Top 20 Best On-Demand Music Streaming Services

STREAMING media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a provider. The verb "to stream" refers to the process of delivering or obtaining media in this manner; the term refers to the delivery method of the medium, rather than the medium itself, and is an alternative to file downloading, a process in which the end-user obtains the entire file for the content before watching or listening to it.

A music download is the digital transfer of music via the Internet into a device capable of decoding and playing it, such as a home computer, MP3 player or smartphone. This term encompasses both legal downloads and downloads of copyrighted material without permission or legal payment. According to a Nielsen report, downloadable music accounted for 55.9% of all music sales in the US in 2012. By the beginning of 2011, Apple's iTunes Store alone made US$1.1 billion of revenue in the first quarter of its fiscal year.

Music Streaming Service News, Reviews & Resources

• $1.6 BILLION SPOTIFY LAWSUIT IS BASED ON A LAW MADE FOR PLAYER PIANOS - "The hidden costs of streaming music."
• 10 BEST VPN SERVICES 2021 - "A VPN, or virtual private network, is an easy way to improve your online privacy. We've reviewed scores of them, and these are the best VPN services we've tested." PCMagazine.
• 500 Greatest Songs of All Time - "For the first time in 17 years, we’ve completely remade our list of the best songs ever. More than 250 artists, writers, and industry figures helped us choose a brand-new list full of historic favorites, world-changing anthems, and new classics." Rolling Stone.
• A Field Guide to Streaming Music Services - The Wall Street Journal.
• A first look at Spotify on the Apple Watch - The Verge.
• ACHIEVE AUDIOPHILE SUPERIORITY WITH THESE STREAMING AMPS - "STREAMING MUSIC DOESN’T have to mean compromised sound. These hi-fi amps can help you find cloud-connected aural ecstasy."
• Amazon Music is growing faster than Spotify - "The number of Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers grew 70 percent in the past year."
• AMARRA - "Breathtaking Sound." Digital Audio for Professionals & Music Enthusiasts. "You’ve never heard such depth, richness and character from your music; rock, blues, classical or hip-hop, doesn’t matter - the same music you’ve listened to for years sounds better with Amarra." Works with your existing iTunes library.
• Apple Music for Android offers more details on upcoming lossless streaming - "Evidence points to two tiers of lossless audio."
• Apple Music is becoming the best streaming service - "Spatial Audio is changing everything on Apple Music, at no extra cost."
• Apple Music Is Strong on Design, Weak on Social Networking - The New York Times.
• Apple Music, Spotify and a Guide to Music Streaming Services - The New York Times.
• Apple Music will offer Dolby Atmos & lossless streaming starting next month - "You won't have to pay extra for either one."
• Apple Music's Digital Masters catalog helps you find high-quality tunes - "It's not lossless audio, but it could be close enough."
• Apple Watch just took a massive step towards being my favorite running watch - "Finally, the battle with Spotify is over."
• Apple’s Spatial Audio is a music revolution, but you'll need to ditch the headphones - "The emergence of streaming Atmos music makes for a thrilling experience - if you do it right."
• AUDIRVANA - "The Sound of Your Dreams." Audirvana is the creator of high-end audiophile players for the Mac platform, aiming at the best possible sound quality.
• Beatles Albums to Go on Streaming Services at Midnight - The New York Times.
• Beats Music - (2014-2015). Was a subscription-based online music streaming service owned by the Beats Electronics division of Apple Inc. The service combined algorithm-based personalization with expert music suggestions from a variety of sources.
• best DACs for Apple Music Lossless in 2021 - "All the equipment you need to listen to hifi audio wherever you are."
• Best music streaming services 2019: free streams to hi-res audio - What Hi-Fi?
• Comparison of digital music stores - "Digital music stores sell copies of digital audio, for example in MP3 and WAV file formats. Unlike music streaming services, which typically charge a monthly subscription fee to stream digital audio, online music stores download songs to the customer's hard disk drive of their device. The customer will have the copy of the song permanently on their disk, provided the track is not deleted by the customer, the disk does not get physically damaged, or suffers from being corrupted."
