It's not any trouble at all to find new music using your phone, these days. What a difference compared to just 10 years ago! Oh, how technology has changed. The creation of smartphones and mp3 players completely changed the music realm. Now you can search, create playlists, and play music all from your pocket thanks to the hundreds - or thousands - of music apps out there. Check out our list of the best iPhone apps for music discovery.
The best iPhone apps for music discovery
25 Jun 2021, by Rebecca MacLary
With the Napster music app, you can stream music on-demand, download music for offline playback, and create playlists of your favourite songs. Subscribe to Napster, the app for finding new songs today and gain access to over 60 million songs. To support the creative, vibrant musician community, Napster charges a monthly fee. There’s no commitment—cancel anytime on web or mobile
- Napster is ad free - listen to your favorite music without interruption
- Download unlimited songs and playlists right to your iPhone or iPad to play offline; listen anywhere, anytime
- Stream music with your account to hundreds of compatible devices
- Use the Apple Watch app to control and access your favourite music
- Find new music you love through similar listening tastes of fellow Napster users around the world with the global Listener Network technology
Vampr, the music discovery app for iPhone, is the number one social platform helping creatives and artists find people to collaborate with, create new music and monetize their work - an essential network that grows with you every step of your journey. With the Vampr app, you can:
- Find musicians, industry professionals and music lovers near you. Get your latest music news.
- Build your network, message your new contacts and collaborate with other inspiring artists
- Control - From Publishing to Pro with Distribution – get support you and help, make money from your tracks
The Hype Machine app is for music lovers. Hype Machine has been introducing people to breaking new artists since 2005. This iPhone app for music discovery tracks posts across hundreds of sites and brings them all together for an endless stream of new music. Listen, read posts, favorite tracks, and follow sites and friends to create your own custom music feed.
- Each week an unreleased album
- Listen to the best music first
- Create your own custom music feed
- Discover tracks and posts across hundreds of sites
Bandcamp is a music discovery app. The Bandcamp app lets you explore a vast catalog of music by artists from every corner of the globe, allows you to directly support the artists you love by buying their merch (and wishlisting albums & tracks for purchase at a later time), and gives you instant, unlimited streaming access to your Bandcamp purchases. You can now use the Bandcamp app to stream to your Chromecast-connected TV, smart speaker, or listening device!
- Search and discover music by artists
- Search and discover by genres
- Download your purchases or stream your music
- Get instant, unlimited mobile access to your Bandcamp music collection
For music lovers with any Apple iDevice, Wall Of Music is the first app that unites music navigation and discovery with a tactile, visual and auditory experience. Unlimited music access with Apple Music. 3 months trial. Cancel at any time. No Ads. A new way to listen, view your music and discover new hits!
- Unlimited listening from your own music library
- Over 55 million songs at your finger tips!
- Complete your music library at will with today's best albums and songs or with the suggestions appearing when you listen to an album.
- Search: Know what you want to listen to? Just search and hit play. - Single clic add to your music library.
BPM Supreme’s mobile app is built for DJs. In addition to features that correspond with BPM Supreme’s vast record pool library, this app offers tools that redefine the way DJs discover music. Listen and stream in HQ, find exclusive versions, get inspired with Curated Sets, create playlists, read the latest industry news, and add to your crate – anywhere, anywhere.
- Free Version provides access to browse and preview BPM Supreme’s massive audio library.
- Browse Top Downloads, New Releases, and Radio Charts - Find music in every genre, from today’s top hits to a vast collection of classics from each decade.
- Listen to an ever-expanding library of music anytime, anywhere - Shuffle, browse, and listen to audio on the go.
- Discover Exclusive Remixes, Edits, and Versions - Clean, dirty, radio edit, extended, intros, outros and more.
Spotify is one of the best and easiest ways to discover and listen to music on your iPhone. You can search for any album, track, or artist, and listen for free. Create and share your playlists, get personal recommendations, and play any album, artist, or playlist on shuffle. It's free to play any song but there will be ads unless you upgrade to Spotify Premium. The free version also does not allow you to perform certain functions. Some of the premium-only features include uninterrupted listening, the ability to download and listen to music offline, and a higher-quality sound. Free users can only skip five songs per hour and don't have a choice about listening to ads.
- Discover and listen to any artist, track, album, and playlist
- Create your own playlists
- Listen to other users' playlists
- Premium allows you to download and listen to music offline
- Free with in-app subscription for Spotify Premium
Boasting High Fidelity sound quality and HD music videos, this app is meant for the music fanatic. It also includes editorials by music journalists, artists, and other music experts to deliver high value to music lovers. The app also features an offline mode in which you can listen to albums, playlists, and other tracks that you have downloaded already. This offline mode works across 3 devices of your choosing. Create playlists and share with your friends via the app.
- High Fidelity sound
- HD music videos
- Curated editorials
- Offline mode
- Create playlists and share
SoundCloud is used and enjoyed by millions of people around the world. You will be able to use the app to discover new and trending music, listen to your fave songs and artists from different countries and genres, and connect with friends and your favorite artists to see what they listen to. Personalize your list by liking favorite tracks to listen to later, sign in with different social media login info or your email, and create playlists for workouts, parties, or your morning commute. You can pause, play, and skip tracks from the lock screen. Use Search to find your favorite artists and tracks, tap a heart to “like” a track; this will put it in our Collection, which will make it easy to listen to later.
- Listen offline
- Create playlists
- Connect with friends and artists
- Listen to music from majorly famous artists or obscure indie artists
- Free with in-app purchase to upgrade
Songbot is an app that can search every radio station on the planet for the song you want to listen to. Just type in the artist or song name you want and it will start to play. Alternatively, you can choose from a list of currently playing songs or pick a genre and hear a random song. There are no adds between stations, no subscription fees, and no hidden fees. The app is basically a giant jukebox. One more thing it can do is provide to you a playlist from your favorite station so you can find out what you just heard. Features include today's most played songs, the ability to find any song, and you can save any station, artist, or song as part of your favorites.
- Searches every radio station for the song you want
- Type in the artist or song name
- Listen to today's most popular songs
- View a station's song history
- Free iPhone app for music discovery
