I can't seem to get spotify to recommend me anything besides rap music. I use the checkboxes to indicate I like classical, the Dead, Phish, Dylan, Cash, and more but I have never once had anything besides rap music show up on my discover weekly. It's a bit frustrating.

There's recommendations at the bottom of individual playlists now so I can look there but still a pain that I can't get a nice mix in my discover weekly.

What do you actually listen to? Do you listen to a lot of rap? If so, that's likely to cause your discovery issue.

Same can be said for Google Play All Access.

And you can fill the gaps in their catalog by uploading your own music.

Tldr: I really don't see the case for pandora in 2017.

The most important thing for Google Play Music after the "upload your own stuff":

It does a great job caching songs ahead while you're on Wifi, so you can minimize data usage while out and about. Plus, with the caching it also works offline perfectly well.

I feel a bit sorry for all the other services, but on a technical level Google Play Music has outplayed them all entirely.

I like and use Play Music, but find their recommendation engine to be less great. The channels work a bit differently, too.

Oddly enough I love GP's recommendation set so much more than Pandora's. It's so much better attuned to what I like and don't and what I like to explore. It's very good at distinguishing what I like and what I don't, and I'm pretty picky about what I listen to.

Pandora did it first, and not just by a few years.