A Guide to iTunes Radio: What Stations to Listen to on Apple's Streaming Service

This week, Apple released the anticipated iOS 7 update for iPhones and, with it, the brand-new iTunes Radio. The platform is something we've seen before, notably similar to Pandora and sites like it, but its integration into every Apple product out there means that it could easily become the new music industry standard for internet streaming. With 27 million tracks in its arsenal, iTunes Radio has a lot of potential.

We've been using the service for a week in order to see what it does best, and to come up with some suggestions for which stations you should tune in to depending on what music you want to listen to.

Station: Arcade Fire Radio

Songs You'll Hear: "Fake Empire" - The National, "Two Weeks" - Grizzly Bear, "The Funeral" - Band of Horses

Reliability: Very reliable. Whatever algorithm Apple is using for this station seems to come with a vetting process that includes making sure every song was on a Pitchfork Best New Music-approved album.

This station is one of your best bets if you want to hear great songs from the indie-rock canon. There's nothing that will be surprising, but the consistency of the anthems it churns out is impressive—you'll be singing along from the first song and probably won't be inclined to press fast-forward on anything as it keeps going.

Station: Smallpools Radio

Songs You'll Hear: "Trojans" - Atlas Genius, "Closer" - Tegan & Sara, "Carried Away" - Passion Pit

Reliability: Not great. You'll have some skippable tracks playing.

Smallpools are one of the tightest up-and-coming pop acts right now, and their iTunes Radio station reflects it. This one is good if all you really want is something catchy, but aren't interested in what's on mainstream radio. You'll get some under-the-radar tracks that sound like they should be hits, but without the overplayed boredom that comes with actual hits. Quality is touch and go, though; there's going to be some cheesy stuff played that's best just skipped and forgotten.

Station: Future Radio

Songs You'll Hear: "Go Get It" - T.I., "Squares Out Your Circle" - Rocko, "I'm Different" - 2 Chainz

Reliability: If you just want beats that knock, this one will have you covered.

Sometimes you just want to hear some rap. Rattling bass and reckless lyrics are known therapeutics, and this station is extremely good at picking songs that fit that description. It takes much of the best of the top-tier of Southern hip-hop to keep you nodding and your car windows buzzing. As an added bonus, you get a shit ton of Future hooks, something you can never have enough of.

Station: Disclosure Radio

Songs You'll Hear: "What They Say" - Maya Jane Coles, "Child" - George Fitzgerald, "Go Bang" - SBTRKT

Reliability: Surprisingly dependable, minimal missteps into abrasively aggressive tracks or poppy EDM.

The brothers Disclosure are the golden boys of the electronic music scene right now, for good reason, and they make a very solid jumping off point for someone who wants to get into dance music but hasn't taken the plunge wholeheartedly yet. This makes them a good pick for a straightforward dance music radio station. You'll mostly get house artists, but the tracks come with a mainstream-leaning approach—iTunes Radio, as a rule, trends towards songs you know you won't hate rather than songs you might like, even if you go into the settings and adjust the station towards discovery instead of the hits.

Station: El-P Radio

Songs You'll Hear: "Keep Off The Lawn" - Aesop Rock, "Money Folder" - Madvillain, "Smile" - Eyedea & Abilities

Reliability: Good, but never goes far enough.

If you're looking for the darker side of hip-hop, this station is a good bet for the dexterous, off-the-beaten-path, and dusty rap that's carried the tag of "underground" for the past two decades. Just as the Arcade Fire station does for indie-rock, this station sequences the best of the best of backpack rap—you're going to get classics you might not have listened to in a few years rather than new songs you've never heard of, with the occasional exception for acts like Death Grips. It makes for an awesome, consistent listening experiencing, but you won't find your next favorite new rapper here.

Station: Peter Gabriel Radio

Songs You'll Hear: "In Your Eyes" - Peter Gabriel, "Friday I'm In Love" - The Cure, "This Woman's Work" - Kate Bush

Reliability: Extraordinary

I can't recommend this station enough. It's the peak of romantic excess, and will give you the soundtrack for your very own romantic comedy. Sounds (and, to be honest, is) cheesy, but I dare you to try it—you won't be able to go back to anything else.

Station: Blues Radio, Jazz Radio, Classic Country Radio

Songs You'll Hear: Varies

Reliability: Very consistent

iTunes Radio isn't very good at giving you the cutting edge of music today but, if you're reading sites like ours, you should already be pretty on top of the state of new music, and there are countless outlets online where you can find some weird stuff coming out today. We pride ourselves on covering a whole spread of genres—no one on the team here listens to one single kind of music, and P&P has always been about covering a diverse range of sounds. That said, there's just too much out there to cover to everything, and a lot of great music never gets picked up by the Internet at large today. iTunes Radio, and sites like it, can help with that. You won't find anything new on iTunes Radio, but turn on the Blues, Jazz, Classical or Country stations, and you'll discover something that you've never heard before. Apple has a huge catalog built up, and the way you're going to find something new is by looking backwards, not forwards.

Station: None

Songs You'll Hear: n/a

Reliability: n/a

After using iTunes Radio for a few weeks, it's easy to see that finding things that are strange or new is really not the point of the service. It's not what the general audience is going to be looking for, they just want to throw on the station for a band they already like and listen to songs that they will also like. It's not exciting, but what iTunes Radio does, similar to any other song-selecting program, it does pretty well.

I tried a whole host of artists doing interesting things that I thought could lead the algorithm to some experimental stuff I might not have heard before, but stations such as Nguzunguzu's lead you back to songs like Grimes' "Genesis," James Blake's "Limit To Your Love," and Burial's "Archangel." All great songs that I liked hearing again—which is, after all, iTunes Radio's primary concern—but if you're looking for something weird, you're shit out of luck.