When comparing 8 Tracks vs cmd.fm, the Slant community recommends 8 Tracks for most people. In the question“What are the best music streaming services?” 8 Tracks is ranked 15th while cmd.fm is ranked 24th. The most important reason people chose 8 Tracks is:
The site is human-curated not automated. This can give a more personal feel, as each playlist on the music streaming service has been curated by a user.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Individualistic and personalized user playlists
The site is human-curated not automated. This can give a more personal feel, as each playlist on the music streaming service has been curated by a user.
Pro Great for discovering new music
Due to how the service works, listening to user created playlists allows for pretty good discovery of new or undiscovered bands.
Pro Easy music discovery
Just type in the command to play a particular genre you are interested in and it will play that style of music randomly. This allows for a way that you can discover new music you may not be familiar with.
Pro Fun terminal-like interface
Using a terminal interface as the front end of the player is quite the unique twist for a music player on the web. It can be fun for those that are/aren't familiar with such an interface due to how original and easy it is.
Pro Fast interactivity
A fast music service geared towards terminal users. The premise being, that you input specific "terminal" commands to listen to particular genres or artists. This can be a quick way of finding and playing music for those familiar with a terminal interface.
Cons
Con Poor music streaming service outside of North America
8Tracks has changed its policy for how it supplies music to those outside of North America by not using any of their servers for those users. This change resulted in using Youtube for those users in order to still have a way to add songs to playlists. Sadly using Youtube results in many songs just disappearing and many playlists becoming defunct.
Con Advertisements in free version
Con No way to find certain songs
8 Tracks allows you to search for a playlist based on keywords, then requires you to listen to most of that playlist without skipping. As such, it's not so good for hunting down a specific song, but is great for discovering new music.
Con Limited genres
For the available genres the user can pick from, there are only so many listed. Any more fine grained controls of being able to play genres not listed is not supported. This means the eclectic and more niche genres can only be played by directly selecting the bands that play that style of music.
Con Only uses the Soundcloud music streaming service
There is no way to get other licensed music, you can only play what is available on the Soundcloud music streaming service.
