Meet Maggie, PCMag'sLiveOne is a streaming music service that marries the former Slacker Radio's DJs and curated radio stations with live performances. Available on desktops, mobile devices, smart TVs, and the web, the platform offers a large video library, many podcasts, and informative channels that teach you about music history. Since I last reviewed it, LiveOne has raised some of its rates, and still lacks hi-res audio and a money-saving Family Plan. As a result, LiveOne doesn't quite match up with the top streaming music services I've tested and retested over the years, such as Apple Music and Spotify. Still, it's worth checking out if you fancy live performances.
LiveOne offers three listening plans. Basic is the free tier that offers 128Kbps audio, a six-song skip limit, and core listening options. The downside? You're bombarded with audio and banner advertisements. That said, the audio advertisements are fairly palatable since LiveOne has a clock icon at the bottom of the screen that counts down to the next audio ad break. Typically, you'll enjoy 20 to 30 minutes of uninterrupted listening before an ad appears. Banner ads, on the other hand, are extremely distracting, particularly if you're navigating LiveOne's web or app interface.
If the ads become too much to bear, you can eliminate them with the $3.99-per-month Plus plan (discounted to $39.99 with the up-front annual commitment). This tier boosts the bitrate to 320Kbps and removes the song-skip limits, though it keeps you locked into radio-style station streams. For full on-demand control, the Premium plan has increased to $10.99 per month, which lets you play any specific track or album on a whim and cache files for offline listening on mobile devices. Although those rate bumps mean LiveOne is not quite the radical bargain it used to be, it still manages to undercut mainstream heavyweights like Apple Music and Spotify, whose standalone individual tiers have climbed even higher.
On-demand playback is by far the most valuable Premium feature. With Basic and Plus, LiveOne plays stations and tracks based on your selections, but not the exact title you search for. Sure, you'll eventually hear your favorite songs in a playlist, but you can't pick and choose them at will unless you have Premium.
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LiveOne also lacks a family plan for sharing those premium benefits, which is a common subscription tier among streaming services, including Amazon Music Unlimited, Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube Music. Those competitors offer multi-user discounts, so LiveOne's omission of a family plan hurts it a bit more now that its individual rates have crept up. Without a family plan to split the bill, outfitting my household with LiveOne accounts becomes an expensive ordeal.
Like many streaming music services, LiveOne uses a panel-driven interface to organize its music pages. Across the center of the screen is a scrolling window that features recommended albums, stations, live events, and original shows. South of that are panels for everything LiveOne offers, including videos, new releases, station and artist recommendations, and top stations. That said, LiveOne's interface is not as clean as YouTube Music's; the large panels clutter the screen, so I end up scrolling and searching far more than necessary. As mentioned earlier, free users also have to contend with massive, highly intrusive ad banners that further obscure search results. I find it borderline obnoxious to navigate without a subscription.
To help you navigate the massive catalog, LiveOne features a streamlined navigation bar at the bottom of the mobile screen (which sits as a fixed sidebar on desktop) with tabs for Home, Search, Live Events, and Library tabs. Within the Live Events tab, you'll find upcoming pay-per-view broadcasts, festival highlights, and related playlists. The Search tab houses a multitude of music stations across dozens of genres, including Country, Comedy, R&B, Rock, and News & Talk, while serving as the gateway to the platform's original video interviews and vodcasts. However, the interface relies heavily on massive, auto-playing video tiles and blocky promotional banners that constantly compete for your attention, making the overall browsing experience a bit too cluttered and chaotic for my liking.
LiveOne anchors its service to a deep catalog of more than 30 million songs, 600 curated listening stations, and 300 podcasts. In addition to its robust music collection, LiveOne carries a massive selection of live news and talk content, headlined by dedicated channels for Bloomberg Radio, CBS News, and Fox News.
LiveOne has sliders I can use to fine-tune metrics across the Hosts, Favorite Songs, Popular Songs, and Newer categories. However, I couldn't customize them on a per-station basis. Not all stations have this feature, either. Still, the additional customization options open the door to more tightly crafted personalized stations.