• Comparison of music streaming services - "The following is a list of on-demand music streaming services. The services offer streaming of full-length content via the Internet as a part of their service, without the listener necessarily purchasing a file for download. This type of service is comparable to Internet radio. Many of these sites have advertising and offer non-free options in the style of an online music store."
• DATA TO DATE: THE RAPID RISE OF SOCIAL and STREAMING - Next Big Sound.
• Digital-to-analog converter (DAC) - "system that converts a digital signal into an analog signal. An analog-to-digital converter (ADC) performs the reverse function."
• Dolby Atmos - surround sound technology developed by Dolby Laboratories. It expands on existing surround sound systems by adding height channels, allowing sounds to be interpreted as three-dimensional objects. Following the release of Atmos for the cinema market, a variety of consumer technologies have been released under the Atmos brand, using in-ceiling and up-firing speakers.
• Dolby Atmos: The ins, outs & sounds of the object-based surround system - "An in-depth guide to the spatial audio technology. In brief, Dolby Atmos is a new audio format that allows you to hear sound in a 360-degree bubble. With its object-oriented audio engineering and its up-or-down-firing speakers, Atmos is changing the way home theaters are setup and, more importantly, how sound is distributed in the room."
• FAKE NAME GENERATOR - "Generate a Random Name." The most advanced name generator. With 30 languages and 22 countries, the Fake Name Generator is the most advanced name generator on the internet.
• For Spotify, music might not actually be the key to success - "The music-streaming space is competitive and crowded, with Apple, Google, Amazon, Pandora, Tidal, iHeart Radio and dozens more battling for ears. But Spotify is the lead player, with more than 113 million paid subscribers."
• From Beethoven’s Ninth to Theme from Shaft: the best exercise anthems - "Soul classics, German film soundtracks and chugging rap - here’s a workout of bangers to get you off the couch."
• Google announces YouTube Music & YouTube Premium - "Goodbye, YouTube Red; hello, new premium services."
• HOT 100 - Billboard: the week's most popular songs across all genres, ranked by radio airplay audience impressions.
• How to listen to spatial & hi def music streaming, CD/HD, Ultra HD, Dolby Atmos & 360 Reality Audio - "Spatial audio and higher definition audio are great ways to listen to high quality music via Amazon Music Unlimited, Deezer, Tidal and other streaming services but how can you setup your phone, speakers, headphones etc to listen to at the best audio quality level?"
• How to move your Spotify playlists to Apple Music - The Telegraph.
• How You Can Block the Music of Problematic Artists From Playing on Your Music App. Here's How - "If you’re a fan of streaming music, personalized playlists, and mixes made 'just for you,' you’ve no doubt run into some boring, bad and even downright offensive songs you’d rather not hear again. And if you’re familiar with the news surrounding today’s most popular artists, you probably have a running list of artists who you’d rather never hear again - no matter how good their newest single may be - because of their misogyny, or racism, or other problematic behavior."
• In big tech’s dystopia, cat videos earn millions while real artists beg for tips - "Instead of paying musicians properly, the likes of Spotify have set up ‘donation’ buttons - thus passing the buck to fans."
• Inside the booming business of background music - "Once derided, the successors to muzak have grown more sophisticated - and influential - than any of us realise."
• Internet Archive - founded in 1996. "Digital Library of Free Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine."
• iOS 15 brings next-level spatial audio to Apple Music - but there's a catch - "Want the new immersive head-tracking tech? Get ready to feel Apple's not-so-gentle nudge towards its own flagship AirPods..."
• Lossless compression - "Lossless compression is a class of data compression algorithms that allows the original data to be perfectly reconstructed from the compressed data. By contrast, lossy compression permits reconstruction only of an approximation of the original data, though usually with greatly improved compression rates (and therefore reduced media sizes)."
• MUSIC Download - Wikipedia.
• Music Genome Project - was an effort to "capture the essence of music at the fundamental level" using almost 400 attributes to describe songs and a complex mathematical algorithm to organize them.
• Music streaming on Apple Watch Series 3 is a surprisingly nice feature to have - The Verge.
