Soundcloud
On SoundCloud, a free music sharing app, senior Gracie Guignon can listen to anything from Lorde to senior Derek Steiert’s home recordings.
The app encourages all musicians to upload their recordings and remixes to their own profile for other users to like and share. And in Guignon’s case, this is perfect for the kind of music she prefers to listen to.
“I’ve liked mainly remixes, because that’s what I love to listen to,” Guignon said. “There are basically endless amounts of remixes for one song that I’d be able to scroll through by people that I wouldn’t normally have heard of.”
Guigon currently has 44 followers on SoundCloud. In other words, those 44 people are able to see the remixes and songs that she likes to listen to such as “The Anthem” (Flume Remix), or Coldplay’s “Midnight” (Kygo Remix).
With songs such as Habits by “Tove Low” and “Rather Be” by Clean Bandit on top charts, it seems like dance music is on the rise. So it would be fitting that, instead of having to pay to listen to these songs, there would be a way to not only get these songs for free, but also without ads.
SoundCloud saw this growing trend, and capitalized at the right moment. According to Forbes.com, the number of SoundCloud accounts in the last year have skyrocketed, growing by over 70,000 users a day. At that rate, the app could hit 55 million users by year’s end.
Yet, the one complaint with SoundCloud continues to be that it is merely an app that allows its’ users to delve into new remixes and artists, but not to simply listen to classic songs that people listen to on a daily basis.
“Some songs aren’t on there that I want to listen to,” Guignon said. “Sometimes there’s only a remix, and you can’t find the original depending on the song.”
Spotify
Junior Charlie Jensen’s music taste ranges from a little bit of jazz to a lot of country. This provides a problem when he’s buying songs on iTunes: it’s not free.
If Jensen wanted to listen to “Take Five,” a jazz song by Dave Brubeck, on iTunes while doing homework, he would have to spend $1.29 on that one song. Next, after doing some homework, if Jensen wanted to listen to “Fly Over States,” a country song by Jason Aldean, he would have to spend yet another $1.29. In ten quick minutes, Jensen just spent approximately two and a half dollars on two songs.
Spotify, an increasingly popular app, provides a solution: instead of paying over a dollar for two songs with iTunes, Jensen could have listened to all of Dave Brubeck and Jason Aldean’s songs for free on Spotify. This is exactly why Jensen loves Spotify.
“I get to listen to literally anything I want to for free, really whenever I want,” Jensen said. “I mean I could have a full album of any country singer in front of me, without paying for it.”
According to Forbes.com, Itunes is losing business because of Spotify. In the last year, Spotify has gained 66 percent more paying customers, altogether totaling over ten million. Also, iTunes has recently bought the “Dre Beats” company for $3.2 billion, which possesses a free music app, similar to Spotify. It is speculated that Apples feels the strains of its business going to Spotify, and feels that it must catch up. It’s clear that Spotify is no longer an unnoticed app. It’s something that millions of people, like Jensen, now prefer over iTunes.
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