Music streaming service Spotify is rolling out improvements to its free music tier, including the new ability to listen to any song you want, and this follows the company granting Premium users access to lossless streams.
The company outlined three new ways ad-supported users can now access the specific song they want to listen to without shuffling: Pick & Play to choose any song from the interface, including your library; Search & Play to use the app’s search function; and Share & Play to listen to a Spotify song link shared by friends or artists.
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Free users can also listen to playlists or create their own and design custom artwork for them, as well as listen to podcasts.
Spotify Free is CNET’s favorite free music streaming service, and the ability to listen to the song you want gives it an instant advantage over services such as Pandora, which only let you shuffle.
As expected, there are still limitations to the free account — for instance you can only listen to one song at a time before the app starts shuffling, which means you also won’t be able to listen to whole albums. In addition, you are presumably still limited to six skips every hour, and the quality rate tops out at 160kbps.
Conversely, Premium users ($12 a month) can now listen to lossless music — at up to 24-bit/44kHz quality — and have access to features such as the AI DJ, audiobooks and the new messaging feature.
