Is there a true alternative to Google Play Music?

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I don’t mean to start another pointless question war, but here we go.

I pay for YT Premium because 1. I watch a lot of YT videos and 2. it includes Google Play Music.

Now, the most obvious answer is YouTube Music. I tried it. I hate it. YouTube integrates well with videos but the interface is absolutely crap for music. I mean, what were these people thinking?

A Spotify membership fetches you Hulu and Showtime making it another obvious solution… But Spotify doesn’t have a lot of the songs that I listen to available on GPM. And it limits each device to 3,333 downloaded songs if you have multiple. For most, that’s great… But my library is pretty big.

There’s also Amazon Music. Not bad for $8 and I like it more than Spotify if I’m being honest as a music app, but I just can’t help but feel as a Prime member that $8 a month is a rip-off even for me.

I tried Tidal. Sounds amazing. Lacks artists that I love. And as much as I love music, I’m not paying $20 a month for Hi-Fi audio.

Deezers layout looks like it was designed by a kindergartener and it’s stressful to use.

Any other options or am I overthinking this one?

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I should probably add what I like about GPM:

  1. The algorithm makes it easy to find new songs. This is why I left Spotify.
  2. The layout is simple and very straight forward. Spotify makes it a tad harder to get to your liked list of songs where as with GPM it’s just there
  3. It’s integration with other Google services is flawless
  4. It has a huge music catalog
  5. It includes YouTube Premium
  6. Again, its algorithm…
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Apple Music?

You get what you pay for. Kind of sounds like Tidal is what you want, or buy the music you want to listen to outright.

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You’re overthinking it, or more specifically, you’ve set your bar so high for alternatives that nothing is a viable alternative.

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I’ve heard Apple Music integrates rather poorly on anything not Apple.

I do like Tidal but there’s some artists I can’t do without. It’s the most obvious choice. I could always import songs. I’ll have to think about it more

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after looking into all the streaming options when I was in the market I settled on GPM as well but not with yt premium, I do think it’s a great service.

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The bar fits GPM rather well but Google is killing it and it’s frustrating

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I guess Google announced a bit back YT Music would replace it

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gross

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Right?

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Every streaming service suffers the same problems, namely that their catalog and features will change over time.

I avoid them all.

Curate a real music collection. :slight_smile: It’s the best solution.

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It is the best solution but with everything I listen to… It’d be as expensive as a down payment on a really nice house

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I recently went through and did a true-up of my music collection. Buying used CDs really isn’t that bad, price wise.

Just avoid Amazon. Their prices blow for used CDs, and they have no logic to combine orders so shipping eats you alive.

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I’ll have to look into it :). Appreciate the suggestion

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I just realized Apple Music does offer 256kb AAC which is tempting… But the app has really bad reviews on Google Play unfortunately. It’s all a marketing ploy to be like “oh we support Android but we only truly support it if you have something running iOS.”

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Just some useful info if you do go the “curate your own music collection” route.

Good places to buy used CDs:
SecondSpin
Decluttr

Both will combine shipping, and ship via media mail which is a flat $3.99. SecondSpin does buy-one-get-one sales frequently. That will really cut down on costs, but you have to be subscribed to their mailing list to get it, and they send out messages too frequently, IMO.

For stuff that wasn’t released on CD, checkout BandCamp.

Sales there go directly to artists, and I’ve gotten messages directly from artists I like saying Thanks, which is pretty cool.

Many (but not all) of the albums listed on Bandcamp have a name-your-own-price option. Some of them are even free.

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Thank you so much! I’ll have to do this. Doesn’t look as expensive as I thought it would be

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I have +/- 500 CDs ripped to a NAS, which is what I primarily listen to. But, for a change of pace I periodically listen to Pandora. I’m very happy with the Pithos player, which filters out adverts, even on a free account. Pithos: yet another good reason to switch to Linux! :grinning:

https://pithos.github.io/

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I’ve tried almost all of them. For now, I’ve found everything I need on play music.
The YoutubeMusic app is shit, but you can still access almost all of the stuff found there (as long as “official” recordings are concerned) via play music.

I think their plan is to phase out play music, but it’s a long way to go.

What exactly bothers you? Are you using a browser or the app?

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The eventual “phasing out” bothers me. I don’t have a problem with the service. I love it. I just don’t want to continue building up a castle in the sand if it’s only going to kicked over one day