Lately I've been doing more listening to music through internet radio on my phone at work. It's easier than chugging 6-8 different CDs with me each day.

My tastes are pretty specific, and also pretty obscure. I mostly listen to hard-bop/soul jazz from the 60s and modern creative, improvisational music from 2000 on).

(Artist examples: Art Blakey, Jimmy Smith, Ken vandermark, Tim Berne, etc, etc,)

Pandora seems to do a better job of matching similar songs when I pick a station based by artist, but it seems to repeat some of the same songs if I listen to the same station more than once a week.
And they're about to limit you to only 40 hours a month. (I doubt I'll hit that cap)

Spotify's radio doesnt quite seem to match music as well as Pandora does, but I like the idea that you can download entire albums to listen to. (At a cost)

Any recommendations? Advice?

The amount of content and ability to sync your iPod/iPhone up to your Spotify playlists and listen to them offline is well worth the $9.99/month.

I love searching for playlists on Spotify and just putting it on whatever, I've been introduced to so many new bands that way. I haven't used Pandora in over a year.

You could try out Songza and listen to a playlist based on what mood you're in.

Yeah, most of my friends use Pandora because it's cheap or free. But the ads annoy me and I just don't like the radio very much. I'd rather pay the 9.99 a month to be able to search out specific songs, make playlists of what I want and be able to download them to my phone or device to play offline. Well worth the cost of one cd a month. And the radio feature isn't that bad, it's much less random than Pandora where you put in an alternative song and you end up getting some gangster rap an hour later from what I've noticed.
I also like Spotify's related artists tabs, have discovered many new artists and rediscovered ones I've forgotten that way.

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Spotify is my choice. I listen to mainstream, but also a lot of european stuff and spotify is based in europe, so it has a TON of variety on there with rare stuff you wont find most places. Use it everyday.

Thing I might just synch music to my phone. I'd much rather listen to a whole album and be in control of what I'm listening to.

When picking Jan Garbarek for a radio station last night it brought up several Pat Metheny songs instead of other more closely related ECM artists.

I'm much the same as I'm more of an album listener and usually just listen to the music on my phone or streams of stuff I've bought from Amazon using their cloud player.

I have been using Pandora more lately since it's free and I can hear some different stuff. Haven't tried Spotify--definitely wouldn't pay for any streaming music as I mostly just listen to music in the background (while working, driving, running/working out) so I'm not all that into finding new bands etc. these days anyway and just listen to my favorites.

Pandora has given me more variety than Spotify, at least for me. (Although just browsing the premium section of Spotify shows a greater artist and album selection than Pandora)
When I chose Grant Green (jazz guitarist) as a station last night in Spotify, it played two tracks from the same album within a few songs.
This from a guy who has over 20 records as a leader and probably over 50 as a sideman.

All I really wanted was just some Jazz Organ trio stuff, but it's not like you can specify that. My tastes are very precise.

So now I'm going to have to find the CDs that I want to listen to that day, rip them to my computer and then synch them to my phone. Such an extra complicated step.

I like Spotify as I can listen to (nearly) any album I want. A few things bug me about Spotify all a result of it being playlist based. So much so that even if you are listening to an album, after every track the album art is scrolled off the screen and scrolled back on, as if it was going to a different album/artist. That drives me bonkers. Plus I would like to be able to create a virtual library of albums that I can browse and play. The only way to do this is to make a playlist for each album individually, and then they aren't sorted at all. It's just a long list of unsorted albums. Still, it's a good service.

I use last.fm. I really like their setup. you can make a station, play your library (all songs played thru last.fm), or play a mix off all played and new suggestions. and my fav is all the comments, friends, and band info pages. not sure if it is good for your tastes but they have WAY WAY more artists than pandora for metal/sludge/doom/rock that i listen to. pandora was a big let down for me... never tried spotify.

I've been using the Sony Music Unlimited.. I picked it up under a PS Plus sale for $9.99 for a whole year. I've got it on my S3, Vita and PS3. You can make custom playlists and save them for offline mode so you don't have to stream over the net. Every Tuesday they have most of the new albums that drop.

