Hindi Music Catalogue — A summary
Disclaimer: This and the articles that follow are an attempt at understanding the music tech industry from a Product perspective. We do not claim to be experts in the field. All we claim is to be students of music tech. We hope this series will help others understand music tech and hopefully appreciate the industry.
TL;DR: For anyone abroad with access to Gaana and Apple Music, they seem like the best overall choices. For Indians, Gaana and Google Play Music are the best overall options for Android users while replacing Apple for Google Play for iOS users.
Boy, was this fun! More than 2 weeks of exploring and understanding Music Catalogues. Newfound respect for Apple Music. Surprised by Pandora. Love for Soundcloud. Appreciation for the growth of Google Play Music and hope for betterment of Spotify.
There’s a lot that went unnoticed too. Hungama is a giant in the Indian space and has a decent sized collection of Hindi Music. They have some nice radios too. However, it fells a little short in our survey of what apps people use to listen to music. This is why I did not write a full article in it.
Consider these summary articles as concluding pieces with some extra information about other players in the market.
So I try to bring about a structure in the articles I write to make it easy to skim through. I’ll try the same here.
I will mention a few traits of people looking for music and then club the platforms into best, good and bad for that feature.
With that out of the way, here goes:
Indie Music
For Indie lovers, Soundcloud is God. They should also check out Bandcamp and artist aloud (from the Hungama Digital Media Group). YouTube gets an obvious mention here.
You cannot go wrong looking for Indie music with Saavn, Apple Music and Spotify.
I would not bet my money on finding all the good Indie tunes on the other platforms.
New Music
Saavn & Gaana are the obvious choices here.
Apple Music and Wynk do a fairly nice job too.
Discovering Music
Spotify could win this for English Music, in my opinion, oh well.
Google Play Music radios are on point for me. But then they have my YouTube history.
Saavn and Gaana are very close seconds with Apple music doing a fairly decent job as well.
Worth Paying
I’m strictly writing this for Hindi Music.
I’ll go with Google Play Music or Saavn at 99/-. Saavn accepting Paytm is a big deal for me.
Gaana is a close second of course (Interestingly also at 99/- and accepts Paytm).
Apple music should be the choice to go to for iOS users. Though they are the only ones charging in 3 digits even on their lowest (non-student) plan.
Overall
I think with Gaana, the ad-clad music is bearable and the choice to listen to a particular track is available. This makes me want to keep using Gaana but it doesn’t make me want to pay for it.
Google Play Music and Saavn force me to pay with only radios and heavy-ads respectively. And with Apple Music, you pay upfront.
Wynk is still commendable for Airtel users who are looking for a lightweight mobile only experience.
Soundcloud will always be loved for it’s support for Indie Music but cannot be my daily driver.
Spotify will be the paid app to go for once they turn their focus to India. Pandora coming to India seems far fetched as it won’t be easy for them to use the music genome project directly in the Indian Music scene.
This is the ninth (and final) post in this series. Find the list here. Please share your feedback (Hopefully constructive) with me. Engage with me on my Twitter. Find me on LinkedIn.
It’s an exciting time to be a Hindi Music lover!
Also check out the English Music Catalogue Series by Clinton DSouza!
We’ll be starting two new series of articles between the two of us. So, stay tuned and keep following us on Medium and our website.
Signing off!
