Free resource
NetEase Music (网易云音乐)
My notes
Chinese music as passive listening has a low barrier to entry and a surprisingly high return for vocabulary and tonal feel. 网易云 has both Chinese and international content, and some podcasts too, so it works as a single audio app. The emotional connection to songs also helps certain phrases stay in memory longer than they would on a flashcard.
I started listening to Chinese music primarily as a way to absorb tonal patterns in a form that felt less like studying, and ended up finding that lyrics made certain phrases stick in memory with an intensity I couldn't replicate from a flashcard. 网易云 was the app I used because it had the best library and built-in lyrics sync, and the podcast content on the platform extended its usefulness beyond music alone. A few songs I listened to repeatedly during study sessions became what I think of as emotional anchors — I still remember where I was when I first understood a lyric I'd previously heard as noise.