Best Music App Eva! seriously: IndieShuffle
Honestly IndieShuffle has changed my world. Of course that sounds like a massive overstatement (and just so you know right from the get go: I’m not getting paid to write a letter about indieshuffle.)
I had lost my connection with music. You know how it goes, you love your collection but want to branch out, get re-invigorated and try some new stuff. Yeah sure, I can go crazy listening to 30 sec grabs at iTunes, but what I really wanted were playlists that I could browse to discover different, new music without paying a fortune.
I had heard from my friends at the Freelance Jam podcast that Pandora Radio and Songza were great music streaming/exploration apps - just what I needed - perfect!
…Some background on Songza: it was the option I was most excited about, as it seems that Pandora Radio is dying off and has ads and didn’t have the cool features that you can see Songza has:
Songza — which is available online and also has iPhone, iPad and Adroid apps — boasts thousands of free playlists that are curated by experts (DJs, other artists, music journalists, etc.). It also offers a ‘Concierge’ service that allows you to choose a playlist that suits your mood based on both the time of day and day of the week.
BUT: Songza is not in Australia : massive disappointment.
So I hunted around to find that Spotify is an option. However it requires that you log in with Facebook, which as a rule I will now not do… ( see my previous post on Facebook tracking )
But before realising that I had to log in with Facebook, I had already downloaded the spotify desktop app which was free to download for a ‘free trial period,’ after which there are a number of different payment options:
From the Spotify FAQ:
Can I use Spotify Mobile without having a Premium subscription?
If you have an iOS device or Android cell phone, you can use Spotify to transfer your local files from your computer to your phone and listen to Spotify application on your cell phone.
If you have a subscription to Spotify Premium, you will also be able to search, play and sync offline playlists with our entire music catalog of millions of songs.
If you have a Symbian or Windows Phone cell phone compatible with Spotify you need a Spotify Premium subscription to use Spotify on your cell phone.
Short story I’m going to have to pay $11.99 for Spotify if I want to explore on my mobile as well as desktop. But I don’t want to be tied to Facebook…
And then in shone indieshuffle: Free mobile app powered by soundcloud. Downloaded it and was in seventh heaven: listening to playlists that had been curated for me that were accompanied by brief yet interesting music review/info for each song, that also provide examples of other artists that sound similar. So it really assists the user to ‘explore’ further while extending your current music knowledgebase.
I was worried the ‘indie’ title may indicate a selection of music that was too alternative for my tastes - but I’ve found this is not the case at all - for me. Seriously I think I have ‘really liked’ nearly every song I have heard through the app. And I listened ALL weekend through my ipod while docked at home - streamed fine, a few stops to buffer, but I was also downloading other bits on the computer. So it didn’t seem to kill my wi fi while it was streaming. Sure, I couldn’t overload myself with a million things downloading at the same time - but this is an easy thing to manage in order to stimulate my ears! - and this is the reality of streaming anything… for now.
Only thing I found was that to ‘favourite’ or share songs from within the app, I would have had to go through Facebook. So I didn’t use that option and went for the good ol’ pen and paper to write down all my favourites, so I can download at some stage if I love them so much I want them for keeps.
For now though, I think I will just keep browsing as indieshuffle’s playlists are far more interesting than mine - I may need to fire myself and just leave it to indieshuffle: loving it! Thanks so much :-)
