I winced and hit thumbs-down when Thumbprint started playing "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" by Vampire Weekend, and listened wistfully when "Such Great Heights" by the Postal Service and "Swansea" by Joanna Newsom came on.Īfter half an hour of cycling through varieties of nostalgia, it dawned on me that unless I supplied Pandora’s algorithm with new data points about my current musical obsessions and enthusiasms, it may never know to make the leap to Noname, or Natalia LaFourcade, or Kendrick Lamar, or Jóhann Jóhannsson’s original soundtrack for the film Arrival. A Pandora feature called Thumbprint Radio, billed as “a uniquely personal station inspired by all of your thumbs up,” felt like a reunion with an acquaintance I had not seen in years all her recollections of me were true, but of a former self. Logging on to Pandora, I discovered, amid its virtual dust-caked shelves wrapped in a modern interface, a record of my twentysomething sensibilities and existential anxieties.Īt the very bottom of this chronologically ordered shelf were “Frou Frou Radio” and “The Way I Am Radio,” stations that I had apparently created in 2009, languishing under 36 other stations I had created and curated between 20. I was curious about the ways in which the music service I once depended on for my daily personal soundscape had changed. While navigating the rush-hour press of tired bodies on the subway - with buds in my ears, like almost every other commuter that evening - I stumbled upon a podcast segment detailing how Pandora’s new CEO plans to revive the struggling music service. See it at Pandora.The nostalgia machine in my brain went into overdrive several weeks ago when I decided to log on to Pandora Radio after a three-year hiatus. Sadly, its audio quality is among the lowest available, even on the Premium subscription (192Kbps), and it doesn't really offer enough of an incentive for an upgrade from its highly popular free tier. The result is more flexibility than most competitors, and Premium has gained plenty more subscribers in recent years, even if the service is not keeping up in terms of overall catalog size. Pandora Premium: Still one of the most popular streaming radio services in the US, Pandora also offers the a la carte Premium ($10 a month) and no-ads Plus ($5 a month).Deezer also offers a couple of unique features including being the first service enabling users to upload their catalogs from competitors at no extra charge. The main Premium plan is $10 a month, but users are also able to upgrade to a lossless version (CD quality) for $15 a month. ![]() ![]() It has more subscribers than some others on this list, thanks in part to its previous affiliation with Cricket Wireless. Deezer: French stalwart Deezer has been operating in the States since 2016, and it has a lot to offer, including a free tier (mobile only) and 90 million tracks.The added ability to make playlists out of YouTube music clips also makes it a worthy option. Instead of playlists, YouTube Music offers well-curated radio stations that play endlessly and are updated often. In even better news, YouTube Music offers a clean interface plus over 60 million tracks to choose from. The good news is that YouTube Music is a mostly impressive service (the lower bit-rate of 256Kbps is mildly annoying), but Google has retained the predecessor's music locker system enabling users to upload new tracks. YouTube Music: YouTube Music is the successor to Google Play Music, and if you sign up for the ad-free YouTube Premium at $14 per month, you get YouTube Music for free.Student HiFi: $5, Student HiFi plus: $10 (US only) ![]() Prime members: $9, £9, $12 Non-Prime members: $11, £11, AU$12 Echo-only service: Free, AU$6
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