With the advent of streaming services came an easy way to play your favorite artists, with enormous catalogs of songs. If music is an integral part of your life, then you know how amazing services like Spotify, Apple Music, Rdio (RIP), and others have allowed us to have our whole collection of songs in our pocket. But what if you want to find new artists and songs to listen to? Luckily the App Store is saturated with music discovery apps.
These are some of my favorite music discovery apps that I’ve used to find great music over the years:
Shazam
Shazam was one of the first apps I ever installed on my iPhone, and it has been extremely useful in picking out songs wherever I’m at. Whether in a coffee shop, standing in line, or just relaxing at home, Shazam is an incredible music finding machine.
The free version allows you to let your phone ‘listen’ to whatever song is playing, and then it tries to search a huge database and let you know what song you’re listening to. It’s so useful in fact that Apple baked it into iOS. Try asking Siri “What song is this?” and you’ll notice a small Shazam icon letting you know that it’s powering your music discovery. You can buy the songs or stream them in some of the most popular streaming apps.
Shazam has been pretty solid over the years, and it’s rare that it doesn’t pick up what song is playing. While others have tried to compete with Shazam (SoundHound I’m looking at you), they still remain the king of “what song is this?” apps.
Pandora
Another long standing app I wanted to include was Pandora. Even with a radio feature being typically baked into streaming apps, Pandora still has some magic behind its playlist algorithm.
If you haven’t used Pandora in the past, what you do is pick an artist, song, or genre to start and then Pandora plays songs by that artist and others related to it. These become custom stations you can go back to later (i.e. “Metallica radio”). The more songs you like and dislike, the more customized your individual stations will become.
A relatively new feature Pandora has added is Thumbprint Radio, which is a combination of stations and likes from your past history.
Think of it as a best-of station. Pandora is without a doubt one of the best ways to discover new artists and songs similar to those you love already.
- Free w/ subscription option – Download
Soundcloud
Soundcloud is a great service that allows you to upload music, podcasts, and more to its cloud streaming service. It’s also a great place to find rare tracks and lots of new artists. You can see what tracks are popular, make playlists, and follow artists.
The iPhone and iPad app is a little sparse compared to the desktop site, but it complements it well enough. Some folks host their whole podcast right on Soundcloud.
I’ve also used Soundcloud to make private playlists of artists I’m currently recording and mixing. It’s sure to have an application for something you’re doing!
Soundcloud is also great for anyone who fancies indie artists, or more obscure EDM and trance. There’s no shortage of it here.
- Free – Download
8Tracks
8Tracks is a useful playlist app to find new songs for all types of moods, styles of music, and activities you’re doing. You search for a wide variety of tags and add them up to make a really specific playlist. Except instead of creating playlists by hand, 8Tracks takes out some of the heavy lifting.
I was looking for indie songs to run to while training for a 10K, and I found a great “We Can’t Stop Playlist” filled with great tracks, with many artists I hadn’t heard yet, and I probably wouldn’t have found them on my own.
You’re sure to find music for any occasion in 8Tracks. One of my favorite things is that the service is currently ad-free, so you can listen to lots of songs in a row without being interrupted. 8Tracks is easy to use and truly feels like a hand crafted music experience.
- Free – Download
Bandcamp
Bandcamp is one of my absolute favorite sites and apps to find new artists. Bandcamp lets you find lots of artists’ catalogs and includes a great pay what you want model for albums.
You can preview albums before you buy them and with some artists you can even subscribe to them yearly to get everything the artist makes! There’s an awesome Bandcamp Weekly radio show which is a great way to find new songs, and many tracks debut on Bandcamp before they do on any other service.
You can also use Bandcamp to get special episodes of podcasts. I’ve used this for Welcome to Nightvale’s live shows, and have loved the extra content. If you’re looking to find new artists and support them, Bandcamp is a solid choice.
- Free – Download
Spinrilla
Mixtapes have been one of the best ways to find new hip hop artists for a long time. With Spinrilla you have access to an enormous catalog of mix tapes for lots of different artists.
If you’re looking to find out what track is going to be the hottest song next month, Spinrilla is a great way to find out. You can listen and download quite a few songs for free, but if you’re looking to remove ads, have unlimited streaming and downloads, it pays to be a premium member at just $0.99 per month.
- Free w/ subscription option – Download
Your favorite music discovery apps?
The apps above aren’t the only way to discover great music. I also listen to Beats 1 and other live streaming radio. How do you discover new music on your iPhone or iPad?
Thanks for the tips, I didn´t know about spinrilla! will definitely check it out!