8tracks Internet Radio Review - PCMag

8tracks Internet Radio returns to the streaming music country aft coming to an extremity successful December 2019. This euphony level puts you successful the DJ booth, giving you an expansive, curated euphony catalog arsenic good arsenic easy-to-use tools to make and stock playlists. The work besides incorporates societal elements that fto you permission comments, complaint playlists, travel users, and favourite tracks you enjoy. That said, 8tracks feels similar it's from different time—aside from its DJ-inspired presentation, the work offers a bare-bones listening experience, particularly erstwhile compared with Editors' Choice picks Apple Music, LiveOne, Sirius XM Internet Radio, Spotify, and Tidal.

(Credit: BackBeat Inc.)

DJ Your Way...With Limitations

Let’s get 1 happening retired of the way: 8tracks is not an on-demand streaming euphony service, careless of whether you’re a escaped idiosyncratic oregon paid subscriber. Using 8tracks, you simply perceive to its galore curated playlists. The work tries to mitigate this omission by offering YouTube links wrong the playlists, truthful you tin perceive to songs "on demand" successful a roundabout fashion. However, nary of these links worked. Prior to the services’ 2019 closure, 8tracks leveraged Spotify’s catalog to offset the deficiency of on-demand music. 

What 8tracks delivers is simply a robust enactment of assorted playlists created by different users, and a level that lets you make your ain playlists. These playlists are eclectic blends of euphony themed astir a genre oregon mood. For example, a classical stone and rotation playlist titled Balls of Fire features euphony from Chuck Berry, Fleetwood Mac, and Little Richard. Another, titled I Heart the 80's, features euphony from Irene Cara and Michael Jackson.

You tin make a playlist with ease, publishing favourite tracks successful immoderate bid you like, oregon astir immoderate taxable that suits your fancy. For the astir part, putting unneurotic a playlist is simply a cinch, and rather amusive to do. This is 8tracks' strongest aspect; you consciousness similar an progressive subordinate successful its community.

However, determination are immoderate limitations to playlist creation. 8tracks has a mobile app for Android and iOS, but lone the browser-based mentation lets you make playlists. In addition, you tin lone make these with euphony you tin upload from your computer. In different words, if you bash not person the euphony files connected your PC, you cannot adhd euphony to your playlist, and frankincense cannot lend to the community. 8tracks accepts AAC, M4A, MP3, and MP4 files.

There isn’t immoderate supplemental contented to bask speech from music. For instance, iHeartRadio offers music, podcasts, unrecorded vigor stations, and euphony manufacture quality (it adjacent streams unrecorded events from clip to time), portion Tidal has in-depth, music-related diagnostic stories. 8tracks is rather sparse by comparison.

8tracks Internet Radio Pricing

8tracks’ $4.99-per-month subscription ($29.99 per year) has a fewer neat perks, but thing important capable to radically alteration however the work works. A subscription eliminates ads, gives you a flashy badge adjacent to your username, and lets you upload animated gifs to usage arsenic your playlist artwork alternatively of static images.

If you bask the work and privation to enactment the platform, subscriptions are a good mode to bash so. However, don’t expect overmuch else. That’s unfortunate due to the fact that LiveOne gives you unlimited skips, nary ads, and a boost to audio prime for a wallet-friendly $3.99 per month.

(Credit: BackBeat Inc.)

8tracks Performance and Features

We tested 8tracks’ web browser and iOS versions. The browser-based mentation features a grey inheritance with navy bluish highlights, and a large, panel-based presumption for casual navigation. The tract scrolls down to uncover an assortment of user-created playlist suggestions based connected your selected euphony preferences, arsenic good arsenic unit picks. If the location leafage enactment doesn’t bash it for you, an research fastener takes you to the hunt leafage wherever you tin prime circumstantial tags to constrictive your hunt (or peruse trending playlists). 

8tracks streams euphony successful a spot complaint that dances betwixt 48 and 64kbps (in the AAC+ format), and you cannot set the audio quality. Disappointingly, this spot complaint is comparable with Pandora's escaped relationship offerings. This isn't hi-res audio, but the streams should fulfill casual, non-audiophile listeners.

You tin remark connected idiosyncratic playlists and work what others person posted. You tin besides spot the playlists that different users like, and springiness the radical a societal media-style travel to observe much music. It's a amazingly pleasant community-based experience.

8tracks has a akin presumption connected mobile, but that the hunt relation is accessed via the magnifying solid icon successful the interface’s top-right corner. Unfortunately, the iOS mentation (tested connected an iPhone 13 Pro Max) is prone to crashing; the app wouldn't load respective times during testing. Closing the app and reopening it rectified the problem.

(Credit: BackBeat Inc.)

Music Licensing Issues

8tracks Radio is amazingly constricted owed to its streaming euphony license, which adversely affects your listening acquisition successful galore ways. The hunt function, for example, is constricted to tags wrong the app. You cannot hunt by titles oregon by lyrics; lone Tags, Playlists, and People. Many artists and tracks are tagged, truthful you tin inactive find applicable results, conscionable not successful a straightforward fashion. If you hunt for Dr. Dre, for example, you are presented with an fantabulous enactment of hip-hop and rap playlists that see his music, but you won't cognize which tracks are successful the playlists.

Many free euphony streaming services restrict listening successful akin ways. For example, Amazon Music Prime precocious expanded its catalog to see its robust 90-million-track library, but shuffles everything truthful you tin nary longer perceive connected demand. That said, 8tracks’ constricted licensing takes things further by adding even more restrictions. You tin lone skip 3 times per playlist per hour, and you’re constricted to six full skips per hr (the second bounds is manufacture modular for escaped services). Oddly, the work lets you perceive to a playlist just once successful an eight-hour period. If you determine to perceive to a playlist again successful that window, 8tracks shuffles it instead.

It gets worse. You can’t perceive to much than 4 tracks by the aforesaid creator successful a three-hour period, oregon much than 3 tracks from the aforesaid medium successful a three-hour period. These limitations spill implicit to your created playlists, too. You cannot see much than 2 tracks from the aforesaid medium successful your playlist. There’s nary workaround, either. If you adhd excessively galore tracks from a peculiar creator to a playlist, the playlist gets flagged and delisted.

(Credit: BackBeat Inc.)

Engaging, Yet Sparse

8tracks Internet Radio was calved during the tumultuous dawn of euphony streaming, inspired by aboriginal net record sharing and trendy DJ culture. The service's societal elements were up of their clip and acceptable the level isolated from its contemporaries, and it’s a wonderment that different platforms inactive haven’t aped 8tracks successful this regard. Unfortunately, 8tracks hasn't done capable to germinate successful a competitory market. It's fundamentally free, which is simply a constituent successful its favor, but services similar iHeartRadio and Spotify present escaped listening options that are much implicit and little restrictive.