New and upstarting musicians sometimes don’t know how to get started releasing their music so that they can test the water when it comes to their sound. In today’s digitally dominated world, it’s imperative that new musicians make use of streaming platforms in order to release their music and help with their audience growth. Additionally, by making your music accessible, you’ll also increase the chances of being discovered and getting additional bookings. That being said, there are a variety of music streaming apps to consider.
SoundCloud is one of the streaming applications that are very friendly toward new musicians and allows just about anyone to upload an original track to their profile in order to share it with the world. However, artists who are serious about making a career out of their music should seriously consider investigating both Spotify and Apple Music for tracks in the world of streaming.
While a handful of other streaming apps in addition to SoundCloud offer niche services, Apple Music and Spotify have the majority market share by a long shot, making them the cream of the crop when it comes to music streaming services. The following is a comparison between the two.
Getting Your Music Out There
If you’re a musician looking to get their music out there, it’s inevitable that you start to utilize technology as a tool and a part of your growth strategy. Technology has made it so much easier for us to connect with one another as human beings and as artists. So, learning how to upload music to Spotify or another streaming service will only take a few minutes especially if you decide to take advantage of a distribution service.
Distribution services simplify the entire music release process so you can focus on your art as a musician.
Taking a Look at Spotify
Jumping right into the comparison, we’ll start by looking fairly in-depth at Spotify. Spotify offers users over 80 million unique tracks to stream, an extensive music library. Spotify also has a curated library of podcasts and audiobooks that users can choose to stream instead. This is one of the main differentiators that Spotify offers as a music streaming platform because so many of its competitors are solely focused on providing a music streaming service.
Apple Music, for example, doesn’t host any podcasts on its platform, and instead, Apple has an entirely different application for streaming podcasts. Whether this is a good or bad thing, just depends on how users prefer to organize their listening habits. Some people enjoy having everything centralized, while others want a specific platform for a specific type of audio listening.
Sound quality is often an important topic of discussion when it comes to music streaming. While Spotify offers solid quality, the company had been discussing a new version of Spotify that would introduce a higher tier for an even more advanced listening experience. Though, there’s been no true follow-up on this since early-mid 2022.
Another advantage that Spotify boasts is its free listening tier, which allows users to enjoy the service as long as they don’t mind ads here and there.
How Apple Music Compares
Regarding pricing, at least beyond Spotify’s free tier, the two music streaming giants essentially offer the same pricing for the same tiers, though Apple Music is a tiny bit more expensive.
That being said, Apple Music boasts an even bigger library of over 100 million unique tracks. So if you’re looking for music variety, Apple Music might be the way to go. This is also the case if you’re a true audiophile who really wants to listen at the highest possible quality.
Stand out Differences
The two music-streaming behemoths are very similar. Much of their music libraries overlap, and neither really offers any exclusive content by artists that can’t be found anywhere else. So what are the main differences?
Apple Music has slightly better sound quality and a larger music library, while Spotify offers users additional content formats like podcasts and audiobooks. Additionally, Spotify’s listening algorithm and suggestion formula are top-tier, whereas Apple Music still has a ways to go.
Utilizing Both
What does all of this mean for the artist though? The answer to the title question of this piece is honestly both. As a musician, you want your music to be heard by as many people as possible. This means making your tracks available on Spotify and Apple Music both.
These are by far the two largest music streaming services in use today, and any artist who wants to be discovered needs to be utilizing both.
A few Final Thoughts
Being a musician is no easy task; finding your following is just as difficult as growing it. Use the tools available, like music distribution services, to make uploading your tracks to Spotify and Apple Music as easy as pie. That way, you can focus on what really matters: your art.
