I first off want to say how awesome a world we are living in is. Just a little over a decade ago the music industry was talking about suing people for trying to download music, and now for only $5 a month you can get pretty much unlimited access to any song you can imagine ($10 to get it on your phone).
It seems like all the talk these days is about Spotify, the mysterious music streaming app from Sweden that has just made it to this country. I, being the techno nerd that I am, had to jump on it and get the paid version, despite the fact that I have been a pretty dedicated Rdio user for the last 4 months now. So, over the past 2 weeks I have been trying to justify jumping ship, and in the end I kept going back to Rdio. Here are 4 specific reasons why I think Rdio is a better option for you cloud based music library.
1. Music Discovery
What is a social music platform if it doesn't help you discover new music. That is totally what Apple's Ping was suppost to be, but that has yet to show any signs of it doing anything worth a damn. And with Spotify already taking traction in this country, the likes of Apple and Google could be playing from behind for the foreseeable future. Now back to Spotify, the whole social aspect of the program is based on your connections on Facebook (Mark Zuckerburg is an investor of Spotify); and this to me is a problem when it comes to discovering new music. Let's be honest, most of your friends are lame when it comes to music. If you are actually reading music blogs and digging for music on a regular basis, you are already more informed then a majority of your friends on Facebook about who are some of the exciting acts around today. Unless you are friends with writers at Pitchfork or Gorilla vs Bear, odds are your friends will be making playlists based around their long time love of System of a Down. This is why when I was playing around on Spotify I realized I had a greater tendency of going with classic albums and songs. With Rdio I follow people I am not usually friends with on Facebook: Pitchfork, Paste Magazine, Vice Magazine, along with a bunch of record labels. This leads to me seeing what people that live and breath music are listening to; and lets be real, their tastes are way better then that old high school buddy of yours who you used to go to hot topic with back in the day.
2. Better Stream
When I open up Rdio, the first thing I see are 12 albums that all the people I am following are listening to. I see what albums people can't get enough of at that very moment. Albums come and go throughout the day. If I am getting tired of the new Washed Out or Theophilus London album I just start to scroll down and see what the people I am following are adding to their collection, or what playlist they are making. I then see that Fat Possum Records just added an old Hank Thompson record and then all of a sudden I am on a huge old school country kick. Now on Spotify, only unless your friends are active enough to actually have something to say about how they just found out about Kid Cudi, you have to click on each of your friends and look at their playlists to see what they are getting into these days, and than once again point number one comes into play.
3. Easier to hide
Being that all your friends are going to be connecting with your Facebook account, all your friends will now see how obsessed you really are with those old Maria Carrey albums (not that there is anything wrong with that). It is much easier on Rdio to hide behind the masses of the stream and the numbers.
4. Not your typical music player
What people rave about with Spotify is how much it feels like ITunes. I understand that familiarity is something that is nice, but just because it's a layout we are used to doesn't mean it is better for what is going on today as far as trends. ITunes was totally groundbreaking when it came out almost 10 years ago now, but it may not be best for how we take in media these days. I love the way Rdio feels like a Twitter stream. Living in the cloud makes everything feel more disposable. And what I am into now will change in the next day, and so on. So, to see it all as a stream I think fits more with the way we take in music rather than a library that just sits there and reminds you of your past mistakes in music. Rdio has all your music saved that you choose to save, but the stream is what dictates what you are usually listening to, not your library. And, to me, that is what a social platform built around music should be. If you want a library of music, buy vinyl.
Why Spotify will win
As a whole these two music streaming aps are pretty identical. They both provide a majority of the same music, they both allow for you to build playlists and do so as a group, you can sync them both with the music already on your computer, and they both allow you to sync music to your phone (for $10 a month), but there are two major reasons why Spotify will end up winning out. First off, there is a free option. You can sit through ads and a lack of selection and not pay anything to listen to your friends playlists. Rdio has no free options. It will cost you at least $5 to get into that club. Also, no party is fun when you are by yourself. The fact that you can easily share your playlists with your friends on Facebook with Spotify, it will be a more appealing option to your average music listener; which, I fear will draw people away from Rdio causing my beautiful home page to not be as good. And, don't underestimate the power of the hype wave that Spotify has been building up over in Europe as this magical Ap and the fact that most people I talk to have never even heard of Rdio.
Now, by no means are these the only two services out there to stream music, nor in the future. And ,I am sure they will both grow in to drastically different services as time goes on. The unfortunate thing is I feel I will be paying for both for the foreseeable future. So, if you are out on any of these two sites, try and find me!
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