Blinkbox Music (Streaming Service)

You might recognise part of the name of the service here. Blinkbox originally started off as a Video on Demand (VoD) from supermarket brand Tesco. But now it’s branching off into the music section of the world. It might be branching off, but actually, it’s just been rebranded from We7 that Tesco bought back in June of 2013. So now we’ve covered that, let’s have a look around.

Please note that we’re reviewing the online version of this and not the apps for iOS, Android or kindle!

Signing up can be done via Facebook or via creating an account the old fashioned way. Personally, we’d like the whole one Blinkbox account for all their services, but such is life, and it’s pretty easy to sign up. You just have to confirm by clicking ye old link in the email they send you if you sign up the old fashioned way.

So the service covers the UK & Ireland and offers free streaming via stations, the belief being that you’ll discover what you like as well as old and new tracks. There are the occasional adverts but this is how they get to offer the free service….a bit like Spotify in a way.

From the home screen, you’re presented with a number of options to get started. Explore Stations is just that. You can view preset stations from a selection options including charts, artists, mood, genres or events (yes, we’re listening to the X Factor 2013 station…for review purposes only you know…). Almost any preset for any occasion!

Now Playing is just that. It takes you to the page of the station that you’re currently playing, where you’ll see track name and lyrics (if available from LyricFind). You can also gain access to this page by clicking on the station name on the bar at the bottom of the screen too. Scrolling down this page shows you the last four songs that were played on the ‘station’ allowing you to mark them liked or disliked (this then give the system something to work with to figure out what you’d like to hear more or less of we suspect creating a unique experience). Also on this page you’ll be shown similar stations and artists (these change depending on the track playing)

My Music is just that. Here you will find a list of the music that you’ve liked & disliked and where you’ll access your own station based on these. You can view the stations that you’ve favourited for quick access.

The bar at the bottom of the page is a nice little handy thing in our opinion. You get to see the important things likes the station your playing, the current track. But also here you can added the station to your favourites by clicking on the star next to it’s name (where it will turn yellow) but also offers another chance to like or dislike the track. The My Music tab in a sense does the same thing as the tab at the top but it also shows you your recently listened to stations in case you want to go back to something that you’ve listened to before.

So for a free service (that’s still in beta we might add) we probably shouldn’t have any complaints, but we do. One is that whilst we like the idea of the stations and mixing it up a little, there’s no option to listen to a specific artists music only. The possibility of even being able to create a few personal stations would be nice addition too. Previous We7 users might be disappointed that this service no longer ‘scrobbles’ to the Last.fm service (though we predict that someone somewhere will find a ‘unofficial’ way round it)

As we said, still in beta, but don’t think we’ll be ditching Spotify just yet. Will be interesting to see how and where this goes with it future