Pure Music

Pure, which makes internet and digital radios, is launching its own music-streaming service to rival the likes of Spotify and Sony’s Music Unlimited from December, PURE Music subscribers will be able to stream millions of tracks online for 4.99 pound a month.  Like Spotify service, which costs the same price, it doesn’t contain adverts. Sony’s service is 1 pound cheaper, but it doesn’t let you create playlists.

On first impression, PURE Music doesn’t offer anything you can’t get from Spotify. But the two key attractions of PURE Music are its music store, where you can buy tracks (from 99p) and albums (from 3.99 pound), and the ability to play your music through PURE internet radios. You can also play music on your Smartphone and PC.

You can search for specific tracks, artists and genres, or browse ‘Top tracks’ and ‘top albums’. However, we found it much faster and easier to do this from the website than from our radio. You can create playlists on your radio, but because using the radio dials to search is such hard work, we made them all on the website, which has an easy drag-and-drop system. 

Buying tracks isn’t as simple as it is on iTunes. First, you have to tag tracks, which can only be done as they’re playing, and then go to My Tagged Tracks. Click each individually; click the checkout cart and only then can you buy them.

Once you’ve found a track, you can play it within the current browser window or in a pop-out player, add it to a playlist or buy it from the same screen. Spotify annoyed a lot users lately by forcing new members to have a Facebook account, so PURE may be a good alternative for anyone looking to jump ship. The addition of a store makes it an attractive all-rounder, and will appeal to people who don’t like streaming music on  one device and buying it on another.