Music Unlimited Mobile App
Sony’s official music streaming app for mobile devices, which in not too long from now will be re-branded under the “Playstation Music” name to unify things. This is a premium streaming music service so it comes along with a $9.99 monthly fee, which nets you access to streaming music anywhere you have a data connection, always ad-free. You can create and manage your Music Unlimited accounts all from your device, explore and create channels, download music for offline play, and you can make your own playlists or enjoy playlists that are hand curated.
Rdio
Rdio is great because it offers you the choice to listen to music for free, or with an Rdio Unlimited subscription. Free gets you access to streaming radio stations similar to the way it works on Pandora, with stations based off of artists, albums, genres, friends and more, or you can listen to curated playlists based on mood. With Rdio Unlimited you get all that plus the availability to stream without ads, plus you can stream single tracks or albums, and get unlimited mobile downloads for offline listening, all for $9.99 a month.
Rhapsody
Rhapsody is a great little mashup of ad-free radio stations you can stream with the added capability of access to on demand music. It’s $9.99 per month, and you get access to the latest hits, classics, and tons of other music. There’s offline playback with unlimited downloads, and did we mention no ads? Music also streams and plays at high quality and high bit-rate so you can be sure you get awesome sounding music, and if you’re a T-Mobile customer you even get special pricing.
Slacker Radio
Slacker Radio is simply a streaming radio music application. You get free access to stream music from top 40 hits, with more than 15 million songs loaded into Slacker’s library and there are even handcrafted music stations put together by a team of human DJ’s that are passionate about music. If you choose to pay $3.99 a month you’ll get unlimited offline playback, unlimited song skips, and an ad-free listening experience too.
iHeart Radio
If you like free music, and plenty of it, iHeart Radio is definitely worth checking out. It has a library of 20 million songs and over 800,000 different artists, with personalized station recommendations and access to favorites right from the iHeart Radio homescreen. It also features podcasts for listening of on demand episodes from news, sports, comedy, finance, and entertainment, and it supports multiple platforms like Android Wear, Chromecast, and Android Auto! Plus it’s completely free.
Pandora
Pandora is probably one of the oldest, yet best streaming music applications out there with tons of music to listen to. Create radio stations from your favorite bands, artists, or songs, and then just let Pandora do the work as it feeds you music that is similar to the station you set up. It basically discovers music for you and streams it to your station, which you can either like or dislike to tell Pandora what to play next. It’s free but ad-supported, so if you don’t mind ads this is one of the best you can get.
Songza
Songza is great and severely under appreciated, or perhaps just more unnoticed than it should be. It offers up free streaming music with hand curated playlists based off of mood, activity, time of day and many other criteria, with unlimited listening so you can jam out all day and all night. You can browse a curated music playlist library and stream thousands of original playlists handmade by music experts.
Beats Music
Beats Music offers up tons of tunes whether you want to stream music from hand curated playlists or browse the library of 20 million songs any time and anywhere for on demand listening and the ability to download songs for offline playback. The app also offers highlights on what’s happening in the world of music, and there’s a cool feature called The Sentence which lets you make a mix to play based on how you’re feeling, what you’re doing and who you’re with. You can grab Beats Music for a subscription of either $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year.
Spotify
Spotify offers up free streaming music for both Android smartphones and tablets, with the ability to play songs from any artist, album or playlist on shuffle mode. If you subscribe to Spotify Premium you get the same stuff the free service offers you plus ad-free listening, the ability to play songs on any device, offline playback with music downloads, and amazing sound quality. Spotify Premium can be yours for $9.99 a month, although sadly, still no support for Google Cast which also means no support for Chromecast.
Google Play Music All Access
Google Play Music All Access gives you tons of streaming music at your fingertips, from classic hits, today’s top songs, and all kinds of new release albums and tracks all for just $9.99 a month. You can add music from your own stash to your Google Play Music library and store up to 20,000 of your own songs, plus get access to purchase over 18 million different tracks and albums, although many of them are capable of being added to your library for free to stream and download for offline playback. You can also listen to hand curated playlists based off of similar criteria to Songza like time of day and what activity you’re doing, and you can even try your hand at random picks with I’m Feeling Lucky Radio.