I prefer Pandora for the radio, but Spotify when I'm at my computer and want something specific. They are both good IMO but nothing beats having the actual MP3 for anytime listening how come you don't put the CDs on your phone?

Originally Posted by MrNinjaSquirrel I prefer Pandora for the radio, but Spotify when I'm at my computer and want something specific. They are both good IMO but nothing beats having the actual MP3 for anytime listening how come you don't put the CDs on your phone?

That's what I tried to do tuesday before I went into work. Then realized I didnt have the right size usb cord to hook my phone to the computer. I ended up just listening to pandora again. The Andrew Hill station did a pretty decent job, it brought up seeral different cuts from about three different albums.

Which is really what I want. I want the radio station to play primarily JUST that artist and severla tracks from all of their albums. When you're picking a jazz artist with a 10+ album discography it shouldn't be that hard to do, but neither Pandora or Spotify seems to get it right.

Originally Posted by eldergamer That's what I tried to do tuesday before I went into work. Then realized I didnt have the right size usb cord to hook my phone to the computer. I ended up just listening to pandora again. The Andrew Hill station did a pretty decent job, it brought up seeral different cuts from about three different albums. Which is really what I want. I want the radio station to play primarily JUST that artist and severla tracks from all of their albums. When you're picking a jazz artist with a 10+ album discography it shouldn't be that hard to do, but neither Pandora or Spotify seems to get it right.

Just try thumbing up all the tracks of him that come up, and downvote the others. Eventually it starts to work like you want it to

There are just too many free streaming services out there to pay for music anymore IMHO. Its like paying for porn these days. Ive never really compared spotify and pandora mostly because the draw of spotify (to me) is playing the exact song you want when you want.


Stuff I use-
Free service for listening to individual songs and "stations":

grooveshark.com



Free streaming services:

Pandora
IHeartRadio
Slacker
last.fm

Originally Posted by dmaul1114 I'm much the same as I'm more of an album listener and usually just listen to the music on my phone or streams of stuff I've bought from Amazon using their cloud player. I have been using Pandora more lately since it's free and I can hear some different stuff. Haven't tried Spotify--definitely wouldn't pay for any streaming music as I mostly just listen to music in the background (while working, driving, running/working out) so I'm not all that into finding new bands etc. these days anyway and just listen to my favorites.

2nd'ed- Especially since Amazon retroactively added almost every CD I ever purchased there to my cloud and their player is platform agnostic.

Pandora gives me "just enough" new stuff/variety via the music genome to keep me interested- rarely do I have "thumbs down" anything anymore (I bookmark or TU more than I TD), it's figured me out pretty well.

I'm not a fan of the 40hr cap, but I've actually not hit it yet as I flip back and forth between it and my amazon playlists.

Decided to just upload my 10,000+ songs into the cloud at Google Play. Then I should be able to listen to them on my phone wherever I go. Right?

Now if only there was an easy way to do this for my 800+ physical CD collection.

Originally Posted by eldergamer Decided to just upload my 10,000+ songs into the cloud at Google Play. Then I should be able to listen to them on my phone wherever I go. Right? Now if only there was an easy way to do this for my 800+ physical CD collection.

iTunes Match will do that as well.

Originally Posted by eldergamer Decided to just upload my 10,000+ songs into the cloud at Google Play. Then I should be able to listen to them on my phone wherever I go. Right? Now if only there was an easy way to do this for my 800+ physical CD collection.

That's a great way to do it, as you can download all the albums you want straight from the cloud to your phonejust hope you have a fast connection, cause uploading can take FOREVER (my 600 or so songs took over a day)

Got 200 or so uploaded over a couple hours yesterday. They seemed to play mostly fine streaming using the wi-fi at work.

The google music interface isn't quite as streamlined or easy to use as I'd like.

I personally think Spotify is amazing. I get to listen to everything before I buy anything thing and discover tons of new things I have never heard. It's so worth the $10 a month. It should cost more actually.