Need a Grooveshark alternative? NetEase Music may be it

Martin Brinkmann
May 1, 2015
Music and Video
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55

So Grooveshark had to shut down after battling it out in courts for years and continuing operations in the meantime.

With the site down, existing users may take the suggestions into account that the Grooveshark team posted on the official website or, look for alternatives elsewhere.

One of the better ones -- in my opinion -- that not many may have on the radar at all is NetEase Music.  The biggest caveat right now is that it is a Chinese site with no English translation.

While it can be difficult at first to find your way around the site, automatic translation of the interface may help with that.

If you are using Google Chrome you get that right away while Firefox users may want to use Quick Translator or one of the other add-ons available for the browser that add translation capabilities to it.

Once you get accustomed to the site you will notice that it has a lot to offer. First, you can play music right away without registration or geo-restrictions. (Note: I cannot possible test access to the service from all regions of the world but as it stands, it seems free of any restrictions).

Just click on any song, album or playlist to play it right in the interface. While a focus of the site is Chinese and Japanese music, you will find Western artists and bands supported as well.

A search for Enimen for instance returns 300 singles, links to the artists profile on the site and highlights related artists on top of that.

If you select Find Music > Leaderboard, you find various playlists that may be of interest. For instance, you find listed there UK and US Billboard charts as well as iTunes charts among others.

To start playing all songs simply select the playlist you are interested in and hit the play button afterwards.

There is also lyrics and playlists. If you click on the paylist icon when a song is playing you get lyrics that play along with the song so that you can sing along if you want.

lyrics

The site offers apps and desktop programs that you can download and install on your systems. According to information on the download page, it features more than one million 320 Kbps tracks alone without mentioning whether lower quality tracks are available on top of that.

The program brings the service to your desktop. It is difficult to understand what is going on as it is only available in Chinese and without translation options. Still, you can use the search at the top to find tracks or artists and play the tracks directly in the program.

Closing Words

The language barrier may keep you from using all site features but the ones that are available for free are definitely worth a closer look.

While you won't find as many songs as on YouTube, the selection is quite excellent especially if you are into contemporary music or Chinese/Japanese/Korean music as you get a lot of those.

All in all an excellent music resource that is as unrestricted as it gets.

Summary
Need a Grooveshark alternative? NetEase Music may be it
Article Name
Need a Grooveshark alternative? NetEase Music may be it
Description
NetEase Music is a Chinese music site that is offering unrestricted access to its music catalog.
Author
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Comments

  1. Sethro said on August 6, 2015 at 8:33 pm
    Reply

    Yeah, bummer about the website. However, I just downloaded the PC app and it works fine… for now. ;-)

    1. yotoprules said on April 24, 2016 at 12:36 am
      Reply

      it still works :)

  2. Tim Curtain said on August 5, 2015 at 8:23 pm
    Reply

    Dang, so it only works inside China now? And Hola doesn’t unblock it. Crap. Anyone know any tricks yet?

  3. The Dude said on August 4, 2015 at 9:09 am
    Reply

    Netease (Music.163) is no longer available outside china, Also- Hola does not seem to be able to override this restraint so we are back to square one. Non of the other sites offered in the comments comes anywhere near to Grooveshark and Netease, take utublr.com for example – while the UI is decent (and not much more) it is basically a player that gathers songs from Youtube….if you are a person who listens a lot to full albums – this will basically concentrate all the songs of a said album and play them from Youtube by album order. Being from Youtube, that means that the quality is very inconsistent from track to track (if all tracks are even accounted for), and you are left wondering – “why shouldnt I just use well… Youtube…?!”.
    That being said – Youtube itself is a horrible option for playing Full albums – especially when these weren’t uploaded as a whole album, instead uploaded by different users and under different qualities.
    If any one finds a way to bypass Netease constraint then feel free to share.

    1. Rickkee Rantton said on August 4, 2015 at 10:52 pm
      Reply

      Subscribe to NORDVPN.com for $40 per year.
      You can connect to a server in canada, or a dozen other countries to get around censorship.
      What, me pay money you say? Yeah. Pay a little and enjoy a lot.

