Need a Grooveshark alternative? NetEase Music may be it

Martin Brinkmann
May 1, 2015
Music and Video
|
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
Advertisement

Tutorials & Tips


Previous Post: «
Next Post: «

Comments

  1. Anonymous said on August 1, 2010 at 12:43 pm
    Reply

    Why not make use of the mplayer.conf?

  2. Mike J said on August 1, 2010 at 2:58 pm
    Reply

    Huh, I have never even seen this “font cache” pane; videos play at once for me, using VLC & XP SP3.

    1. Martin said on August 1, 2010 at 3:39 pm
      Reply

      Mike, in theory this should have only been displayed once to you, at the very first video that you played with VLC. The time this window is displayed depends largely on the number of fonts in your font directory.

      1. Mike J said on August 2, 2010 at 2:30 pm
        Reply

        huh, I lucked out for a change?? Amazing!!
        Apparently VLC keeps this info through version updates, but I didn’t see this message after a fresh OS install about 8 weeks ago, & a new VLC.

  3. myo said on August 1, 2010 at 5:52 pm
    Reply

    yes, yes, i have the same problem. sometimes, VLC crashes when it is playing .mov file.

  4. Kishore said on August 13, 2010 at 2:55 pm
    Reply

    Error:
    Buidling font Cache pop-up

    Solution:

    Open VLC player.

    On Menu Bar:

    Tools
    Preferences

    (at bottom – left side)
    Show settings — ALL

    Open: Video
    Click: Subtitles/OSD (This is now highlited, not opened)
    Text rendering module – change this to “Dummy font renderer function”

    Save
    Exit

    Re-open – done.
    Progam will no longer look outside self for fonts

    Source – WorthyTricks.co.cc

    1. Martin said on August 13, 2010 at 3:10 pm
      Reply

      Great tip, thanks a lot Kishore.

  5. javier said on August 14, 2010 at 1:50 pm
    Reply

    @Kishore, I’ll try your tips, but does this mean it will no longer show subtitles either?
    I do use subtitles, but the fontcache dialog box pops up (almost) everytime I play a file.

    Could this be related to the fonts I have installed? Or if I add/remove fonts to my system?

    I’ll try to do a fresh install also, if your tips does no work. I’ll post back here later…

    /thanks
    /j

  6. Kishore said on August 15, 2010 at 12:38 pm
    Reply

    @ Javier, The trick i posted will show up subtitles too. If not,

  7. Kishore said on August 15, 2010 at 12:39 pm
    Reply

    @ Javier, The trick i posted will show up subtitles too. If not,Dont worry, VLC is currently sorting out this issue and the next version will be out soon.

    No probs @ Martin !! Its my pleasure

  8. Ted said on October 22, 2010 at 3:57 am
    Reply

    Try running LC with administrator privileges. That seemed to fix it for me

  9. Evan said on December 8, 2013 at 1:48 am
    Reply

    I am using SMplayer 0.8.6 (64-bit) (Portable Edition) on Windows 7 x64. Even with the -nofontconfig parameter in place SMplayer still scans the fonts. Also, I have enabled normal subtitles and it is still scanning fonts before playing a video. Also, it does this every time the player opens a video after a system restart (only the fist video played).

  10. Mike Williams said on September 6, 2023 at 1:26 pm
    Reply

    Does that mean that only instrumental versions of songs will be available for non-paying users?

Leave a Reply

Check the box to consent to your data being stored in line with the guidelines set out in our privacy policy

We love comments and welcome thoughtful and civilized discussion. Rudeness and personal attacks will not be tolerated. Please stay on-topic.
Please note that your comment may not appear immediately after you post it.