Listening to music from CDs and record players is no longer as popular as it once was. Nowadays a large part of the Netherlands listens to music via the internet. For a fixed monthly fee there is access to a music library with millions of songs! Which streaming service is best for you?
Spotify
• www.spotify.com/nl
• Free with ads and
limits.
• Monthly subscription: Premium €10 for 1 account or €15 for a Premium for Family account with up to 6 family members (must live in the same house). With a KPN subscription you pay €1 per month less.
• Trial: 30 days free.
• Payment: with iDEAL, credit card, PayPal or Spotify vouchers.
• App available for: iOS,
Android, Mac OS, Windows.
• Web player: Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera.
Spotify has a music library of 35 million songs and is quite easy to use. Although recent updates to the app sometimes make things less intuitive. Spotify gives you the opportunity to easily share your music preferences with friends and acquaintances on Facebook and have lyrics displayed with music. With handy apps that work together with Spotify, you can get more out of your music.
Apple Music
• www.apple.com/music
• Monthly subscription: €10 for 1 account or €15 for a Family account with up to 6 family members (must live in the same house).
• Trial: 90 days free.
• Pay by credit card, PayPal, iTunes gift card.
• App available for: iOS,
Mac OS, Android, Windows,
ChromeOS.
In addition to a music library of 50 million songs, Apple Music has a number of special features, such as the live radio station Beats 1. The Connect function offers a social dimension to music fans: you get access to the personal blogs
of artists. Apple Music has a relatively long 90-day free trial, but isn’t after that
free to use.
Deezer
• www.deezer.com
• Free with ads.
• Monthly subscription: €10 for 1 account or €15 for a Family account with up to 6 family members (must live at the same address). With a T-Mobile subscription you pay €7 per month for the Deezer subscription with 1 account,
but without the option to cancel in the meantime.
• Trial: 30 days free.
• Pay with iDEAL, credit card, PayPal or Deezer gift card
• Only works with a web player available for: iOS, Android, Mac OS, Windows, Windows mobile.
In addition to an extensive song library with some 55 million songs, Deezer also has 30,000 radio channels to choose from. The free version has the advantage that relatively little advertising can be heard, but after a year it is limited to two hours of free listening per month.
Google Play Music
• https://play.google.com/music/listen
• Free to listen to your own music.
• Monthly subscription: €10 for 1 account or €15 for a Family account with up to 6 family members (must live in the same house).
• Trial: 30 days free.
• Pay with credit card or Google Play balance.
• App available for: iOS and Android or via the web player.
Google Play Music has about 40 million songs, but it is especially notable for the Music Locker. That’s your own cloud space in which you can upload 50,000 music tracks, so that you can listen to them anywhere. For Google Play Music you need a Google account, you can’t listen to music from the library for free.
Tidal
• https://tidal.com/
• Monthly subscription: €10 for 1
account (standard quality), €20 for 1 account (high quality) or €15 for a Family account with up to 5 family members (must live in the same house).
• Trial: 30 days free.
• Pay by credit card or PayPal.
• App available for: iOS, MacOS, Android, Windows.
In addition to 60 million songs, Tidal offers the highest quality music: FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec). Where other services stream music in MP3 quality (with loss of sound quality), this is not the case with FLAC. You will also find more than 200,000 music videos. You pay €10 more for this.
