The Ultimate Guide to Streaming Music Apps (Including Podcasts)

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“You turn into what you tune in to.”

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I first saw this quote on a church sign of all places. As someone who grew up in the church, I usually find these pithy sayings to be less than helpful. But this one gave me pause.

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When we consider all the voices that are vying for our attention, music can be a powerful influence.

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While we should have written about streaming music apps a while ago, here it goes.

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Quick Observation: Explicit Content is Everywhere

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Marilyn Manson said, “Music is the strongest from of magic” (you don’t have to like him – it’s just a powerful quote).

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We were shocked how many of the most popular songs have explicit content. On YouTube Music, 73 of the Top 100 Songs in the United States had the little “E” for explicit next to their titles.

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As you’ll see in our streaming music app review below, even with the explicit filter on, most users can still see album covers and song titles. For example, in Spotify, with the “Allow explicit content” toggled off, a search for “sex” showed the podcasts below (yes, there are podcasts on Spotify!). And erasing recent searches is too easy (read on).

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