by Yanichka Ariunbold, staff reporter

With the advent of streaming apps like Spotify, Soundcloud, and Pandora in today’s society, manually downloading music is considered to be widely obsolete among the younger generation — Consol students are no exception.

“[I’d rather use Spotify Premium] because you can just pay nine or ten bucks a month and listen to all the music you can think of,” junior Daniel Ioerger said.

Spotify is a music-streaming app that’s available for free as well as in the ad-less, paid form of Spotify Premium. However, many have expressed their annoyance at Spotify Free’s excess of ads and controlled skipping.

“I feel like downloading [music] isn’t fully worth it,” sophomore Hannah Brewer said. “But I’ll probably change that opinion when I get tired of running out of skips on Spotify [Free].”

Some students choose to deal with the ads by using a mixture of free streaming apps, like sophomore Peter Liu.

“Ads get annoying on Spotify [Free], but SoundCloud is fine when it comes to ads,” Liu said. “I like them because they’re free. I don’t have to spend any money.”

For some, streaming music in radio stations like Pandora has introduced them to new kinds of music.

“My favorite way [to listen to music] is Pandora because it exposes me to different artists and genres I wouldn’t normally listen to,” junior Will Sullivan said. “I can get a station for whatever I might be doing at the time, be it working, studying or working out.”

Junior Celeste Aucoin, a fierce K-Pop fan, stopped downloading music and instead started listening to songs on YouTube when she realized it would be easier to listen to her favorite artists that way.

“There are so many K-Pop songs I like that if I bought them all I would go broke,” Aucoin said. “There are also multiple versions of each song, like an original version, dance version, Japanese version and live broadcast. It’s much easier to watch all of them on YouTube.”

However, many still persist in downloading music because of the toll streaming apps have on their cellphone data and the ever-present need for WiFi.

“I download off YouTube into my iTunes library the most,” sophomore Morgan Kehrberg said. “I can listen to things without relying on WiFi or using all my data, especially since most streaming is blocked on school WiFi.”

Furthermore, listening through traditional forms of music has not completely died out — Brewer, who frequently listens to and collects vinyls along with using streaming apps, describes the different, “more authentic” feel of records and its benefits over other forms of music.

“I like how they have a more raw sound.” Brewer said. “You can really pick each element of the song out — each guitar, the drums, bass and everything.”

For Brewer, listening to vinyls has also offered a way to connect with her family.

“It’s something people have listened to for such a long time, so it’s kind of a tradition to listen to vinyl,” said Brewer. “It’s cool for my parents to be like, ‘Hey, I used to listen to that on vinyl when I was your age.’”

Whether it’s music-streaming apps, records, CDs or YouTube, the students all agree that there’s no denying the need in modern society to listen to music everywhere.

“I really dislike the quiet,” Liu said. “I have to be listening to a song.”