11 Great Spotify Apps to Help You Get the Most Out of the Music Streaming Service
With the recent launch of Beats, Dr. Dre’s new brainiac streaming service, you might be wondering whether you’ve been taking Spotify’s bells and whistles — including its robust library of apps — for granted. Not to worry, dear Premium subscriber, I’ve compiled a list of my favorites to ensure that your ears are filled with sweet, sweet jamz at all times possible.
Before we begin, let’s review how to add an app to your Spotify account.
Just mosey over to the left of your Spotify desktop application. Under the title Apps, there’s something called an App Finder. Click that.
The main screen in your desktop app will then jump to a chart of the most popular apps. You can browse their features there. If, at any time, you’d like to add one to your library, just click the blue Add button to the right of the app. Anything you’ve already added to your library will show a white Added button.
The app you added will then appear on the left sidebar. Click it to access the app. Easy, right? Now let’s get down to our superlatives.
Best App for Falling into a Seven-Hour Music Wormhole
In my teen years, Last.fm was responsible for many a wasted weekend. I spent hours sifting through the site’s vast database of artists, always clicking on the next musician’s influence, and the next one and the next one. Using Last.fm’s Spotify app feels no different. It follows your Scrobbles, more simply known as the tracks you’ve played, and crunches that data to offer its own related artist recommendations. But the real magic is in the app’s Now Playing tab, which offers up a quick educational blurb about the artist you’re currently listening to, under which it suggests four similar artists to sample. If you’re really loving that song you’re listening to, you can also click a button up top called Similar Tracks Playlist, which — out of thin air! — produces a whole playlist of complementary music. It’s usually stuff I’ve never heard, which is refreshing and very addictive.
Best App to Learn About Music Genres You Had No Idea Existed
Reddit Tunes
Reddit, as you may know, is a place where the Internet geeks out over little-known scraps of pop culture. And when you dive into the endless subreddits dedicated to specific genres of music, you can make some pretty awesome discoveries. That’s why it was a genius idea to create an app that offers up simplified playlists born from these obsessive threads. I’m most impressed by the number of subreddits with titles of genres I thought existed only in “Portlandia” skits. If you were ever wondering what “brostep” or “psytrance” sound like, then you’ve come to the right place.
Best App for Spontaneous Karaoke
TuneWiki is the poor woman’s karaoke. If your decision to stay in and drink with your roommate/spouse/dog evolves into a laptop jam session, you can click over to this handy app and sing along to whatever tune you’re listening to. For the most part, TuneWiki’s pacing and lyrics are spot on. Tragically, the service is barred from displaying the lyrics of some of the most important karaoke classics, like Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.” But, at the very least, it’s useful for deciphering stickier parts of songs. And if you notice a mistake in the pacing or lyrics of a track, you can always re-sync it or flag the lyrics.
Best App for People Who Take Their Music Taste Very Seriously
Technically, if you are a true music snob, you’re not supposed to respect Pitchfork, let alone use its Spotify app. But whatever you think about the precocious site, it’s still a reliable way to stay in the know about not-so-mainstream releases. As opposed to many of the other interactive apps on this list, Pitchfork is uninterested in what you’re listening to. Rather, it presents a home page of the latest releases, ranked with the site’s signature 10-point system. Below the album artwork is the beginning paragraph of the site’s corresponding review, which you can click through to if you dare. You may also choose to add the whole album to your collection of playlists or to listen to the album right then and there.
Best App for Establishing a False Sense of Superiority
Classify
Thank god for Classify. Not only does it provide me with digestible classical music playlists like “100 Harmonious Classics for Study and Homework,” it also takes the time to illustrate the intense hairstyles of the classical genre’s most famous contributors.
How can I ever feel intimidated by Bach after discovering that he had the same exact hairdo as Paula Abdul in the ’80s?
