QQ Music Review (2023) 🥊 QQ Music vs Spotify

QQ Music Review (2023) 🎼 Where To Find The Best Chinese Songs

QQ Music Review; How does it rank vs Spotify? Can I learn Chinese with QQ Music? All your questions, answered.

Learning Chinese through listening to Chinese songs is one of the best ways to learn Chinese like a native. 

It may not be so popular in the West, but there is a whole bunch of Chinese music out there that you’re missing out on.

Some of it may just be useful for Chinese language practice… But some of it is actually decent music too! 

QQ Music Review // Getting Started

QQ Music Review // Costs

QQ Music Review // Using QQ

QQ Music Review // What’s Available

QQ Music Review // Software

QQ Music Review // Using QQ to Learn Chinese

QQ Music Review // Conclusion

QQ Music Review // ONE LAST BONUS

QQ Music Review // Getting Started

QQ music is available on any Chinese app store.

If you have previously downloaded Chinese Apps such as iQiyi, you will already have a Chinese app store.

If not, you can get Chinese app stores in the Play Store for Android, or alternatively, you can change your location to China on the App Store for Apple and download it, then change it back to your original location. 

Unlike different Chinese apps such as iQiyi, you won’t need a VPN to use this app.

You can freely use the app for streaming and downloading.

Although, it may be a bit quicker in China in our experience. 

It should also be noted that some music won’t be available in your country.

This only happens every so often, and if it does, you will need a Chinese VPN to listen to this particular song/artist. 

QQ Music Review // The Costs

When challenging QQ Music vs Spotify, QQ Music wins hand-down in terms of cost. 

There are two different packages you can purchase on QQ Music. 

The cheapest package allows you to listen to 100,000 songs from the VIP area and download 300 songs per month. 

The costs are as follows; 

• Monthly: 8 CNY
• 3 Month Package: 24 CNY
• Year (12 months) package: 88 CNY

The other package is the “luxurious” package.

This is more costly but doesn’t include any of the aforementioned restrictions, and offers “privileges”. 

The costs are as follows; 

• Monthly: 18 CNY
• 3 Month Package: 45 CNY
• Year (12 month) package: 168 CNY

Even if you go for QQ Music’s most costly package and pay the least cost-effective way (per month), you are still saving a huge amount. 

In fact, Spotify costs $9.99 per month.

That’s about 70 CNY.

In comparison, at its most expensive, QQ Music costs approximately $2.50 per month, and at its cheapest, QQ Music costs a mere $1 per month.

This means that a year of QQ Music is almost equal to one month of Spotify. 

Which do you prefer, QQ Music or Spotify? Leave us a comment below please.

How do I make payment to QQ Music? 

You will have to have a Chinese bank account or access to WeChat pay to set up your payments on QQ Music. 

If you have WeChat, you can choose to pay monthly and pay every month.

Otherwise, you can choose the option to pay for the year and it is set up then. You won’t get billed automatically, but rather will get prompted to top up your payment. 

No sneaky subscriptions.

Nice! 

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QQ Music Review // Using QQ Music

QQ Music’s handy features helping you discover new music will also help in exploring Chinese songs and Chinese culture through music, and really boost your Chinese language learning too! 

Search 

You can search here for a song or band name you know. If it’s a Chinese band or song, you should use Chinese characters to search – but you can also use Pinyin sometimes. 

You can use the search feature to find different artists and songs popular in different countries and different genres, as well as finding the most recent popular Chinese songs in that category. 

Download

When you are playing a song, you have the option to download it.

9/10 times it’s free and included with your package, but sometimes if the song is particularly new, you will need to pay for this. It may be 10 cents or so. 

You will have the option to choose in which quality you wish to download it.

There may also be a music video included with the song that you can choose to download or not. 

You should keep the app open whilst downloading. 

Recommendation

Much like Spotify’s Discover Weekly, QQ Music gives you a Discover Daily. Spotify – such slackers!

This playlist updates daily and is based on your recent music listening. However, Spotify does offer different Daily Mixes, which QQ Music does not offer you. 

Explore

QQ Music allows you to browse different playlists according to mood or genre, as well as browsing different artists popular in different countries and popular in different genres.

Share

If you wish to share a song to a friend on QQ Music you can simply click on the share button and there are various options for you to share the song. (Chinese app platforms only).

Lyrics

Probably the best feature of QQ Music that Spotify is really missing out on – and especially useful for the Chinese language learners – this feature allows you to follow the lyrics to a song as it is playing. 

Pretty much every Chinese song on QQ Music will have lyrics attached.

You simply click onto the song you’re listening to enlarge the screen, then swipe once to the left. You will then see the lyrics appear. 

You can use this feature to help you understand Chinese song lyrics, learn Chinese songs for a night out in KTV, and learn some new Chinese characters! 

Not only is this great Chinese language practice, but you can also change the characters to appear in traditional characters.

This is a great way to get used to reading traditional and simplified characters. 

This feature not only works for Chinese music but also Korean, Japanese, Russian…

It should be noted that the lyrics for more obscure songs are provided by the public and may have mistakes in them. You can report a mistake or contribute lyrics to a song yourself. 

