CD’s and buying songs online have become a thing of the past as people have transitioned over to streaming music. Two major streaming services that have taken the stage over the years are Spotify and Apple Music. These two services have had people debating about which one is better ever since Apple Music was created in 2015 but, Spotify is clearly a better music streaming service than Apple Music. It has always had more features, and its navigation is way easier than Apple Music’s. 

One of the biggest downsides of Apple Music is that it only has playlists created either by the listener, or playlists based on algorithms like the “Today’s Top Hits” playlist. Spotify on the other hand, offers six personalized playlists called “Daily Mixes.” They combine genres and music that has the same vibe for the listener to enjoy. It also has a “Your Discover Weekly” playlist that is updated every week based on the listener’s choices of songs that week. It also consists of music that is curated by Spotify to include lesser known artists within the same genre of music that the listener already enjoys. 

One thing that Apple Music and Spotify both provide is a section under a song/album called “More Like This.” This is a feature that identifies other songs or playlists with the same sound that the music above it has. This gives listeners an easy and accessible place to find music that they enjoy. This is one of the only features, however, that Apple Music provides. Spotify, on the other hand, has an abundance of ways to discover new music. As described previously, the personalized playlists are an awesome way to find a new favorite tune! 

As the listener launches Spotify on either a mobile device or a PC/Laptop, it provides many different categories filled with a mix of playlists, artists, podcasts, and albums from which to choose. There’s a “decades” category to find music based on a decade, with playlists from each year of the preferred decade.  There is also a category specifically for music discovery. It includes the “Discover Weekly” playlist and a “Release Radar” playlist, which contains a mixtape of artists that the listeners follow. These are songs that the artists just released that week. The playlist is updated every Friday to accommodate the popular trend of artists releasing music on Fridays.  Listeners may even see the term, “New Music Friday,” in discussions of musical releases and indie artists using that term to promote their new music. 

Although, Spotify has the same price for a monthly subscription as the monthly subscription for Apple Music, their free tiers are different. Apple Music only provides their music radio stations for free streaming while Spotify offers a free with ads program. Listeners can use all the features that are mentioned with the Spotify free tier.

All in all, everyone has their preference of how they stream their music. Spotify has many more features and personalized offerings than Apple Music. I highly recommend using Spotify over Apple Music if shifting over to the era of music streaming because of how much they help their listeners discover new music.