    2. Anglophone said on August 4, 2015 at 4:34 pm
      Reply

      I’m still able to use my NetEase desktop app from here in Canada. Downloaded a few tunes just to be sure. Hope you get it back and I don’t lose it !

  4. Dario said on July 31, 2015 at 6:52 pm
    Reply

    NetEasy (music163.com) : “Due to copyright protection, your area is temporarily unavailable”.
    Nooo, What a pity!!!

    1. yotoprules said on April 24, 2016 at 12:36 am
      Reply

      Hi,
      sadly they have blocked it, however the desktop app works perfectly fine. android version also works fine.

  5. Sanjay Motiram said on June 4, 2015 at 5:32 pm
    Reply

    Hey, how do I go about uploading my own music to Netease Music so I can stream it off the app and any other device with netease?

  6. Sanjay Motiram said on June 2, 2015 at 2:40 pm
    Reply

    Is there a way to upload your own music to the website?

  7. Mark Q. said on May 24, 2015 at 5:54 pm
    Reply

    Utublr.com is the best alternative to grooveshark IMO…It has a lot of good things going for it! I think it is brand new!

    Some of its features:

    – Simple user interface that could be even easier to use than Grooveshark
    – Search for a any artist, album, song or other users playlists
    – View most popular songs by an artist as well as similar artists
    – Create and save playlists
    – Music video playback

    The site is http://Utublr.com or http://Utubler.com

    1. Tim said on May 27, 2015 at 9:23 am
      Reply

      Thank you so much! utublr is great!

  8. Greg Fournier said on May 16, 2015 at 5:47 am
    Reply

    I used to use spotify and deezer but they are kind of bloated, so mostly grooveshark till it shutdown.

    Latest find is http://thepara.de. Just a couple of clicks and I’m jamming.

    1. Dario said on July 31, 2015 at 6:43 pm
      Reply

      Thank you very much! Very cool site! Skinny but very usable. However tracks from youtube. If you want, there is the YT video.

  9. whormongr said on May 13, 2015 at 12:41 am
    Reply

    my music is being pirated on there!!!! cool, listen to it.

  10. mike said on May 11, 2015 at 3:40 pm
    Reply

    NetEase music is no longer loading…http://music.163.com

  11. TSJNachos said on May 10, 2015 at 8:56 am
    Reply

    Grooveshark appears to be back with a new domain, and a slightly revamped design:
    http://grooveshark.io

    1. Dan82 said on May 10, 2015 at 4:43 pm
      Reply

      It’s nothing more than an MP3 search engine in a Grooveshark skin. Neither the domain nor the operators are the same.

    2. Anglophone said on May 10, 2015 at 4:31 pm
      Reply

      Regrettably, more than “slightly” revamped. Thanx for the heads-up.

  12. Rachel Farland said on May 5, 2015 at 4:56 pm
    Reply

    Checkout these 6 alternatives to Grooveshark that are actually better than Grooveshark: http://www.purevpn.com/blog/online-music-streaming-alternatives-grooveshark/

  13. Benji_X80 said on May 4, 2015 at 1:08 pm
    Reply

    Hi, there is other website that can stream music, like blitzr.com, songpeek.com, whyd.com.

    Here is a comparative of 8 websites alternative to Grooveshark Découvrez 8 alternatives gratuites (et presque sans pubs) à ‪#‎Grooveshark‬ http://www.bxnxg.com/les-alternatives-a-feu-grooveshark/

  14. Weiting Ni said on May 4, 2015 at 2:03 am
    Reply

    I have used a number of music services including Pandora. But Netease is my top choice. Since I found it about a year ago I have never gone back to others. I might be biased because I am a Chinese but 90+% of my music are Western. Here are some of its features:

    1. Use data mining to make daily recommendations — 20 pieces + 4 albums or user created collections. This is the feature I liked most. After a few months of use it make fairly good recommendation. I now typically keep 75-80% from the daily recommendation list.
    2. Many user created collections
    3. By searching Artist name, it allows you to make a play list of his/her top 50 songs.
    3. Yes, you can download all the music in your playlists/collections (except for Taylor Swift’s)
    4. If you create an account music will be synchronized across all your devices (PC, MAC, Android, IOS)
    5. It gives you 40GB space to backup your music after you stay with them for let’s say 6 months.

