Best Free Music Apps

Music is not just a form of art, it is a great source of inspiration. Even if you think your day/week/current situation/life is the worst, find the right song that can captivate you and wind you up and all the problems will go away. The era of walkmans/CD players/MP3 players is pretty much over since the majority of people have smartphones that can be used for listening and enjoying music on-the-go. There are numerous free music apps released and they can improve and simplify your daily access to great music. In this article we reviewed the most interesting, popular and free music apps for you to choose from.

Podcasts and radio
Probably one of the easiest ways to enjoy music on the go is to connect to a podcast. All you need to have is an Internet connection and a proper app. TuneIn (iOS, Android) is one of our favorite ones. It offers a whole bunch of awesome radio stations to choose from, you can subscribe to some to access them fast, it offers new and popular stations, and you can search in all existing podcasts. If your mood doesn’t tell you straight away what you want to listen to, go to catalog and browse the genres to find something new.

iHeartRadio (iOS, Android) is similar to TuneIn app. It offers hundreds of stations to select from, and the ads are not annoying. You can rate songs, select favorite stations, share them on Facebook and even listen to podcasts offline. Unlike Pandora, it has no limitations and is completely free to use.

Videos
The first thing that comes to mind when thinking about music is YouTube. This video hosting service can be opened in any mobile browser, but for higher comfort it is much better to get the official YouTube app (iOS, Android). Probably the only possible inconvenience here is that you can only use it if you log in to your account (in a browser you can use it anonymously). You can subscribe and unsubscribe to various YouTube channels, create playlists, mark videos to watch them later, and comment and rate. Basically, it’s regular YouTube but in comfortable mobile form.

Vimeo (iOS, Android) is another similar app that is worthy of installing. It provides all the main features and functions of the website, but it is again customized for mobile devices. Watch, upload and rate videos, manage your subscriptions and create a watch later list within this application.

Audio recognition
Gone are the days when you had to quickly Google the lyrics of a song currently playing to figure out who the singer is. You were lucky if this was an original version and not the remix, which could take endless searches. Shazam (iOS, Android) is a brilliant app that recognizes song that can be heard playing. It has recently been updated and the features added has made Shazam an ultimate music tool for recognizing, playing and rating songs (read more about Shazam features here).

SoundHound (iOS, Android) is an app with sound recognizing options, and it can also provide you with the lyrics of the recognized song. Enjoy it on Rdio, on Spotify, or purchase it on iTunes.

Both Shazam and SoundHound keep the history of searched songs, show the charts or popular songs, show a map of searched audio based on location (you pick the place on a map), and the ability to share your songs via social networks.

Audio genres and bands
Songza (iOS, Android) is an application that can not only find something for you to listen to based on your preferences, but on your mood and the type of activity you are doing. You can apply any type of activity for each day of the week and a certain time of the day. In addition to that, you can create playlists, take a look at what is currently popular in the app, and explore new music manually.

Rdio (iOS, Android) is a highly popular music app, allowing you to create playlists, add friends and follow music artists, get access to various music collections, charts and hot releases. The app recommends new music to pay attention to based on your current preferences. The free version has adds and a limit of 25 songs per day. However, Rdio announced an unlimited subscription to their service for only $3.99 per month (which is a lot cheaper than other similar services require).

8tracks playlist radio (iOS, Android) is an app that can even make you a local celebrity. Here is how it works – you log in, you create music playlists and you follow and get followed by other users. Each playlist has a name so you can find some that fit your mood/activity/current music cravings. It adds an element of social interaction which is also pretty cool.

Band of the Day (iOS, Android) is an app for finding new bands to listen to, as it is clearly understood by its name. This application offers you a new band to listen to each day. They also provide some info, tour dates and other data concerning the band. As soon as you launch it, you can see the recently featured bands as well and you get access to their songs to enjoy. The “Similar Bands” feature will help you to find new musicians to listen to based on the bands you like.

All the listed apps are pretty much different: some help you to find a song you are looking for and others will even help you to find company to go to local concerts with. We only have one question for you: why not both?