Instead of shopping around for a streaming service that will ultimately disappoint you, why not cut out the middleman and start using a music library you actually own? Advantages such as uninterrupted music, increased portability, and increased longevity of the hardware you actually use make it worth the cost of a few albums.

Although vinyl seems to be making a hipster-generated comeback, that old CD collection is nearing obsoletion. The rise and rise of music streaming services might be destroying physical media sales, but man, it makes my life super easy. Spotify, Apple Music... Pandora? Which streaming service is the best?

Some people can dig up great music like magic, or have friends inside the industry who keep them updated. Some people are contented with their weekly Spotify Discover playlist. But if you need more ways to find music, here are 50 ideas, taken from Twitter users, my colleagues at Lifehacker's publisher Gizmodo Media Group, and some of my own habits. Some are obvious, some bizarre, some embarrassing, but they have all helped people find their new favourite song, or even their favourite band.

Your Discover Weekly probably doesn't suck - the feature is so popular that it's the subject of long glowing profiles on tech blogs and business blogs. Spotify even built an ad campaign out of users tweeting how much they love the feature. Each week, every active Spotify user gets a new list of 30 tracks, and over half of them find a new favourite. But depending on your Spotify habits, it is possible to get a garbage Discover Weekly. Here's what's happening and how to fix it.

Spotify is planning to go public through a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange in the next few weeks, and that's piqued the interest of investors hoping it's the next hot tech stock (a little more Netflix, a little less Snapchat). So, should you invest?

Hey what's that song from? Ask MetaFilter commenters named 52 different tunes, mostly classical and big-band, that you'll recognise instantly but might have trouble naming. And we assembled them into a Spotify playlist.

Spotify, a service for turning your music listening habits into public content, analysed thousands of user playlists themed on love, sex, heartache or hating Valentine's Day, and made four Top 10 playlists of the most commonly featured songs.

Spotify's algorithm-generated playlists try, but they don't always hit the mark. If you want to mess with the recipe a bit, try out Nelson, the Spotify playlist generator that lets you customise what shows up on your playlist based on the kind of music (or musical elements) you enjoy.

While the mixtape is long gone, you still might be looking for a new way to share your latest weekend mix with your coworkers, or stay connected to friends across the country by jamming out to your favourite songs together. Now you can use JQBX to share playlists, vote on songs, and lend your musical taste to everyone with a Spotify account.

It's fun sharing music with people, especially while you're doing other fun things. If you use Discord to chat with your gaming friends (or anyone really), now you can listen to music as a group with built-in Spotify connectivity.

Music streaming is the future, apparently, which means the digital download had a bright and brief existence - lasting from the end of the 1990s to (presumably) the end of the 2010s. But before you erase all your carefully collected MP3s from the disk and close down the iTunes Store for the last time, we've got some very good reasons why you shouldn't.

Writer Grace Spelman collects songs like they're Legos, in a meticulously sorted tackle box. She has over 20 Spotify playlists that trace a specific concept, like False Starts/False Endings, 2000s Dialogue Opening and her magnum opus, Songs for Short Attention Spans, which includes over 200 songs that "totally switch up in the middle". Learn more about her hobby in her video interview with The Outline, above.

Get ready to fill your eye holes with the best Christmas gifts for people who want to fill their ear holes these holidays. We've got some of the best gifts for music lovers, audiophiles and those who love to dance.

Found some new tunes while browsing YouTube and want to add them to a Spotify playlist? Rather than hunting them down manually, you can make the process of liking videos automatically create a playlist for you.

For a horror soundtrack, Stranger Things 2 feels very... productive. The rhythmic synths don't evoke a Lovecraftian monster so much as a gently churning supercomputer. This makes for a great soundtrack to your work day. Cue it up on Spotify and get in the zone.

Tied to yesterday's season two release, Spotify has rolled out custom playlists themed to different characters on the show, and will analyse your listening habits to select your "character profile" and playlist.

There is a lot of different types of music out there. Like, a lot. Don't believe me? Check out this time-sucking tool called Every Noise at Once.

Last week, Google announced a slew of new products, from a pair of Google Home voice assistant variants to the new Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL smartphones. Those new voice assistants, such as the $79 Google Home Mini and the $US399 ($514) Google Home Max, make music playback throughout the home simple -- so you're going to want to hook up to a music streaming service. Google Play wants to be the streaming service of choice for all Google devices. With added features designed to entice Google Home, Chromecast and Android users, here's why it's worth your consideration over other services such as Spotify.

If you're one of the few using Microsoft's Groove Music app and Groove Music Pass streaming service, bad news: The company's discontinuing both Groove Music Pass subscriptions as well as the ability to stream, purchase or download music with the Groove Music app at year's end. Instead, Microsoft is partnering with Spotify, and letting users move select Groove Music content to the streaming service.