I toyed with calling this post ‘Newsic’, but it looks stupid, so I didn’t.
I was in the gym yesterday (no, seriously) flicking through the music on my phone to find something to work-out to. I found myself doing the same I do every morning in the car on the way to work – Nope, nope, no, no, hmm maybe, no, no, no. Honestly, I spend more time skipping tracks of music I supposedly like (they’re on my phone after all) than I do actually listening to any.
I need some new music.
In the past I’ve had three main sources of music:
- Metal Hammer cover CDs. I’ve found lots of bands via these that I’d otherwise not know about.
- Zane Lowe. His show in the evenings on Radio 1 is still the best thing on the radio.
- Going out. In the days when I had a social life and went to rock/metal nights, I’d quite often hear songs I didn’t know before that I really like.
I don’t really get the chance to listen to the radio in the evenings any more, I never go out to clubs, and I don’t think to buy Metal Hammer, so my avenues for new music are pretty limited. Yeah, there’s radio on the way to and from work, but by and large it’s pretty awful.
So in an effort to make me do something about it, I deleted all of the music on my phone. Even the stuff I really like. Drastic but necessary. I spent the next couple of hours reading up on the various music offerings the interweb provides these days and narrowed it down to a few possibilities. Spotify is massively popular, but there are so many provisos, different tariffs and things that it’s put me off. I’ve used it a few years ago and it is good, but not for me this time.
After umming and ahhing over the likes of Rdio, Pandora and others I decided to plump for the less-than-easy-to-remember Google Play Music All Access. Yeah, sucky name, but so far a great service. Here’s what I like about it so far.
30 day free trial. And best of all, they’re not sneaky about it. When you look in the menu on the web or mobile app, it shows the date of your first bill and there’s a tickbox to cancel. That’s great, being treated as a person and not trying to earn an easy buck from me.
Choice. Apparently there’s something like 18 million songs on there, and it shows. Everything I’ve looked for is there so far.
Offline music. I can quickly search for an album and choose to download it to my phone. Again, fantastic. For as long as my subscription lasts I can download as many albums as I like for listening without streaming (great for music for the car).
Discovery. This is the best bit for me so far. The two best options on the main menu are Radio and Explore. Radio lets me create faux radio stations based on songs, artists, albums or genres I like. Explore is even better. I can find playlists by the Google Music geeks, shared ones from friends, or even just random stuff. Thanks to this, on the two drives to/from work I’ve had since I’ve already discovered three bands I really like that I’d never heard of.
There are a load of other great features I already knew about (automatically creating an online library from everything on my computers at home for example), but so far it’s been a revelation. For the cost of a new album a month (£9.99 once payments start) I’m finding new music I like, catching up on albums I should’ve bought ages ago (the latest Placebo album is brilliant btw), and really enjoying how easy it is with the great Android and web apps.
I’ll update again in a month or two once the honeymoon period is over, so far so good though.