by allowing them to create their own stations and broadcast themselves. The do-it-yourself aspect is explained in detail in the website’s FAQ section, from how to begin broadcasting to a brief legal primer on Internet radio. Listeners are encouraged to become broadcasters and contribute to the site. Users can browse radio stations by genre and save their favorites to presets on their computer or mobile device. VIP membership (which ranges from $5.95 per month to $7.95 per month depending on payment schedule and subscription length) provides the standards: no ads, higher sound quality, automatic syncing of songs to all devices and more music.
Contact the reporter at llemoine@asu.edu
