Listening to music from your Windows 10 device is a great way to escape the stresses of the day. It can also be a head-bobbing, toe-tapping way to pass the time and there are plenty of Windows 10 apps available to organize and playback your audio collection.
Groove Music is Microsoft's offering and comes pre-installed on your Windows 10 PC and Mobile device. It does a good job of managing your music files and provides you access to the Windows Store, where you can build up your music library. While Groove Music fits most Windows 10 user's needs, for this roundup we are going to focus on alternatives. Alternatives that offer streaming music, as well as music playback and music library management. Let's take a look at the best music apps for Windows 10.
Perfect Music
Perfect Thumb offers a host of Windows 10 apps that take on a minimalist approach without sacrificing functionality. Perfect Music provides an easy way to listen to your music, create playlists and manage your music library.
Available for Windows 10 Mobile, the free app provides gesture based navigation during playback, nine unique themes, support for FLAC, M4A, WMC, WAV, and MP3 formats and the ability to sort music files by artist, genre, albums or songs. Music files can be searched by artist, album or alphabetically.
The playback screen has your current song spinning in the center of the display with several controls surrounding the animated music disc. You can pin the song to your Start Screen, set a sleep timer, tag the song as a favorite, adjust the volume and shuffle or repeat playback. There is also a button to pull up the lyrics of the song. This is a neat feature and offers a slight karaoke feel to Perfect Music. It can also help settle debates over what a song is saying.
Perfect Music is a free, ad-supported app with the option to remove the ads through a $1.49 in-app purchase. All in all, if you are looking for a simple and easy music player for Windows 10 Mobile, then Perfect Music hits the right note.
Download Perfect Music from the Windows Store (opens in new tab)
Spotify
Spotify delivers the streaming music service to your Windows 10 Mobile phone that includes a host of music genres such as rock, classical, blues, country, metal and more. There are also channels that provide talk radio and audiobook resources.The Windows 10 Mobile app is free and does require a Spotify account.
The streaming service is also free with the option to upgrade to Spotify Premium ($9.99 per month) that unlocks a number of features such as:
- Download music for offline listening
- No ads
- Unlimited skips
- High Definition sound quality
The free package offers plenty of streaming music to enjoy with the ability to create playlists, search for content and shuffle mode. The app also has a Discover Mode where new music is recommended based on your listening habits.
Spotify is a clean looking Windows 10 music app with a ton of streaming content. The free app is a good choice with a premium update available should you want just a little more out of things.
Download Spotify from the Windows Store (opens in new tab)
VLC
VLC is a portable media player for Windows 10 with support for both video and music playback. You can also tap into your Last.fm account for streaming media. Music files can be sorted by artist, albums, songs or playlists. Videos are sorted by those you download/install to your Windows 10 device or by those in your Windows 10 camera roll. VLC also has support for opening media streams by entering its URL.
Settings offer options to customize the appearance through dark or light themes and title bar colors, video playback options, sound equalizer settings and setting up your connection with Last.fm.
VLC is a free app, available for Windows 10 PC and Mobile, as well as Xbox One. It is a Windows 10 music app that grows on you and has plenty of features to allow you to make the most of your video and music libraries.
Download VLC from the Windows Store (opens in new tab)
Pandora
Pandora is a Windows 10 app that delivers all the goodness of this popular streaming surface to the comfort of your PC, Mobile and Xbox One devices.
The free app has a boat load of music stations to choose from ranging from classic rock to country to hard rock. The station library also includes a variety of comedy stations to help lighten up your day. Stations can be browsed by genre or searched by keyword. You also have a sleep timer to let you fall asleep to Pandora without worrying about it playing all night long.
You do need to create an account to enjoy the Pandora's free services with the option to upgrade to Pandora's premium services (opens in new tab) ($4.99 per month). The premium service removes the ad support, provides custom skins for your music player, adds more skips and offers premium audio quality.
The layout is simple and the content vast with Pandora, making it one of the best streaming music choices available for Windows 10.
Download Pandora from the Windows Store (opens in new tab)
iHeart Radio
iHeart Radio is a Windows 10 app that delivers all your favorite music and radio under one roof. The streaming service features thousands of live radio stations and custom stations to enjoy listening to the likes of pop, country, alternative, classic and other music genres.
You also have access to talk radio stations to keep up on the world of sports, politics, news and more. You can create custom stations base on your favorite song or artist. If you like falling asleep to music, iHeart Radio does have a sleep timer to let you fade off without worrying that your Windows 10 device will keep running through the night.
iHeart Radio is a free app, available for Windows 10 PC and Mobile, as well as Xbox One. The basic streaming service is free and an account is needed for the premium services that have monthly costs. Premium features include unlimited skips, downloadable songs, unlimited playlists and more. You can find out more about the premium service packages (priced from $4.99 to $12.99 per month) at iHeart Radio's website.
Overall, iHeart Radio is a feature-rich Windows 10 app and provides you access to a vast amount of music stations, as well as local radio stations.
Download iHeart Radio from the Windows Store (opens in new tab)
If you have given any of these Windows 10 music apps a try, let us know what you think of things in the comments below. There are plenty more options available in the Windows Store, such as SiriusXM (opens in new tab), Deezer (opens in new tab) and more. If you have a recommendation to share, toss it out in the comments as well!