Free Music Streaming: Key Tips

Many music lovers cannot or do not want to pay to subscribe to Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music, Tidal or other music streaming plans. Luckily, there are free alternatives.

1. Listen to music on YouTube

YouTube is not only a solid source of video guides, movie trailers, vlogs and home videos, it also hosts a huge number of music videos to suit almost all musical tastes. YouTube gives you the option of compiling your own playlists.

The downside: Unless you are willing to pay for YouTube Premium, popular music videos are accompanied by annoying advertising breaks. If you listen to the same playlists repeatedly, consider downloading them to your device using a YouTube download app.

2. Free versions of Spotify and other subscriptions

Many music streaming services offer a basic version of their subscription free of charge.

For example, Spotify, the most popular music streaming service in Switzerland, offers a free basic subscription. Not surprisingly, the functions are very limited compared to the paid version.

The free version of Spotify does not give you the option of saving songs to your phone in order to listen to them without using data. That is not a big problem if your mobile plan or prepaid bundle includes unlimited data in its flat rate because you can stream songs at no extra cost.

3. Tune in to online radio

A huge amount of radio broadcasts can be accessed over the Internet. In addition to conventional public and private radio broadcasters which host a variety of news programs, game shows, talk shows and music, there are also broadcasters which only broadcast music.

There are thousands of Internet radio broadcasters – both Swiss and foreign – which play music almost non-stop. Depending on the broadcaster, there may be occasional advertising or MC breaks.

In Switzerland, the SRG stations Radio Swiss Pop, Radio Swiss Classic and Radio Swiss Jazz are very popular. Swiss radio broadcaster NRJ Energy also offers more than radio stations on its website.

Some radio stations also let you stream recent broadcasts in addition to live broadcasts.

4. Use streaming portals like SoundCloud and hearthis.at

You can listen to any of a plethora of songs free of charge on portals like SoundCloud or hearthis.at. You can play songs on SoundCloud – albeit a limited list – without having to register or log in.

If you use hearthis, note that streaming is limited to a certain amount of data. Once you have reached the monthly limit, you cannot continue to stream music until the following month. The paid version of hearthis does not have the data limitation.

5. Listen to live concerts online

Some television broadcasters like SRF make recordings of live concert broadcasts available for streaming in their online archives.

6. More options: audiobooks and podcasts

It is not just music which can be streamed for free. Many free audiobooks and interesting podcasts are available online.

A large number of podcasts are created by private individuals and some have become very popular. But many radio stations make their broadcasts available online via podcasts.

More on this topic:
Music streaming comparison