As is the norm with these services, clicking the ban icon prevents a song or artist from appearing. Clicking the heart-shaped favorite icon, on the other hand, gives a song greater priority, so LiveOne plays it more frequently. In a nice touch, I could turn the music or news updates on or off for radio-like breaks during my listening sessions. Unfortunately, LiveOne lacks lyrics. If you wish to sing along to official lyrics, check out Amazon Music Unlimited or YouTube Music, which have cool, karaoke-style lyrics scrolling.
Slacker's unique content lives on in LiveOne. The Artist DNA stations, for example, are channels hosted by music experts who play the tracks that influenced important artists. Likewise, Sample City highlights the musical snippets that have built popular, contemporary songs. The pair are excellent music history classes that many competing services lack, including iHeartRadio and Spotify.
In addition, LiveOne's many informative stations are hosted by real DJs who evoke the heyday of traditional over-the-air radio. The on-air personalities host several music, story, and alternative channels, offering an effervescent personality and deep musical knowledge that beckon you to return. In a landscape increasingly dominated by sterile, computer-generated AI playlists and hosts (I'm looking at you, Spotify), this dedication to human-hosted audio remains LiveOne's greatest strength.
LiveOne relies on its fully integrated PodcastOne subsidiary to power its deep talk-show catalog, positioning podcasts as a core pillar alongside its conventional music catalog. The in-app LiveZone network keeps you up to date with weekly music news, while PodcastOne channels handle the heavier talk programming.
On the podcast front, Greatest Album Ever digs into the backstory behind iconic artist albums; The Adam Carolla Show features colorful interviews; and The Steve Austin Show has insightful wrestling stories. I thoroughly enjoyed LiveOne's law and crime podcasts, such as Court Junkie and True Crime All The Time Unsolved, because they recount events and crime scenes like classic radio mysteries from a bygone age.
Of course, given its history, LiveOne has streamed pay-per-view concerts. You can find these shows in the Events section and set reminders to keep these shows on your radar. In-person concerts and livestreams are highly varied events, including global EDM festival broadcasts, Team Boxing League (TBL) fight cards, and exclusive metaverse music experiences. They range in price from $14.99 to hundreds of dollars, with numerous extras (like a band meet-and-greet). LiveOne lets you rewatch a previously purchased show, though this depends on the event. Some pay-per-view events do not have a rewatch option.
LiveOne streamed crisp, clean audio at 128Kbps and 320Kbps (for the Free and Plus/Premium plans, respectively) during testing over both my home and office network connections. That said, downloaded content on Android and iOS plays back at just 60Kbps. Unless you're an audiophile who cannot live without hi-res audio, LiveOne's sound quality should be satisfactory.
That said, if you demand nothing less than the best audio quality, grab a set of high-end headphones and check out Amazon Music Unlimited, Apple Music, Tidal, or Quboz. In fact, you may want to check out Quboz for another reason: It lets you purchase and download digital music files.
Final Thoughts
(Credit: LiveOne)
LiveOne
- 5.0 - Exemplary: Near perfection, ground-breaking
- 4.5 - Outstanding: Best in class, acts as a benchmark for measuring competitors
- 4.0 - Excellent: A performance, feature, or value leader in its class, with few shortfalls
- 3.5 - Good: Does what the product should do, and does so better than many competitors
- 3.0 - Average: Does what the product should do, and sits in the middle of the pack
- 2.5 - Fair: We have some reservations, buy with caution
- 2.0 - Subpar: We do not recommend, buy with extreme caution
- 1.5 - Poor: Do not buy this product
- 1.0 - Dismal: Don't even think about buying this product
Read Our Editorial Mission Statement and Testing Methodologies.
LiveOne's excellent channel variety, podcasts, and deep customization options make it a highly specialized, enjoyable streaming music platform. A few complaints aside—chiefly the lack of hi-res audio, a shared family plan, and climbing prices—it remains a satisfactory package. It might not steal the spotlight from the industry giants anymore, but for passionate radio lovers and live event fans, it still stands strong in a highly competitive landscape.
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About Our Expert
In 2014, I began my career at PCMag as a freelancer. That blossomed into a full-time position in 2021, and I now review email marketing apps, mobile operating systems, web hosting services, streaming music platforms, and video games as a senior writer. I'm a graduate of Hunter College, a hard-core gamer, and an Apple enthusiast.
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