By Abby Hite, Staff Writer

We all have our preferences. Chocolate cake is better than vanilla, mystery is far more interesting than historical fiction, Spotify is better than Apple Music — the latter idea being pretty controversial for our generation.

Apple has been rolling out new products and technology since 1976, topping itself each time. In 2015, Apple Music was announced, a subscription for music that you can listen to, add to playlists or download onto your phone for offline listening, which Spotify had been doing since 2006.

Apple and Spotify’s subscription prices are the same: $9.99 a month, $14.99 for a family plan and $4.99 for students. So why is Spotify more deserving of your hard-earned money?

For starters, you don’t actually have to pay for Spotify. The streaming app is free with advertisements — if you can handle your music being interrupted, then don’t even worry about paying — but premium just gives you more freedom in how you listen. Unlimited skips, pressing which song you want to listen to, adding music to your queue and shuffling the playlist make listening a different experience every day, even if you’ve had the same playlist on rotation all week.

Every week I get playlists designed for me based on what I had been listening to. Spotify creates different playlists based on genre, mood or decade, so if it’s a rainy day and you need to listen to something other than the raindrops slamming against your window, there are at least three playlists with the word rain in them. The app offers every genre imaginable and moods ranging from “Boozy Brunch” to “Coping With Loss.” Spotify also has podcasts, radio stations based on artists you listen to and a wide range of different categories (Christian, reggae, decades, etc.) and let’s not forget the end-of-the-year albums: one made from your top streams and one for the top songs of 2018 all together.

Premium accounts also come with subscriptions to Hulu and Showtime, both of which would cost an additional monthly fee. Even if you’re not in a listening mood, paying that $10 every month — or $5 for college kids — gives you options.

Apple Music does take the spotlight in one aspect: videos and TV. Right now, Apple is the only service that offers ad-free music videos, and with the addition of James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke, a spin-off of his feature from “The Late Late Show,” Apple Music’s video section is the better of the two.

Most of us listen to music every day — not in the halls, of course — without even realizing how important it is to us. While it can be hard to get around the “no earbuds” policy at school, so many students use music to help them focus or just drown out the noises of high school. Music can be wonderful and therapeutic no matter what platform you listen on, but getting more benefits for the same price makes it all the more worthwhile.

Junior Abby Hite can be reached at hiteab0304@daretolearn.org.