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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
Entertainment
Stephen Hurrell

The free Spotify alternatives for your streaming music

Spotify has been the centre of controversy in recent weeks after artists including Neil Young pulled their music from the streaming service.

Young and other musicians are concerned over then Joe Rogan podcast, one of Spotify's biggest podcasts, accusing it of promoting anti-vaccination views.

On January 24 when musician Neil Young asked to have his music removed because of concerns that Rogan was promoting scepticism about the Covid-19 vaccines.

Other artists followed suit, including Joni Mitchell and Roxane Gay.

The spotlight of scrutiny grew only stronger when a video compilation emerged last week showing Mr Rogan repeatedly using racial slurs. Grammy-winning artist India.Arie posted it on her Instagram, using the hashtag #DeleteSpotify.

Spotify has previously said that it would soon add a warning to all podcasts that discuss Covid-19, directing listeners to factual, up-to-date information from scientists and public health experts.

Spotify is not the only music streaming service and if you are looking for an alternative there are some options you can try free.

Amazon Music

Amazon Music Unlimited is available as part of an Amazon Prime subscription.

If you do not have a Prime subscription and you do not want one, even via the free trial, then you can sign up to an individual free trial for Amazon Music Unlimited that gives you four months of access entirely free. It will then become £9.99 for every month after.

For only £3.99 a month you can get the single device plan, which limits you to using Amazon Music from a single device.

It is £14.99 for a family plan that allows up to six accounts.

Amazon Music Unlimited has access to over 75 million songs and podcasts on the platform.

Apple Music

Like Amazon, Apple also says it has over 75 million songs available on the Apple Music service.

Apple Music is big on themed playlists and has some extras such as radio stations and interviews with artists all included in the plan. It is probably the biggest rival to Spotify and it also has a free trial in the form of one month. It is then £9.99 per month.

Tidal Music

Tidal describes itself as 'high fidelity' music streaming. It goes one better than Amazon and Apple because it says it has 80 million songs in its library.

The ad-free service is £9.99 per month while a Hifi Plus option is £19.99 and adds higher sound quality and 10% of your money goes directly to artist payouts.

You can get a free trial here.

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