    ……
    Weakness: it does not manage your music well.

    1. Anglophone said on May 7, 2015 at 4:57 pm
      Reply

      I want to install the desktop app but do not read Chinese. There are several checkboxes on the popup screens which are pre-checked. WOULD YOU BE SO KIND as to translate the text alongside these boxes so I may know what the options are ? I would submit the text to an online translator but the text cannot be copied. I know it’s a lot to ask so thanks for taking the time to respond.

      1. Psychic Cheesecake said on June 18, 2015 at 2:07 pm
        Reply

        There’s this slider that says 1G, what’s that about?

        Btw, got it working and downloading wooo

  15. Jerry said on May 4, 2015 at 1:04 am
    Reply

    Thank you Martin. I don’t know NetEase Music site…

    …but I use other sites like:
    http://www.blitzr.com/
    http://pleer.com/
    https://www.jamendo.com/
    http://www.songpeek.com/
    http://whyd.com/
    http://musictonic.com/

    Personnally, I dislike Deezer.
    Also I like SHOUTcast, RadioTunes radios.

    1. Engin said on May 15, 2015 at 9:02 am
      Reply

      Thanks

  16. chriss said on May 3, 2015 at 7:25 pm
    Reply

    Yes, its a shame another good service has been shut down. Spotify does the same (at least the same things I was having Grooveshark do for me) and is better now that I have been FORCED to try it…HA! And actually I have found songs on Spotify that I could not on grooveshark. Sometimes we are forced to go looking for something somewhat better :-)

    now my question is: IS SPOTIFY LEGAL? AND HAS IT DONE WHAT IT NEEDS TO DO TO KEEP THE BLOODY RECORDING INDUSTRY BASTARDS FROM BOTHERING US?!?!?!?!!?!!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?

    I am sick of putting all of my playlists together (very substantial) and then having them deleted. FORTUNATELY, I screen-shotted ALL my playlists song names and artists…so I have them but it will take time to re-generate all the songs in Spotify now.

    …and when you have an extra nickel….or 20… PAY FOR THE SONG….these artists have worked hard and their talents need to be compensated for.

    Music makes the world somewhat sweeter.

  17. Dave said on May 3, 2015 at 4:44 pm
    Reply

    Does anyone know enough to check if the Windows Desktop app phones home with any info?

  18. Dan82 said on May 2, 2015 at 9:06 pm
    Reply

    I may try it out, but the foreign language is a big hurdle for me. What extension would you guys suggest which supports (automatic) replacement of the translated text without reloading the page or breaking site features? In order to work for me, a translation extension should only translate certain pages automatically and not bug me with others. Since I’m usually browsing multi-lingually (English, German, French and sometimes a bit of Italian too), I wouldn’t want the extension to keep bugging me about it.

  19. Cédric said on May 2, 2015 at 1:01 pm
    Reply

    Can anyone suggest a similar site for Classical music?

  20. Jay said on May 2, 2015 at 11:43 am
    Reply

    Been thinking of translating the android appfor the site there’s some automated(mostly still needs to be decompiled and recompiled) software to do it and I’ve got a little experience in it. Anyone Interested?

    1. Dave said on May 2, 2015 at 2:09 pm
      Reply

      There’s already a translated Android app on Reddit. What’s lacking is a translated Windows Desktop app.

      1. Anonymous said on May 8, 2015 at 12:20 am
        Reply

        Can you post the link?

  21. Music Man said on May 2, 2015 at 5:40 am
    Reply

    Thanks Martin,
    Exactly what i was searching for. No youtube video bulls****. Saves bandwith and loads faster. And also the site is not harder to use.

