A music streaming service called Spotify offers a library of more than 80 million songs along with a number of apps for desktop, mobile, and smart devices. The firm has long hinted at a lossless tier, and while streaming quality is restricted at 320kbps—a higher bitrate than Pandora and Amazon Music—it is also greater than both services.
There are two primary listening options for accounts: Free and Premium. The Free plan has no fees; instead, it relies on interstitial adverts to offset expenses. There are fewer features and limitations on the music you may play and where you can play it as a trade-off for the free service. When utilizing the mobile applications, a Free membership only allows you to shuffle tracks from albums, playlists, or radio stations. You can’t just choose a song and start playing it right away. Although Spotify Connect does not support offline listening, it does allow you to stream music to multiple speakers through Wi-Fi.
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Spotify’s main package, Premium, is jam-packed with all of its outstanding features. is accessible in more than 150 nations across the world. You may stream any song, album, playlist, or radio station with Premium. You may create your own playlists and add songs to your library to create a unique collection that you can return to time and time again. There are no commercials to be found, therefore the music is always playing without interruption. To play music offline, you may download it to your computer, tablet, or phone. Finally, you receive up to 320 Kbps of audio quality, which is better than most Apple Music tunes.
Spotify use
There are three primary navigational areas on both the desktop and mobile apps: Home, Search, and Your Library. On the desktop, these parts are located in the upper left corner, however these options are located at the bottom of the screen for the mobile app. The larger playlists section (which includes ones you’ve produced) on the bottom left and the Friends list on the right are both made possible by the desktop’s greater screen real estate compared to mobile. Users may view what their friends are playing in real time on the latter list. Be warned that Friends isn’t accessible on mobile devices, although it’s been said that Spotify is developing a Community-like feature in its place.
The Home page mostly consists of playlists, with variations depending on the platform. These playlists range from those that are suggested based on the time of day to those that are categorized by genre and “Made for you” lists that compile your music into separate Daily mixes. By default, Spotify will play an unending loop of music based on your selections after playing a song. If you like a song, you may either long-press it, click the hamburger button (…), right-click on your desktop to access additional details, or use the Like button to add it to your library. The “Liked” list, which you may browse through and organize by genre, is automatically updated with these music.
The search option, which is located between the other two choices, exposes Spotify’s tool for locating any song, album, artist, podcast, and playlist. Your Library, the last item on the menu, is where you can access your Spotify music library. Over the years I’ve used Spotify, I’ve created hundreds of playlists, and I frequently use them, especially when traveling. Your Library also has tabs for the music you’ve saved, arranged by album, song, and artist.
Several different control choices
The major benefits of Spotify are its flexibility and compatibility; it typically works with whatever connected device you try to use, and it also gets along with all voice assistants. Spotify Connect is still demonstrating how to connect various devices to one another. Pressing the speaker icon at the bottom of the interface will let you connect to any speakers, soundbars, or AV receivers in your house that support Spotify Connect.
There are several services you can use if you have a voice assistant in your house, but Spotify is the one I’ve tried that works the best with both Alexa and Google Assistant. I’ve used a lot of music services, including Apple Music, but none come close to Spotify in terms of consistently providing the song requests. It all boils down to Spotify’s extensive library. I use the Spotify app exclusively to create or listen to playlists for my family and I; otherwise, we communicate mostly through Google Assistant.
For those who don’t want to pay for Spotify, Apple Music is a great substitute, but it doesn’t offer the same degree of interoperability or social interaction. Even while Apple Music is fantastic and has undergone several improvements to become less of a walled garden, it is still not ideal for PC users in particular. There is still no app available, thus the majority of Mac users must make do with iTunes. Siri and Apple AirPlay 2 do really function in unison and were both built by Apple. Although Apple Music is one of the services that Google Assistant users can use, I returned to Spotify after two weeks since I discovered that Apple Music didn’t consistently find tunes.
Beyond music
There are many more options on Spotify, some of which are both obscure and obvious, so not every user will take use of them all. Additionally, new features are always being introduced, with audiobooks being the most recent in a long series of additions. Podcasts have overtaken the nascent function to become one of Spotify’s mainstays. However, the functionality has only been accessible since the most recent smartphone update. However, there are several podcasts available, like the Heavyweight Spotify Original. Another recent acquisition by Spotify is the well-known music game Heardle, albeit it hasn’t yet been included into the app.
