10 Legit Music Streaming Sites in 2022

We want music in our lives. We want some melody, some rhythm, and beautiful sounds to please our ears and warm our hearts. Music is such a part of us that we have to have it.

Music sites offer you streaming or downloading services, or both. The real attraction is, of course, accessing free music. Reliable and legit music sites require you to pay. They have huge music collections of up to 70 million songs. Some of these you can download and play even when offline.

llegal Music Sites are Risky

Why buy what you can get for free, you ask?

• Consider that artists make their music to earn an income from it. Downloading it from illegal sites for free is pretty much stealing from the artists.
• You run the risk of also downloading malware, viruses and other malicious software that could harm your computer along with the “free” music. Please beware.
• You could ignorantly download spyware that collects your personal data. Identity theft hackers are known to collect login credentials for social media and emails from some of these suspicious sites.
  
  
• You could fall victim to financial fraud. Some music sites have tons complaints that once payment details are filled in, they cannot be removed. The subscriber keeps getting monthly deductions that he/she cannot stop. Give your payment details only to genuine music sites and save yourself the pain of having to re-arrange your accounts just to keep one bad website out!
  
  
• Penalties for illegal downloads are hefty in Germany and the United States of America. Copyright laws indicate that it is illegal to download unauthorized versions of copyrighted music from a file-sharing service, to copy music using stream-ripping software or mobile apps. Illegal downloads are a violation of copyright laws and could land you in trouble with the law. And why would you want your name on a criminal record over something like music piracy?

How to Recognize Illegal Music Sites

• There is no such thing as a free lunch. Music sites have to make money in one way or another to pay the artists. This can be with advertisements like Youtube or by charging you a subscription fee.
  
  
• Always read the site reviews. Check Google, Trustpilot, Sitejabber, for example. Do NOT trust reviews listed on the site itself. These can be manipulated. Read our article on How to Recognize Fake Reviews.
  
  
• Finally, you can check the website’s trust score, reviews, and more for free at Scamadviser.com. Just copy the link to the website in question and paste it on the website search bar. It will be analyzed on 40 data points and results displayed for you to see.
  Enjoy music streaming while you work online. But do it safely and legally on the legit music sites.

“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”

― Bob Marley

You will feel the pain of losing money when you use suspicious scam sites!

10 Legit Music Streaming Sites

These are music sites that pay the artists for music streaming or downloading. Some like YouTube give the artists exclusive control of what is made available on the music site.

They pay royalties to artists for using their music and distributing it to consumers. They are legal and safe to use. Here are a few examples:

Free Music Sites

Paid Music Sites

YouTube

YouTube is an American online video sharing and social media platform owned by Google. It is the second most visited website, right after Google itself. YouTube has more than one billion monthly users who collectively watch more than one billion hours of videos each day. As of May 2019, videos were being uploaded at a rate of more than 500 hours of content per minute. YouTube’s chief business officer Robert Kyncl said that music accounts for 25 percent of YouTube watch time globally.

Soundcloud

SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform and music sharing website based in Berlin, Germany that was founded in 2007. SoundCloud enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio, as well as a digital signal processor enabling listeners to stream audio. Artist-wise, there are over 30 million creators in 190 countries, with over 265 million tracks uploaded to the platform, as of March 2021. SoundCloud offers both free and paid memberships on the platform, available for mobile, desktop and Xbox devices.

Boomplay Music

Boomplay Music is a media streaming and download service developed by Transsnet Music Limited.  Boomplay has a freemium and subscription-based service; basic features are free with advertisements or limitations, while additional features, such as download for offline play and ad-free listening are offered via paid subscriptions. The service is currently available for Web, Android and iOS use. Boomplay Music primarily focuses on African local and urban music content.

Audiomack

Audiomack is an on-demand music streaming and audio discovery platform that allows artists and creators to upload limitless music and podcasts for listeners through its mobile apps and website. Offline playback is free to all users and not blocked by a paywall. Users and artists can upload their music to the service through its website. Audiomack uses a combination of audio fingerprinting, DMCA takedown requests, and manual curation to police unauthorized sharing. Audiomack does not limit or charge creators for storing content on its service.

Deezer

Deezer is a French online music streaming service. It allows users to listen to music content from record labels, including Universal Music Group, Sony Music and Warner Music Group as well as podcasts on various devices online or offline. The service is available for Web, Android, iOS, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry OS, Windows, and MacOS.

Apple Music

Apple Music is a music and video streaming service developed by Apple Inc. Users select music to stream to their device on-demand, or they can listen to existing playlists. The service also includes the Internet radio stations Apple Music 1, Apple Music Hits, and Apple Music Country, which broadcast live to over 200 countries 24 hours a day. The Apple Music Radio service is free for all users, even without an Apple Music subscription. Apple Music subscribers can create a profile to share their music with friends and follow other users to view the music they're listening to on a regular basis.[4] Apple Music's use of iCloud, which matches a users' songs to those found on the service, allows users to combine their iTunes music library with their Apple Music library and listen to their music all in one place. 

YouTube Music

YouTube Music is a music streaming service developed by YouTube, a subsidiary of Google. It provides a tailored interface for the service, oriented towards music streaming, allowing users to browse through songs and music videos on YouTube based on genres, playlists, and recommendations. The service also offers a premium tier, which enables ad-free playback audio-only background playback and downloading songs for offline playback.

Spotify

Spotify is the world's largest music streaming service provider. Spotify offers digital copyright restricted recorded music and podcasts, including more than 70 million songs, from record labels and media companies. As a freemium service, basic features are free with advertisements and limited control, while additional features, such as offline listening and commercial-free listening, are offered via paid subscriptions. Users can search for music based on artist, album, or genre, and can create, edit, and share playlists.

Tidal

Tidal is a subscription-based music, podcast and video streaming service that offers audio and music videos. With distribution agreements with all three major record labels and many independent labels, Tidal claims to provide access to more than 70 million tracks and 250,000 music videos. It offers two levels of service: Tidal HiFi (up to CD quality – FLAC-based 16-bit/44.1 kHz) and Tidal HiFi Plus (up to MQA – typically lossy 24-bit/96 kHz). Tidal claims to pay the highest percentage of royalties to music artists and songwriters within the music streaming market. A key selling point for Tidal as compared with other streaming services such as Spotify and Pandora Radio is the exclusive content already available and expected for the future from the current artists who co-own the company, as well as others. 

Amazon Music

Amazon Music (previously Amazon MP3) is a music streaming platform and online music store operated by Amazon. In addition to digital purchases, Amazon Music also serves streaming music. Amazon Music's streaming music catalogue is accessible from the Amazon.com web player or from player apps for multiple platforms including macOS, iOS, Windows, Android, FireOS, Alexa devices, and some automobiles and smart TVs. To download purchased music, Amazon offers either the Amazon Music player (which runs on Windows 7 or later and Mac OS X 10.9 and later) or a zip file of MP3s downloaded from Amazon's web player.

Sources: Wikipedia