Skip to main content

3 underground alternatives to Spotify and Apple Music for music lovers

When it comes to music apps, most of the talk is about the competition between Spotify and Apple Music. While these are great choices for most mainstream music, they’re far from the only quality options available. For music lovers looking for something more, these three applications can introduce you to new music, new artists and the stories behind it all.

In this video, find out all about these music applications for everything from streaming the hottest mixtapes, to discovering fresh sounds, and even getting music news to read while you stream. After downloading these hidden gems, you won’t be able to leave your headphones behind ever again.

Editors' Recommendations

Joshua Smith
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Just another not so ordinary kid living this thing we like to call life.
Spotify is making it even easier to judge your friends’ musical tastes
Spotify logo on a phone.

An unreleased feature on Spotify, called “Tastebuds” is designed to let you discover new music through your friends’ lists by curating a playlist based on your and your friends’ similar tastes in music. 

Jane Manchun Wong, an app researcher who unlocks new features before they launch, tweeted screenshots of the unreleased Tastebuds feature on Wednesday, December 18. Based on Wong’s screenshot, the Tastebuds tab would be located in Spotify’s main navigation. The feature’s description says, “Now you can discover music through friends whose taste you trust.”

Read more
Amazon Music now has an app for Apple TV. Here’s how to use it
Amazon Music on Apple TV.

Listening to music on your TV? Why not? According to a recent survey by YouGov, more than 40% of people who own a smart TV want to use it to listen to music. Perhaps that's in part why Amazon chose to launch its first music app for Apple TV.

Starting Thursday, October 10, you can download the Amazon Music app from the App Store for Apple TV -- it's compatible with Apple TV 4K and Apple TV HD running tvOS 12.0 and later. If you live in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Mexico, Japan, or India, all you need is a Prime Music or an Amazon Music Unlimited account to start streaming.

Read more
Apple Music takes a peek at what people are Shazaming for new weekly playlist
apple music shazam discovery playlist

Apple Music and Spotify. They’re the music streaming titans battling it out for supremacy around the world, and so far, Spotify is in the lead. One of the features that make Spotify so popular is its constantly updated playlists. They're the key new music discovery on the service and its Discover Weekly playlist is one of the biggest. It's likely the inspiration behind Apple Music's latest feature, a new chart/playlist called Shazam Discovery Top 50, the first of its kind on Apple Music that uses the company's Shazam acquisition.

It's not entirely clear just how the Shazam app and its massive group of users are contributing to the list, which is a global ranking of 50 artists that are "on the move and trending." This could be the biggest names in music, but we also get the sense it will tend to favor up-and-coming artists. “Shazam’s proprietary algorithms [will offer] a unique predictive view on rising artists and reacting tracks to Apple Music subscribers,” Apple told Variety. The chart will be updated every Tuesday to reflect the latest changes in rank.

Read more