Spotify’s enormous archive is one of the biggest reasons to select it over competing services. I’ve been a long-time user, and I’ve only ever run into a few situations were the music wasn’t available. From the obscure to the well-known, it’s probable that if it’s not on Spotify, it’s not streamable.
One with Deep Content
More than 70 million songs, audiobooks, comedies, radio plays, podcasts, poetry readings, and speeches may be found in Spotify’s collection. It’s a comprehensive collection, and we’re pleasantly delighted that it has the whole “I Have a Dream” speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., which was featured on the HistorySpeaks podcast. In reality, Spotify features a ton of goodies that aren’t music-related, such The Joe Budden Podcast and a few Hulu Originals soundtracks. These elements serve as a complement to LiveXLive’s DJs, music history, in-depth music editorials, and unique films, which are similar to those on Tidal. Despite this, Spotify doesn’t contain a lot of music or concert videos. In that sense, YouTube Music is superior.
By clicking on an artist’s name, you may access more songs by them as well as the About tab, which has a biography, images, and connections to relevant Spotify sites for that artist. While testing, we passed a good chunk of time jumping between Alicia Keys, Isaac Hayes, and Booker T. and the MGs, reading the in-depth biographies, and listening to music. LiveXLive’s DNA station, on the other hand, does a better job of elaborating on artist biographies by using interviews and playing the music that shaped the musicians’ sound.
Community and Playlists
You may rely on the Spotify library. A Tribe Called Quest’s complete album was streamed by us. We obtained it from this… I appreciate your service. Led Zeppelin’s Led Zeppelin II and Late Nights & Heartbreak by Hannah Williams & The Affirmations. Taylor Swift, who previously had a noteworthy falling out with Spotify over money and saw her withdraw her repertoire from the site, is among the large and independent musicians on Spotify.
With any of the songs or albums in Spotify’s extensive library, you may create playlists. By default, Spotify plays again the songs on your playlists without pausing. Additionally, Spotify lets you crossfade tracks and even choose the duration of the fade (1–12 seconds). Although we don’t frequently utilize it, DJs (or would-be DJs) might find it intriguing.
If you wish to create a playlist with a buddy, enable collaborative playlist editing so that others may make changes to your playlist. That concept is developed further in the premium function known as Group Session. It allows you and other Spotify Premium customers to control the playback of the same material on your own devices at the same time. Group Sessions may accommodate two to five individuals, and happily you can email a link to friends and relatives to ask them to unwind. Trolls won’t be able to interrupt your sessions because of this.
The Sound on Spotify
Sound quality is decent on Spotify’s free 128Kbps and premium 320Kbps streaming. The sound quality is acceptable if you’re not an audiophile. The 128Kbps streaming on iHeartRadio pale in comparison to this.
Spotify HiFi, a service that provides tunes in lossless, CD-quality audio, will be available later this year (though, not Hi-Res Audio). Additionally, Spotify Connect will be supported by Spotify HiFi, allowing you to stream music to smart devices and use your phone as a controller. A cost for this new package has not yet been disclosed by Spotify.
Cool Qualities
You may make an Artist Radio station that plays music from your favorite performers as well as artists with a similar sound in addition to listening to singles, albums, and playlists. We enjoy Harlem’s Artist Radio, which in our testing played songs by the Dum Dum Girls and other noteworthy indie rock acts. As with other music streaming services, you may like and block tracks to personalize your Artist Radio experience.
As previously mentioned, Spotify lacks Slacker DNA stations and LiveXLive’s educational DJs who present specific playlists. It has Spotify Sessions instead, which are authentic artist recordings created in Spotify Studios. Although Kelly Clarkson’s passable rendition of Prince’s “Kiss” was tolerable, we preferred John Legend’s “All of Me.”
Get yourself a VPN if you’re worried about streaming your favorite music over, say, a public Wi-Fi network. A virtual private network protects your phone, tablet, or PC from prying eyes and, depending on where the VPN server is located, can enable you to listen to music with regional music rights. However, be cautious as it is against Spotify’s terms of service to use a VPN to circumvent licensing limitations.
Excellent Online Music Streaming Service
Simply said, Spotify is a fantastic music streaming service that receives the Editors’ Choice award from PCMag. It is a top choice for streaming music and other stuff linked to pop culture since it contains a ton of amazing music, exclusive tracks, and podcasts. Check out LiveXLive, which is an Editors’ Choice recommendation for concerts, if you enjoy live performances. Tidal, another Editors’ Choice selection, is the way to go if you like Hi-Res Audio and priority access to event tickets.
