Listening to the radio used to be the only way to get news. It also played a vital role in entertainment and playing the latest music hits. But, you were limited by frequencies, AM and FM, which meant radio stations were local or region-wide. This made it impossible for you to access foreign radio stations, and/or listen to your favorite stations outside the area. These problems were luckily solved by the Internet radio stations. Even if a radio station was bound by contract to a state or country area, you’re not without options. You can always use a VPN service to change your IP address! With that said, we present our list of the top 11 free radio station websites –
1. Pandora
Pandora remains one of the most popular Internet radio services and has a wide variety of stations. Since its inception, Pandora was a big music experiment. Its algorithms analyzed the elements of music you liked to suggest what you should listen to next. Those are also split into categories such as My Faves, Discovery, Deep Cuts, Crowd Faves, Newly Released, and Artist Only. Add to that podcasts and content from renowned radio services such as SiriusXM, and you can create a personal radio station. It will always play the songs you love but will never limit you from exploring new things.
2. Last.fm
Last.fm is more of a social media network than a radio station. However, it still provides all of the audio content you’d find on there. But, instead of waiting through commercials, you can search for songs, albums, or artists directly, and start building a personal radio station. It also allows you to leave comments and join communities built around a favorite artist or band. What makes Last.fm unique is ‘scrobbling’, which keeps a history of anything you’ve listened to on any device you used. Then, it analyzes the collected data and will chip in and spit out spot-on music suggestions.
3. AccuRadio
Here’s an online radio website that will forever be free. As mentioned in the advantages and disadvantages of radio, no-cost entertainment is the key factor that drives people towards AccuRadio. It is created by music lovers, for music lovers. The categories and channels are hand-crafted by real people without the help of an algorithm, which means they’ll be accurate and make sense. With that said, you can choose to search by genre, time period, composer, artist, or songwriter, or even use searches such as “summer hits”, “sleeping”, or “relaxation” to find perfect playlists.
Furthermore, besides available via browser, AccuRadio works on Apple devices, Android devices, and Amazon Alexa and Sonos gadgets.
4. TuneIn
If you want an all-encompassing radio station that will fit any mood, genre, or passion, TuneIn is the right choice. Not only do they offer radio stations online, local to your state or country, but also handcrafted music channels with music for every mood or genre of music. Furthermore, they can stream news from CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, Fox News. Don’t exclude coverage of sports for fans of organizations such as the NHL and NFL, including sports talk radio, game replays, and even college games, either. Did we mention broadcasting podcasts about any topic you are curious about?
5. Streema
Streema is another one-fits-all radio station website. Not only does it support music, news, sports, podcasts, and talk-shows, but there are more than 70,000 radio stations and 10,000 TV stations in the directory! That’s enough content for a lifetime, and new one is constantly being added. To make it easier for you, Streema allows filtering by genre, call sign, region, country, or even city! They also have a blog and offer a free app for Android and iOS, allowing you to access local FM/AM radio on your smartphone, tablet, or Apple Watch.
6. RadioGuide.fm
We were compelled to mention an online radio station that barely requires any work. That means no mandatory registration or jumping through hoops – just a click or two, and the music starts blasting. That describes RadioGuide.fm perfectly, since the music is neatly sorted into genres and countries of origin, and users have a chance to suggest or add a station of their own. Even better – they also have a blog that’s constantly updated with tips about listening to music. This includes the history of music festivals, how to start a podcast, beat boredom, or even start a radio station of your own!
7. Jango
The music on Jango is not only split by genre you’re familiar with. It also lists all artists or groups included in a particular station. This allows you to keep exploring their music immediately, should you like a song or two. Furthermore, there are numerous handcrafted stations for you to pick. They’re sorted by purpose and mood. For example, you can listen to Country Cookout, High Tide Surfing, Back To School, Singing In The Car, or Spring Cleaning stations. You can also edit the percentage of artist variety in a particular radio station, which is unique. Definitely one of the best radio music stations out there.
8. Radio Garden
With an extremely easy to use interface with a 3d model of the entire globe where radio stations are marked, Radio Garden is an interesting take. You can simply move around the globe, find your favorite radio stations, click on them to start listening. As simple as that. We should say that it is probably the most visually appealing website in this list if you are more into the modern-way of designing things. The audio quality, station availability, etc. are also satisfactory.
9. iHeartRadio
Although most of the radio stations are hit or miss, iHeartRadio somehow always finds the next best thing. It’s not like you have to register an account, even! Everything is done based on the music listened to the same Internet network, the categories you’ve chosen, and podcasts you were interested in. iHeartRadio also occasionally creates lists based on an artist or a group you love, giving you a chance to discover interviews, albums, and songs you’ve never heard of.
10. Live365
Live365 provides a handy collection of radio stations for people who aren’t fans of modern music. Although rap and hip-hop stations exist on the website, Live365 is catered toward the “classic” songs. It’s the perfect website to lovers of country, gospel, Christmas, jazz, gospel, pop, classical, rock, alternative, and other “modest” genres of music. There is also an advantage to having a lower number of stations. That means the real people are in charge of filtering content, not an algorithm without a soul. You might have to use a VPN outside of the US and UK in some cases, though.
11. Radio.net
The website presents to you a worldwide list of radio stations – more than 30,000. You can sort them by genre (about 25), topic (about 20), or go by their list of top 100 radio stations. Almost every day, things are changing on their Editor’s Picks list, which can be loads of fun to explore. Furthermore, Radio.net can also suggest stations near you. We were surprised by how many were in our vicinity that we’ve never heard about. Such is the nature of Internet radio – a lot of them are hidden gems.