The content providers: Music streaming services
Still not picked a side in the ongoing battle for musical supremacy?
Amazon Music Unlimited
£7.99/month / amazon.co.uk
What’s the story?
Never one to be beaten on price, Amazon offers one of the few streaming services that won’t charge you a tenner per month – as long as you’ve already stumped up for Prime. It also doubles up with Echo speakers for smarter voice controls, if you’re the kind of eccentric who prefers to search for songs via lyrics or trivia.
Is it any good?
It’s not half bad for the money, you know. What you miss out on in catalogue quality and curation is made up for in pounds in your pocket – especially if you tend to get your groove on mostly at home and plump for the Echo-only subscription, which is just £4 a month. But for the sake of discovery, spending the extra elsewhere is probably worth it.
TECH SPECS
Price £9.99/month (£7.99 for Prime customers), £14.99/month for family plan (up to six users) Tracks Over 40 million Desktop macos, Windows Mobile IOS, Android Offline sync Yes
Apple Music
£9.99/month / apple.com
What’s the story?
In all honesty, there’s not a huge amount of difference between Spotify and its arch rival Apple Music, especially now the ‘exclusive albums’ war seems to have settled down and Taylor Swift, Radiohead and co are content to straddle both sides of the fight. All of which means this platform is best reserved for folks who have already fully plunged into the Apple ecosystem.
Is it any good?
Where Spotify tends to rely upon algorithms for its playlists, Apple Music prefers a human touch with curated picks from familiar faces that frequently hit the mark. Proud owners of a Homepod or Apple Watch will also know that Apple Music works best on that hardware, with added functionality that Spotify simply can’t match.
TECH SPECS
Price £9.99/month, £14.99 for family plan (up to six users) Tracks Over 45 million Desktop macos, Windows Mobile IOS, Android Offline sync Yes
Spotify Premium
£9.99/month / spotify.com
What’s the story?
As the original and best music streaming service, Spotify lays claim to a huge library of tunes and works with pretty much every phone, laptop and speaker going. So no matter what your musical tastes and array of gadgetry, you can eke every last ounce of value out of your subscription with little fuss. You can try it for free, but there’s no offline playback and you’ll have to suffer adverts.
Is it any good?
With upwards of 60 million subscribers, Spotify makes all that listening data useful by filtering it into personalised playlists that are stacked with new favourites, forgotten classics and deep cuts from The Fall that you never knew existed. Better still is its app’s Spotify Connect feature, which can control a load of speakers through your phone.
TECH SPECS
Price £9.99/month, £14.99 for family plan (up to six users) Tracks Over 30 million Desktop macos, Windows Mobile IOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Offline sync Yes