The way we listen to and share music has changed drastically throughout the past 20 years. Although some people refuse to use modern music technology to listen to and share music, there are many benefits long-time music lovers should consider. Sites such as Soundcloud, Spotify, Pandora and live radio streams help lessen the need for music privacy and make it easy to access music anywhere.

Soundcloud

Soundcloud is a new tool that can be used for the veteran music lover. There are two main ways to use Soundcloud:

• Follow vets that are still making music like Green Day and No Doubt.
• Follow local oldies radio stations, major record labels and magazines like Rolling Stone.

Once you create an account and choose to follow groups, artists, media and labels, the software will create a customized stream of music updates from the users you follow.

Users post new releases, hour-long live performances or radio shows, which creates an eclectic mix of music to enjoy. There are also tools that enable you to share music you like on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Google + or email.

If you’re a musician, user-friendly Soundcloud makes it easy to upload and share your own music in a WAVE, AIFF, FLAC, MP2, MP3, OGG, AAC, AMR or WMA file.

Spotify

Spotify has quickly grown in popularity in the United States. There is a free and paid-for membership option. Essentially, Spotify eliminates the need to buy new music- it has most new music available to listen to for a monthly paid membership or a limited version of the collection available for free. Spotify allows you to search for artists and add them to personalized playlists. You can also create radio stations that take artists you like and play other similar music, or you can use one of Spotify’s premade playlists. With a paid subscription, Spotify offers access to the smartphone app, which allows a user to access their music anywhere from their phone. It’s also relatively easy for new artists to be discovered on Spotify, with real Spotify promotion services available to help those looking for a boost.

Pandora

Pandora is an internet radio station that creates radio stations based on a similar artists to a chosen musician. Online radio is defined as “a growing audio service offered by and transmitted through the Internet. It streams media like traditional broadcast radio.” If you love Chopin, you can create an internet radio station using live audio streaming technology offered at Agora.io or similar websites. You can like or dislike song selections so the station can better tailor the music to fit your taste. This is perfect for people who binge on music genres, who one day may be into ’70s rock, and then a week later be all about blues. Pandora offers a wider music selection than Spotify, but does not offer as many listening freedoms, you can’t download the music on Pandora. Like Spotify, Pandora offers a smartphone app that can be accessed anywhere.

Radio Streams

If you have a local radio station you love, the internet is here to save you. Many local radio stations offer live streams on their websites or through their corporate owner and can potentially be used in retail stores and commercial businesses, with websites like Cloud Cover Music delving into this further. For example, BBC radio and clear channel communications broadcasting company provide live listening to some of their many radio stations. Sirius XM offers what seems like endless options for music and allows subscribers to listen online.