  22. Charles said on May 1, 2015 at 9:43 pm
    Reply

    Wow, this app is great. Way better than Grooveshark. Maybe someone will translate the Windows Desktop version using a Hex or resource editor?

    1. oscar said on May 2, 2015 at 9:45 pm
      Reply

      Anyone knows about an unpacker for the Netease exe, it seems to be compressed with PECompact 1.33

    2. Rickkee said on May 2, 2015 at 1:15 am
      Reply

      Go for it, I bet at least million people would pay you .99c for it !!!!

  23. Beecher Bowers said on May 1, 2015 at 7:47 pm
    Reply

    Toplist page on that site serves up something Avast! blocked. May be random, but it happened twice to me.

  24. dwarf_t0ssr said on May 1, 2015 at 7:12 pm
    Reply

    Went to this site, and was greeted by a red-headed bearded man in a French maid outfit. This site is pretty much the answer to my prayers, thanks.

    1. dwarf_t0ssr said on May 2, 2015 at 7:25 am
      Reply

      I meant the site linked in the story here! You guys are no fun. :/

  25. Rickkee said on May 1, 2015 at 7:05 pm
    Reply

    Spanish might be a little easier to navigate:
    http://www.vagalume.com.br/

    1. Rickkee said on May 2, 2015 at 1:35 am
      Reply

      http://www.deezer.com is very similar (no player tho, just webcast) but it is not available in the USA, so you have to subscribe to a private VPN service like NordVPN, so you can get an IP address in Australia and you’re good to go.

      1. Ray said on May 2, 2015 at 6:50 pm
        Reply

        This is what I also use.

        I never used to use any streaming music service, but Deezer only requires an account (which is free). Then, you can login and listen to any album or song in their large library.

        Some also like Spotify, but I don’t really like their interface.

    2. kjb78 said on May 1, 2015 at 11:11 pm
      Reply

      Lol,that’s portuguese dude,why on earth would you think that’s spanish,that’s like confusing german with english o_O

    3. Thiago said on May 1, 2015 at 10:01 pm
      Reply

      It’s portuguese, but not a real player, just a youtube indexer.

  26. navmed said on May 1, 2015 at 6:38 pm
    Reply

    Cool, is there any way to download a song?

    1. adelaidegreen said on May 18, 2015 at 10:01 am
      Reply

      Yeah, what a great pity that Grooveshark has been shut down. It once was a good music sharing site. But, there are still many sites that can download songs free. Like MP3 Grabber, MP3Skull, Last.fm are all useful. If you interested, you can read this post: http://www.videograbber.net/grooveshark-alternatives.html It has provided you many valuable information.

    2. Troll said on May 5, 2015 at 10:53 pm
      Reply

      If you download the desktop program you can download every song very easy. If you create an account and log in ( in the program) you can download with up to 320 Kbps. It is very nice and comfortable!

      1. navmed said on May 6, 2015 at 6:01 pm
        Reply

        Thanks!

    3. Gabriel said on May 2, 2015 at 9:47 pm
      Reply

      JDownloader

    4. oscar said on May 2, 2015 at 9:41 pm
      Reply

      For downloading you have to use the app (Windows Desktop-Phone, Andoid, iOS)

    5. Mike J. said on May 2, 2015 at 2:18 pm
      Reply

      I dunno about this place, but you can download from Pandora with DownloadHelper.

    6. Rickkee said on May 2, 2015 at 1:32 am
      Reply

      Ummm, isn’t that what iTunes and Rhapsody is for?
      PirateBay comes to mind..

    7. Rickkee said on May 1, 2015 at 7:25 pm
      Reply

      http://web.audacityteam.org/
      Audacity® is free, open source, cross-platform software for recording and editing sounds.

      1. navmed said on May 1, 2015 at 8:12 pm
        Reply

        Thanks, but I was hoping for a feature on the website that allows direct downloading.

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