Karaoke

As well as just singing out loud to no audience whilst you read along with the lyrics, you also have the option to open up the karaoke feature.

This opens up in a new karaoke app that combines the music from QQ Music, as well as your profile, so you can record your karaoke songs and upload them to your own personal profile. 

People can then follow you here and listen to your new uploads! 

Listen Together

There is a “listen together” feature “一起听” that allows you to listen to music with other users of the app, and make comments or chat whilst you do so. 

PK (Battle)

The Chinese love a good “PK”, i.e. competition/battle.

On QQ Music you can battle another user to be the best singer. Get your Karaoke on! 

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QQ Music Review // What’s Available

Mainly Chinese songs. 

In fact, this may be the biggest collection of Chinese songs out there. 

If listening to Chinese songs is what you’re after, then QQ Music beats Spotify hands down. 

Spotify offers a small selection of Chinese songs, especially more traditional ones and those popular in Hong Kong and Taiwan, but if it’s mainland Chinese music you’re after, QQ Music is the place to go. 

As well as Chinese songs, you’ll be pleased to know that QQ Music offers a surprising amount of foreign music too.

In fact, the collection of Korean music here is almost as good as Chinese music. There’s also a wide range of Japanese music. 

Aside from K-Pop, J-Pop, and C-Pop, there are also the latest western releases. 

QQ Music Review // Software

As I have found with most Chinese App software vs Apps found on more popular app stores, QQ Music’s interface is more user-friendly, and most importantly, much more speedy. 

It loads up quickly, especially offline.

Since all of your downloaded songs are stored in your phone instead of how it seems on Spotify in some kind of Spotify cloud storage, you can listen to your downloaded songs by opening up your downloads in your phone and clicking on them here.

They will then open up in QQ Music.

You can’t listen to these songs on any other music platform, and if you wish to share them the person you are sharing to should also have QQ Music. 

There are adverts when you first open it up even if you have VIP membership, but you can skip these with the membership.

Apart from this, the software is very easy to use (if you read Chinese) and has many features that Spotify or many other music apps are missing. 

QQ Music Review // Using QQ Music for Learning Chinese

Switching your phone to Chinese and surrounding yourself in Chinese characters you simply have to learn is a great way of learning Chinese. 

This is a useful way you can use QQ Music to learn Chinese too, but this is only just the start of the many ways you can use QQ Music to learn Chinese. 

Even if you’re not much of a music fan, learning Chinese through Chinese songs is a top way of learning Chinese.

Not only will you learn many different phrases and vocabulary you may not learn in the classroom, but it’s also a fun way of learning! Plus, you will be surprised how much it helps you learn Chinese culture, as well as just the language. 

The absolute best feature of QQ Music to assist your Chinese learning through Chinese songs is the karaoke/lyrics feature. 

If QQ isn’t an option, you can always make your own Karaoke with our SpongeBob and Peppa Pig theme tune videos including the lyrics!

You can listen to Chinese music and follow the lyrics whilst reading the Chinese characters.

This means you can get used to reading the Chinese characters, or help with recognising them. This is perfect for those just starting to learn Chinese or any level between HSK1 – 3. 

If you feel like this isn’t challenging enough already, switch those characters to traditional Chinese characters and see how well you do! HSK 4 – 5 levels will find this feature interesting. 

If this isn’t challenging enough already, you can listen to a song in a different language (that you don’t know) and turn on the Chinese translation feature, and try to understand the lyrics of that language from the Chinese translation as the music is playing…! 

HSK 6ers, we’re speaking to you! 

If you haven’t started using this already, use it now! 

QQ Music vs Spotify // Conclusion

• QQ Music vs Spotify – Cost: QQ Music
• QQ Music vs Spotify – Usage: QQ Music
• QQ Music vs Spotify – Availability: Foreign Music – Spotify / Chinese Music – QQ Music
• QQ Music vs Spotify – Software: QQ Music
• QQ Music vs Spotify – Learn Chinese: QQ Music

This may seem quite drastic, but once you lay everything out – QQ Music is a clear winner. But, it may not be for everyone. 

And certainly not for those not interested in China and without any knowledge in Chinese or Chinese characters… 

Depending on what you’re looking for in a music app, you may find that Spotify and QQ Music are beneficial in different ways. 

If the somewhat limited selection of foreign music isn’t enough for you, then Spotify is certainly the way to go.

However, if you’re just after listening to Chinese music, Spotify certainly won’t satisfy your craving, so you’ll need QQ Music. 

The best is to combine the two, as they both offer different things. QQ Music is certainly cheaper, and it’s almost worth just getting it anyway since it is so cheap. 

What’s certain, though, is that QQ Music is an absolute must for learning Chinese like a native and getting an edge on everyone else. 

QQ Music // ONE LAST BONUS

We’ve got a surprise for you here!

You probably didn’t know that we are indeed on Spotify.

Yes, we really do have great belief listening to music is a great way to learn a language!

So, just for you, here are 12 of the best songs of all time in China. Ones of which you will benefit greatly from learning!

QQ Music // FAQs

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