Youtube MusicKey, Spotify, Tidal: Turn Your Smartphone into an Ultimate Christmas DJ

By Raizel Albano
YouTube, the best free platform for building music playlists.
YouTube, the best free platform for building music playlists.  Techradar.

Gone are the days of people hoarding over Christmas CD collections released every year featuring the same songs by different artists. With the internet, it has gotten easier, and more affordable, for everyone to create and edit playlists, and to share playlists with friends.

While there are free apps to choose from for music streaming, there are also paid apps that are very affordable for what they can offer. Free apps are great because first off, they don't cost a dime. However, free apps usually feature advertisements scattered all over the place, sometimes running in between songs. Paid apps, although would cost a small monthly fee, put advertisements out of the music streaming service. But there are many paid apps to choose from, and it is important to make sure that what being paid for is worth the cost.

Here are the best music streaming services for creating and playing Christmas playlists. All apps are available for download for both iOS and Android:

A. Free app

YouTube

A standard YouTube subscription can let anyone build playlists, chosen among millions of songs uploaded on the site. The only caveat is its free service is overloaded with ads, sometimes with three-minute ads in between songs. What one can do to get through these ads is to download AdBlock, an extension for Google Chrome and Safari. It does not set a price for each download, and operates on a donation-basis.

B. Paid apps

YouTube Music Key: $10/ month

YouTube now features YouTube Music Key, a paid service for creating and playing ad-free and interruption-free songs and playlists. This new feature, though, is only available in the US. It costs $10 per month, but for subscribers of Google Play Music, YouTube Music Key comes free.

Spotify: $9.99/ month

Spotify is best known for its five-user bundle, where one subscription of $9.99 per month gives access to up to five devices. Playlists can be shared with Spotify friends via email and social media. Spotify also has a wide range of songs, which makes it one of the most preferred music streaming services.

Tidal: $9.99 - $19.99/ month

Tidal is for serious music fans, with the choice to play songs on a higher output quality. Playing on 320Kbps is for standard service ($9.99 a month), and for high-end audio it's $19.99 a month. The app makes it easy to build and share playlists, with lots of songs to choose from.

Building Christmas playlists should be fun and exciting, and with these apps, it gets even easier.

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