What music ecosystem should my pre-teens use?

December 1, 2014 6:24 AM

Our two pre-teen children have been clamoring for more ways to listen to music, and they're both going to have personal wifi-only Android devices after Christmas. What music ecosystem should we set them up with (or encourage them to use)?

Snowflake family details: I'm most concerned (perhaps irrationally) about locking them in to the "wrong" system with purchases, and would also like shareability among the family. But (shockingly!) the kids' taste in music seems to be exclusively Katie Perry-esque pop, and they have no desire to listen their parents' music.

My own occasional recent music purchases have been of downloaded MP3's via Amazon, and I've recently been using Amazon Prime Music. (But it looks like there's no easy way to share the Amazon account among family members.) One of my kids has set up a station on Pandora, but she'd like to be able to download songs to listen to when she's not at home.

The ability of grandparents to "give" music via a Google Play or iTunes gift card would definitely be a plus, but is that even a thing anymore with all the streaming available?

posted by QuantumMeruit to Technology (10 answers total)

If they have Android devices, you could purchase them subscriptions to Google's "All Access" music service. It's 9.99/month and includes unlimited music streaming through the Play Music app on Android devices (maybe iOS too?) as well as the browser. You can also download music within the Play Music app on Android for offline listening as well. It also now includes a cross-subscription to the similar YouTube Music Key service, which allows ad-free streaming of music videos on YouTube as well as (I think) downloading music videos for offline viewing.

The only downside is there is no sharing the account between users - each child would need their own subscription.

IMO, it's better than purchasing music - kids' music preferences change quickly, and the ability to stream everything is so much better than having them purchase every new hit single/album and waste money on stuff they will only listen to for a month.
posted by trivia genius at 6:39 AM on December 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

Get them a family subscription to Spotify with two users, $14.99 a month. They'll be able to listen to 99% of all available music free, with no downloads. For the outliers, like Taylor Swift et al., who don't do Spotify, buy the MP3s from Amazon. You can then sync those tracks into their Spotify and bobsyeruncle.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:39 AM on December 1, 2014 [8 favorites]

If you're intent on purchasing music at the moment then don't be tot concerned about lock-in. By the time they're teens -- if not before -- they'll be clambering for a Spotify account (or another streamed music service). Purchasing may remain cheaper in the short term, but streaming will definitely hold much more appeal to them as they get older (unless the industry gets turned on its head again in that time).
posted by puffmoike at 6:46 AM on December 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

What I regret not doing in a similar situation is setting up a family account for Google Play. You can be logged into any Android device under multiple accounts, so your kids can be logged in as kid1@gmail and family@gmail without any problem. Then on the family account, you buy the All Access service that Trivia Genius mentioned, and both kids (and you!) can have access to it. You can also upload any purchased or ripped music (up to 20k songs for free, I think) so that everyone has access to that, as well.

If the kids decide they want to buy specific songs or whatever, they can do so on their own Google accounts, and start accumulating a library that way. In the event that they prefer a different platform in a couple years, it's easy to click download free and purchased music and pull down everything they've purchased--Google seems to be the easiest system to extract yourself from, in my experience.
posted by MeghanC at 6:51 AM on December 1, 2014

I resisted streaming services for a while, and really, there is nothing better than Spotify. For the random gaps--e.g., Taylor Swift--buy the album (used, on eBay for a penny, plus shipping) and rip it to the relevant devices. Otherwise, the catalogue is great, and to have (more or less) all the music in the world available to you is amazing.

You can download tracks to the device (if you have the paid account), so they can listen while on the go.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 6:59 AM on December 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

Jumping back in to respond to MeghanC - yes, it's possible to be signed into the same gmail account on multiple devices. The problem is that, at least the last time I checked, Google's All Access service only allows one music stream at a time. If child 1 is listening to something and child 2 starts listening, child 1 gets cut off. This is also true if listening to previously downloaded music and still connected to wifi - the app still reports that music is being played and cuts off the other active stream.

If that restriction has been lifted, it's news to me, but could solve the shareability problem too.
posted by trivia genius at 7:09 AM on December 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

Spotify.

I know it lets me add my own songs from my harddrive to my Spotify playlists on the PC app but I'm not sure if this feature is available on the Android app.
posted by Jacqueline at 7:43 AM on December 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

Oh, man, Trivia Genius, you're entirely right. My apologies! And thank you for the clarification--I no longer feel stupid for not doing that, since it doesn't work.
posted by MeghanC at 8:32 AM on December 1, 2014

Spotify is really easy to use, cheap, and has basically everything on it, even really obscure indie stuff. There have been a few notable holdouts (mostly classic rock-era bands). The Kinks catalog magically showed up there recently though! I know some artists aren't thrilled with the payment model, but I think maybe that will improve over time.

I stream to my Sonos system at home and use the Spotify app on my phone for playing along with stuff on my electronic drum kit. I have a huge CD collection but I really take those out very rarely at this point. I have exactly zero music in any sort of downloaded format. Having a giant hard drive full of ripped CDs or downloaded tracks feels like a clumsy old interim solution. Streaming is where it's at!
posted by freecellwizard at 8:35 AM on December 1, 2014

One other thing about Spotify: they can sync their favorite playlists and songs to their phones so they'll have music even without WiFi.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:25 PM on December 1, 2014