Premium music streaming services are currently taking the world by storm. The age of buying music on iTunes is now over. Rather than ask your friend to teach you how to pirate your music, you’re $9.99 a month away from listening to all of your favorite artists.

But which streaming service takes the top spot?

Pandora is the grandfather of the rest. Since 1982, Pandora has tried to give an individual the opportunity to customize their radio experience, converting over to internet when the internet started up.  But over the years, as technology has advanced, other streaming services have risen to join them in the music streaming revolution.

As of April 2013, according to an article on the streaming service, Pandora reached 70 million monthly users, 200 million total, and it continues to be the most reliable source for hearing some of your favorite music.

But the users want less reliability and more capability. Pandora only allows a person, even with their premium Pandora One, to skip songs, rather than choose specific songs. That’s where some other streaming services come in.

When Spotify came out, it changed the game. It had all the capabilities Pandora had and more, and you didn’t necessarily even need to have Premium. Once people took notice, site membership exploded (75 million active users, 20 million premium users). Rdio and Rhapsody came close to Spotify’s prominence, but with fewer songs and less popularity, it’s hard for them to keep up. But with increasing membership and improvements to be made, the two will soon be  tough competitors for Spotify.

Recently, music streaming services such as Tidal and Apple Music have tried to jump into the picture, but are, for the most part, flopping. Tidal charges the user a whopping $20 a month for a service very similar to the aforementioned ones. Apple Music is Apple’s attempt to stay alive in music streaming. As younger generations began pirating their music or using music streaming services, Apple saw a way to make more money. People see Apple as a reliable source for music, so perhaps their performance will get better in this market.  

If Mr. Wertz’s Period 5 AP Computer Science can be used as a focus group of sorts, we can conclude that Spotify is certainly top-dog. Of 28 students, 25 said they used Spotify as their source of music and their ideal music streaming service, while just one student cited Apple Music as the choice.