Songza Streaming Service Growing FAST in Canada; Check Out Our Playlists

Canada is the forgotten child in the world of music streaming services. Sure, we have Rdio. We don’t have Spotify. We’re getting Xbox Music, however good that will be. But in the past 70-odd days, one music app has been taking Canada by storm – Songza.

Songza is a US-based music streaming service which plays music based on certain playlists, such as time of day based, or genre-based. Sort of like Stereomood, but more expansive.

It’s become pretty popular, too – a million Canadians have signed up since Songza expanded to Canada just over two months ago (via Financial Post). These one million Canucks are either using the service online or through the mobile app.

Interestingly, Songza doesn’t have audio ads (like Spotify), but it does have displayed ads. However, they are trying to team with businesses to create themed playlists for things such as ‘Hangover Music’ designed with Advil. Okay, that’s probably not an area they’re looking into, but you get the idea – the options are endless, if businesses bite.

Musicians like Justin Bieber and Ke$ha have been making playlists, which both drives their brand, and attracts their fans to the Songza service.

PeteHatesMusic has their own Songza account. You can follow us and check out what we’re listening to, and listen to our specially curated playlists. So far we just have two playlists – Indie and Post-Rock Instrumental. Indie features many of the songs and artists we’ve featured on this site, while Post-Rock Instrumental is a playlist I use when I need some good, vocal-less songs while I’m reading things or writing love letters to Thom Yorke. We’ll be adding more playlists over time, such as our Weekend Music segment.

While some of the time of day and season themed playlists aren’t overly attractive to me, I do hope Songza doesn’t get swallowed in a busy music streaming marketplace. Time will tell.