Songza – Streaming Music app with curated playlists, no subscriptions necessary
by Toni McQuilken
Sep 11, 2012 11:26 AM –
Install
Songza is a streaming music app similar to a powerhouse of juggernauts in the space; Pandora, Slacker, Spotify to name a few. Yet it differentiates with its ‘Music Concierge’ feature that attempts to find the right music for your moments, plus content is curated by activity, genre, decade, & mood.
Price: Free
Tested on: Samsung Galaxy S3
Content Rating: Medium Maturity
Pros & Cons:
Pros
- A great little radio replacement service!
- A wide range of genres, moods, etc. to choose from!
- It’s free!
Cons
- You can’t play a specific artist.
Features:
Like quite a few other streaming music services, Songza allows you to play a wide range of music, using an Internet connection so you don’t have to purchase or store the music on your actual device. It has some unique features, though, that set it apart from the crowd.
First is the discovery. Instead of choosing a song or artist, you choose a category like popular songs. Or, you can go through the concierge, which allows you to pick things like music a record store clerk would like, or workout songs, or the billboard top songs. You can also access celebrity playlists – as of this review, there are several up associated with the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. From there, you just listen.
You can skip songs, but you only get so many skips in an hour (I believe you can skip a song up to six times an hour) so it’s really more like a radio station than listening to an iPod. But that’s no different from a lot of other streaming services, so it wasn’t surprising. Also, the app is completely free. You don’t pay a subscription, there’s not a premium account, it’s free, though it’s ad-supported. But in exchange for the ads that are constantly scrolling at the bottom of the page, you get unlimited listening as well – no hitting the free app song limits.
Overall, I was impressed with the song selection, and I thought the sound quality was pretty good. I listened to it on the Galaxy S3′s speakers, and it was pretty crisp and clear. The variety of music was interesting, and I heard some songs I might not have come across (I tend to listen to music I own on a device, rather than stream) so it was a nice experience. I also appreciated the sleep timer, so you could set it to automatically shut down after a set period of time.
I don’t particularly want to pay a fee to subscribe to some of the other popular services, so this was a really nice, solid alternative that I felt gave me a good feature set for what it was.
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Songza Concierge
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Songza Pop Music
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Songza Genres
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Songza Playing
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Songza Playlist
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Songza Sleep Timer
Usefulness:
If you’re looking for a free alternative to other popular streaming services, this is worth checking out. I found it to have a good variety of high-quality songs, and some interesting playlists to keep me coming back.
Ease of Use:
I had no problems navigating the UI, or figuring out how to play a set of songs. It’s all well-labeled, and a little cheeky, which just adds to the amusement.
Frequently Used:
You’ll use this app every day, when you’re driving in the car, at work, on commute, or anywhere else where you want to stream music.
Interface:
As I said, it’s well thought out, and I found it very intuitive to use. I was able to get up and playing songs shortly after downloading the app, and I never had a problem figuring out how to find something.