The Pros and Cons of Your Favorite Music Apps
While frantically deleting apps in an attempt to free up enough storage for a photo, I realized that I have four different music apps on my iPhone that all basically do the same thing. I couldn’t bring myself to delete a single one, since I realized they all have their own special perks. You are probably familiar with them, too, so we're giving you the pros and cons to help you out next time you are desperately need to free up some storage for that 'gram-worthy moment.
Pandora
Pros: Pandora does a really good job of keeping up to date with current music and perfectly matching your taste. Once you type in a station, they get a sense of what type of music you listen to and from there the rest of the music is on point. Plus, they factor in other stations you listen to. For example, I have a The 1975 station and I recently made a Magic Man station. Since creating the Magic Man station, they now frequently come up on my The 1975 station. Lastly, you can have multiple artists on one station to ensure that you’ll be listening to all of the artists that you are in the mood to listen to.
Cons: Obviously the worst thing about Pandora is that they do not give you nearly enough skips. Because of this, I usually end up hopping from one station to another when I run out of skips. Finding a song that just hits the spot is so tedious and annoying, especially when all you want to do is chill and listen to music.
Spotify
Pros: Spotify has it all. Every song from almost every artist (Bye T-Swift), playlists made by other users and celebrities, radio stations like Pandora, and songs and playlists that you can create yourself. Plus, it’s FREE.
Cons: When using Spotify on your phone, the only option that you have is to shuffle either the playlist or the artist that you are trying to listen to. This can get pretty annoying as the reason you want to use Spotify in the first place is to listen to specific music or artists. Then, like Pandora, when you use the radio or when you have to press shuffle, you can only skip a limited number of songs. Lastly, the radio stations are not as up to date as Pandora’s. The other day I was listening to the Drake station and fairly old Kanye and Kid Cudi tunes were coming up. They were oldies but goodies and fun to listen to, but I was looking to listen to something a little more happenin'.
8 tracks
Pros: Use 8 tracks and you’re guaranteed to come across some new music. It’s my go-to for pre-games because they literally have tags called “pre-game” and “party." You can also mix the stations you want — I highly recommend mixing together the “rainy day” tag, “Arctic Monkeys.”
Cons: Even though you can mix tags together, you can only do three at a time, so it can be hard to create the perfect playlist. Also, while some playlists are the perfect length, a lot of them are pretty short, consisting of less than 10 songs. Plus there’s a limit on skips, which seems to be a re-occurring theme for these music apps. (How else can they try to get money out of you?)
SoundCloud
Pros: You can really tell a lot about a person by their soundcloud. It is, in a way, social media mixed with music because you follow other music lovers and hear what they post. Plus, it’s a place for new artists to post their own songs and get discovered. It’s the place to hear the sickest remixes and newest DJs. My roommates and I swear by it, showing each other new music that we’ve discovered from SoundCloud on the reg.
Cons: SoundCloud is not the place for authentic songs. It’s often hard to find the true song without it being a remix or cover. If you’re looking to just listen to the songs that you know and love, then I would turn to Spotify. But, if you’re looking to listen to new versions of those favorite songs, SoundCloud is your app.
Art by Shawna Rabbas