We’ve become so accustomed to Spotify, which being a European company, has dominated music streaming in England, but dominate no more. Presenting Rdio
free; perfect for your undisrupted party playlists.
An American import, Rdio has been running since 2010 and launched in the UK in 2012. It seems it’s ad free model was slow to adoption and in January 2013 they announced they would be offering 6 months free streaming which on the face of it would allow them to compete with Spotify.
In my opinion, aesthetically, Rdio is so much cleaner and prettier than Spotify and also easier to use. Furthermore a recent change in the way stations work has improved discovery and brings Rdio on par to Spotify in that sense.
However the 6 months free offer only applies to web and desktop apps but you can trial the mobile versions on phones and tablets for 14 days. Furthermore the free use is metered. A meter at the top of your profile page will keep you updated on how much free music you have remaining each month. Due to restrictions with Rdio’s licensing deals they are unable to reveal just how much free air play you get monthly, but with that said I haven’t ran into any problems with any limits as of yet.
I’m certainly a fan. It’s definitely worth the try and did i mention, it’s FREE! Not only this, but best of all it is free from annoying adverts disrupting your listening pleasure. My only qualms with it is that there’s no Little Dragon music on there but with a library of millions of song the odd artist missing here and there shouldn’t go amiss. If you sign up now then you should be able to extract musical enjoyment for most of the academic year.