• NEXUS Q - "World's first social streaming media player from Google."
• Olivia Rodrigo's 'Drivers License' sets the Spotify record for most streams in a day - "Olivia Rodrigo's 'Drivers License' has set Spotify's record for most streams in a day for a non-holiday song, the streaming service has announced."
• OVERPLAY - "By rerouting your internet connection through our worldwide VPN servers you can: change your IP address to one in another country; improve your security by ensuring your internet traffic is encrypted; access content that is normally restricted at your location."
• People are giving up on Apple Music - The Verge.
• Petflix & chill: does your dog need a streaming service? - "The attention economy has turned its eye to a new audience: household pets."
• Philips Hue partners with Spotify to turn all your lights into a music visualizer - "Hue lights can change based on mood, tempo, and more."
• Playlist - in its most general form, a playlist is simply a list of songs. They can be played in sequential or shuffled order.
• Qobuz ditches MP3-quality streaming for a single hi-res plan - "It hopes to reel you in with a better price for high-quality audio."
• Qobuz's hi-res music streaming service comes to the US - "It puts quality over quantity."
• RAPIDSHARE - founded in 2002. "Your Pictures, Videos, Documents & Music..." One-click hosting service that offers both free and commercial services. RapidShare is one of the world's largest file-hosting sites, with 10 petabytes of files on its servers, and handling up to three million users simultaneously.
• SPOTIFY IS OUT OF CONTRACT WITH ALL THREE MAJOR LABELS - AND WANTS TO PAY THEM LESS - Music Business Worldwide.
• Spotify launches a sleek standalone app for Cadillac vehicle - The Verge.
• Spotify launches curated podcast playlists in a bid to make the platform a podcast tastemaker - "Localized playlists for six countries."
• Spotify overheats iPhones on iOS 15, rapidly drains battery - "Music streaming service Spotify has confirmed iPhone user complaints that its app drains around 30% battery per hour of streaming. Exceptionally high battery drain, also making iPhones run hot, are being reported by Spotify users who have upgrade from iOS 14.8 to iOS 15. The company says it is investigating."
• Spotify vs. Apple Music: THE BEST MUSIC STREAMING SERVICE - The Verge.
• Spotify Wrapped: users alarmed by their own listening habits - "Streaming service gave subscribers a look back at their entire decade of music consumption."
• 'Streaming has killed the mainstream': the decade that broke popular culture - "We forget ‘seminal’ albums and TV shows months after consuming them, and the mega-famous have to resort to ruses to get our attention - has streaming destroyed the mainstream?"
• Streaming is now the US music industry's biggest money maker - "It just edged out downloads in 2015."
• Streaming media - Wikipedia.
• Streaming now accounts for 80 percent of the US music market - "It made up just seven percent in 2010, according to RIAA stats."
• THE BEST MUSIC STREAMING SERVICE - "Popular music streaming services compared."
• The magic that makes Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlists so damn good - Quartz.
• The Verge 2017 tech report card: Streaming music
• Tips for Getting the Most Out of Spotify - Wired.
• Top of the flops: is streaming rendering the charts obsolete? - "Record companies might disagree, but exclusives, eligibility algorithms, bundling and ‘streaming farms’ are threatening to ruin the Top 40."
• TORRENT FREAK - weblog dedicated to bringing the latest news about BitTorrent and everything that is closely related to this popular filesharing protocol.
• YouTube Music, a new music streaming service, is coming soon - Official YouTube Blog.
• YouTube Music will transfer your Google Play songs with one click - "Playlists, uploads, purchased music and more all come over with one click."
• YouTube Music's redesigned playback screen includes lyrics - "It's also much easier to shuffle or repeat tracks."

Top 20 Best On-Demand Music Streaming Services

• Amazon.com MP3 Music Downloads - as of May 15, 2021: 100,000+ results.
• Apple Music - since June 30, 2015. "Music Lives Here. Lose yourself in 75 million songs." Music streaming service by Apple Inc. Users select music on a device, which then plays on the device via Internet streaming. The service also provides music recommendations based on user taste. While Apple Music's cost and music library are similar to other music streaming services, the service aims to distinguish itself with added features and content exclusives. US$9.99 / month for single license US$99.00 / year for single license US$14.99 / month for family license US$4.99 / month for student.