Best App for People with Intense F.O.M.O
F.O.M.O., or Fear of Missing Out, is a real affliction for music-obsessed city dwellers. The number of concerts available in urban areas is so great that it can almost feel overwhelming. Bandsintown eases whatever anxiety this might cause you by organizing the concerts nearby in a simple, scrolling calendar. It also very helpfully compiles a playlist of songs from every artist playing in your area that night. So if you’re on the fence about whom you want to see, you can listen and evaluate your choices.
A similar app, Songkick Concerts, does pretty much the exact thing. But I’ve noticed that Bandsintown’s algorithm for suggesting events just gets me and offers more options.
Best App to Help You Understand the Youths
Billboard Top Charts
For me, checking up on Billboard’s top songs is as much a sociological study as it is a desperate attempt not to become an uncool adult. Sometimes I marvel that the most popular song in America is, say, an overproduced track patched together by Pitbull and Ke$ha. But, hey, I guess this is all part of the education of an aging, out-of-touch New Yorker.
Nevertheless, it’s not a bad way to understand what the youths are listening to these days.
Best App for Fascinatingly Specific Playlists
The FADER
Based on the indie music mag with the same name, the FADER app produces playlists that correspond with the content of their publication, which comes out every two months. It’s a great way to get an eclectic sampler of all the musicians their expert writers are buzzing about. But my favorite feature of this app is the staff members’ personal playlists. Each one is tailored to a specific theme that’s currently floating around the music blogosphere, whether that be teen pop stars (in honor of Justin Bieber’s, ahem, active behavior), or all the songs that mention Halle Berry (thanks to Kendrick Lamar’s obsession with the Oscar winner).
Not everything is niche, though. The staff has also featured playlists for specific holidays, like Labor Day weekend, and hosted guest curators like Solange Knowles. No matter what, I’m always pleasantly surprised with the idiosyncratic collections I stumble upon here.
Best App to Keep You Company at Work
Much like the defunct musical community Turntable.fm (may it rest in peace), Sounddrop unites people in genre-specific chat rooms. It works like this: You join a room that piques your musical interest (for instance, the Hip Hop room). There you’ll find something called a Collaborative Play Queue.This is a list of songs that are in line to play within the room. You can suggest your own for the list or up-vote something that’s already on the list. Your activity is shown in a chat room on the right side of the screen, where you can also air your approval or disgust with whatever track is playing at the moment.
You may either choose to join an already-established group or — if you sign in via Facebook or Twitter — start your own room and invite friends, family and co-workers to join. There’s nothing like the feeling of a warm and fuzzy listening party with familiar humans as you’re plugging away at work.
Best App for Stalking Music Bloggers
Another fantastic Spotify wormhole, this app is an extension of the Hype Machine website, which aggregates the stuff that indie music bloggers are writing about around the world. Here you’ll find playlists filled with music from all corners of the Internet, a pastiche of cuts from around the world, consolidated into weirdo playlists. Try Hype Machine for a little adventure in the anti-Top 40 world. Who knows, you might just find a new music blog soulmate in the process.
Best App for Pretending You Know Something about Jazz
Blue Note
Ah, yes … I know this track well … Louis Armstrong’s “Cheek to Cheek.” That was from his fantastic 2010 album Hello Louis – The Hit Years. Mmm. 2010. Fantastic year for Armstrong.
That’s me when I’m cluelessly talking about jazz. That’s why Blue Note is a godsend when it comes to my musical education. It arranges famous jazz albums on a timeline, so you know the excellent Thelonious Monk song you’re listening to came out in 1947. You’re able to search for music based on performer, album, song, style or year. And aficionados can even filter their searches by the types of instruments they want to hear (as pictured below).
Another ingenious feature of the app: You can look up the names of the jazz songs that artists have sampled over the years in a database powered by WhoSampled. It tells you the exact timestamp when a hook was borrowed (as you can see below). Bet you didn’t know that Ludacris’ “Hard Times” sampled Bobbi Humphrey.
And that’s it! Now get streaming. You’ve got jams to rock out to.
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