Music Appreciation on Streaming Services

[bradleypnw]

Which streaming services provide the best music appreciation/education/exploration experiences?

I currently use Amazon. They have suggestion services but nothing that says, "Let's explore the history of South African music."

Maybe services that let users create deejayed playlists.

 

[mountainman bob]

I love Tidal for sound quality and content (some say it has a poor classical selection)
Here is what came up when I searched ‘south Africa’ (there’s a bunch more too)

Most albums/tracks have artist info and sometimes include reviews.

 

[cogitech]

Spotify lets users create DJed playlists and there is a lot to explore there for sure. Virtually unlimited. Sound quality is lossy, but not terrible if you set it to the highest quality/bit-rate.

I only have Spotify (paid) because my daughters talked me into it. I do use it, but it is sort of a last resort for me personally. I own most of the music that I want to listen to on a regular basis.

I use volumio as a player, which has a Spotify plugin but also provides easy access to an incredible amount of internet radio stations, all sorted by genre, or country, etc. Again, the audio quality is hit and miss but there is literally a whole world of music out there to explore. You can also add your own web radio channels to stream. One of my favourites is the Radio Paradise Eclectic Mix (FLAC stream). Random, but really exposes one to a lot of music that they might not have heard before. The audio quality is superb.


I haven't used any of the other stuff like Tidal, etc. etc.

 

[Jdiesel87]

I like Spotify for music exploration. I found the recommendations are better than other services. To take it one step further you can link your Spotify account to Last.fm for even better analytics and recomendations.

 

[jgf]

Streaming non-commercial, college etc radio stations.