• Deezer - since 2007. French online music streaming service. It allows users to listen to music content from record labels including Sony Music, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group (whose parent company access industries also owns) on various devices online or offline. Created in Paris, France, Deezer currently has 53 million licensed tracks in its library, with over 30,000 radio channels, 14 million monthly active users, and 6 million paid subscribers as of 3 April 2018. The service is available for Web, Android, iOS, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry OS and Windows, MacOS.
• EMUSIC - since 1998. "Discover and Download Music." A blockchain-based music distribution platform that pays artist more fairly and efficiently. Discover and download music with our free personalized discovery tools. Read reviews, listen to samples, and buy tracks or albums from your favorite artists. Over 20 million independent artist songs and albums with new hundreds new added each month.
• Google Play - since 2012. Bringing together the Android Market, Google Music, and the Google eBookstore under one brand, marking a shift in Google's digital distribution strategy. The services included in the Google Play are Google Play Books, Google Play Games, Google Play Movies & TV, Google Play Music. Following their re-branding, Google has gradually expanded the geographical support for each of the services.
• Google Play Music - since 2011. "40 millions songs on-demand." Music and podcast streaming service and online music locker operated by Google. With a paid subscription to Google Play Music, in addition to the standard features users get access to on-demand streaming of 40 million songs, without advertisements during listening, no limit on number of skips, and offline music playback on the mobile apps. A one-time 30-day free trial for a subscription to Google Play Music is offered for new users. Paid subscribers also receive access to YouTube Premium (including YouTube Music) in eligible countries.
• HYPE MACHINE - since 2005. "The place for the best new music. Every day, thousands of people around the world write about music they love - and it all ends up here." It aggregates the most recently posted songs from a selection of music blogs (about 800) and lists them on the website's main page. Users have the ability to "love" songs, which saves the song to their Loved List. The site has thirteen different genres to select music from. Users can also select the "Latest" tracks from categories including "Freshest", "Remixes Only", "No Remixes", and blogs in the user's country. Hype Machine also provides a full directory of the blogs from which their database of music is derived. Additionally, Hype Machine maintains a Popular List for the last three days and the previous week, both of which are determined by the number of "loves" given to each song by users.
• ITUNES - since 2001. "50 million songs. Zero ads." Stream over 50 million songs, ad-free. Or download albums and tracks to listen to offline. All the music in your personal iTunes library - no matter where it came from - lives right alongside the Apple Music catalog. Start your free three-month trial with no commitment, and cancel anytime. iTunes is the best way to organize and enjoy the music, movies, and TV shows you already have - and shop for the ones you want. Enjoy all the entertainment iTunes has to offer on your Mac and PC.
• LAST.FM - since 2002. "Explore Top Music Powered by your Scrobbles." We bring together your favourite music services and join up listening, watching and sharing to connect your musical world. Need new music? Last.fm lets you effortlessly keep a record of what you listen to from any player. Based on your taste, Last.fm recommends you more music and concerts!
• Napster - since 2005. "Napster is the original music service, created by music lovers for music lovers. We have a huge catalogue of over 40 million tracks, with new music added every day. You can play all the music you want, as often as you want."
• Openwhyd - since 2012. "Discover and collect the best music tracks from the web." Discover and collect music gems from Youtube, Soundcloud, Deezer and more.
• Pandora - since 2000. "Listen to Free Music You'll Love. At Pandora, we have a single mission: To play only music you'll love. To understand just how we do this, and why we think we do it really, really well, you need to know about the Music Genome Project. Since we started back in 2000, we have been hard at work on the Music Genome Project. It's the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken. With Pandora you can explore this vast trove of music to your heart's content. Just drop the name of one of your favorite songs, artists or genres into Pandora and let the Music Genome Project go." Pandora is only available in the U.S. right now - but we are working on bringing our music service to other parts of the world.
