Rdio marches to death playing the high notes

By

The Rdio app just got better than ever. Photo: Rdio.
You won't be able to stream from Rdio on Christmas this year.
Photo: Rdio

Rdio made the date of its demise official this morning. The streaming music service as we know it will cease to exist on December 22 — just six days from today — at 5 p.m. Pacific time. Rdio sent around an email to its users to let them know the specifics of the shutdown.

“Rdio is being acquired, and the service is shutting down worldwide on December 22,” the company wrote on its Goodbye page. “We’re excited to bring great music experiences to even more listeners in the future as part of the Pandora team.”

The Goodbye page highlights some key statistics during Rdio’s existence, which began on August 3, 2010. The first song ever played was “California Gurls” by Katy Perry and featuring Snoop Dogg. The most played album of all time was “Nothing Was the Same” by Drake and the most played song goes to Bruno Mars for “When I Was Your Man.”

Pandora announced last month that it would snatch up key assets of Rdio for $75 million after the service filed for bankruptcy. That’s almost certainly due to the fierce competition from Spotify and now Apple Music, both of which have managed to cement their positions as the top two streaming music services. Rdio never was able to differentiate itself from the other players and now has to close its doors as a result.

For those of you loyal users, there is still time to log in and download an archive of your Rdio data. You won’t be able to download the actual music since it’s just a streaming service, but you can download the lists from your collection. You can use these to import playlists and favorites to another service like Spotify. Rdio will guide you through the export process after you’re logged in.

Newsletters

Daily round-ups or a weekly refresher, straight from Cult of Mac to your inbox.

  • The Weekender

    The week's best Apple news, reviews and how-tos from Cult of Mac, every Saturday morning. Our readers say: "Thank you guys for always posting cool stuff" -- Vaughn Nevins. "Very informative" -- Kenly Xavier.