• PlayStation Music - since 2015. On-demand streaming music service powered by Spotify. Providing free and premium access to over 30 million tracks, it is available in 41 markets via the PlayStation Network on PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xperia tablet and mobile devices.
• Primephonic Classical Streaming - since 2014. "The streaming service designed for classical music." Easy search. Premium sound. Inspiring recommendations. Explore new works, discover hidden gems and gain insights behind the classics. From classic recordings to the very latest releases, the biggest labels to the most obscure indies – the Primephonic catalogue has you covered, with new albums being added every day. If an album is available in 24-bit, that’s what you get. Primephonic is a Dutch-American start-up founded by a team of classical music lovers with the ambition to create a better future for classical music by finally developing a streaming service that gets classical right. Get your 14-day free trial now.
• Qobuz - since 2007. "70 Million Tracks. Artist-Approved Sound." The richest Hi-Res catalogue available for streaming and download. French commercial music streaming and downloading service. Qobuz offers all music in MP3 at 320 kbps, CD-DA quality lossless (16-bit/44.1 kHz) as well as hi-res quality lossless (up to 24-bit/192 kHz) for certain music; downloads are offered in either WAV, AIFF, ALAC, and FLAC for hi-res quality, with lossless WMA also available for CD quality music only, and MP3, standard WMA, and AAC in 128 kbps or 320 kbps for lossy quality. Qobuz and Tidal are the only available hi-res streaming services for popular music, as Deezer's HiFi plan includes CD quality at most, and Primephonic provides only classical music. Qobuz currently offers four plans: Studio Premier (Base subscription, monthly as well as annual with discount), and Studio Sublime (An annual-only subscription that adds a discount on downloads,) as well as Family variants, with up to six users, of each plan.
• SOUNDCLOUD - since 2007. "Hear the world’s sounds." Online audio distribution platform and music sharing website based in Berlin, Germany that enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio. SoundCloud is the world’s leading social sound platform where anyone can create sounds and share them everywhere. Recording and uploading sounds to SoundCloud lets people easily share them privately with their friends or publicly to blogs, sites and social networks. It takes just a click to share sounds to Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and Foursquare. SoundCloud can be accessed anywhere using the official iPhone and Android apps, as well as hundreds of creation and sharing apps built on the SoundCloud platform.
• SPOTIFY - since 2006. "Listening is everything. Millions of songs and podcasts. No credit card needed." Spotify offers digital copyright restricted recorded music and podcasts, including more than 70 million songs, from record labels and media companies. As a freemium service, basic features are free with advertisements and limited control, while additional features, such as offline listening and commercial-free listening, are offered via paid subscriptions. Users can search for music based on artist, album, or genre, and can create, edit, and share playlists. The best way to listen to music and podcasts on mobile or tablet. Spotify is now free on mobile, tablet and computer. Listen to the right music, wherever you are. Millions of songs on your computer, on your mobile and available offline. Brought to you ad free. It is one of the world's largest music streaming service providers, with over 356 million monthly active users, including 158 million paying subscribers, as of March 2021.
• Tidal - since 2014. "Clearly the best sound. All your favorite music. Best sound quality available. With our library of over 70 million tracks and 250,000 videos, you’ll get the ultimate music experience." Subscription-based music streaming service that combines lossless audio and high definition music videos with curated editorial. The service has over 25 million tracks and 75,000 music videos. Currently offering no free subscription plans, Tidal claims to pay the highest percentage of royalties to music artists and songwriters within the music streaming market.
• TUNECORE - since 2005. "The best way to sell your music on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify & more." TuneCore principally offers musicians and other rights-holders the opportunity to distribute and sell or stream their music through online retailers such as iTunes, Deezer, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Play, Tidal, and others. TuneCore also offers music publishing administration services, helping songwriters register their compositions and collect royalties internationally.
• YouTube Music - since 2015. Mobile app developed by YouTube; it provides a tailored version of the service oriented towards music streaming, allowing users to browse through music videos on YouTube based on genres, playlists, and recommendations. The service integrates with the YouTube Red subscription service, which enables ad-free and audio-only background playback. As of May 2019, the app is available in 50 countries.