I'll make a counter argument to iphone. My mother who is in her 70s loved her android and is less of a fan of the Iphone, she found a lot of the home button stuff counterintuitive and we noticed that she constantly had the problem of thinking she'd closed things only to have 25 apps running in the background so her phone would run glacially slow even though it was fairly new
Personally I think a good sized android phone is better than an iphone, especially given how much easier it is to customize stuff to fit what you like.
Downside is no going to an apple store, but who wants to go to a mall and wait around for 40 minutes. On all of these the basics are usually pretty easy, and you can go on youtube and there will be literally thousands of videos that will walk you through any and everything you could possibly have a question about. Right now the Samsung S22 Ultra is probably the most popular of the top level android phones.
Overall though, I'd say as someone who used to sell phones many years ago
@edoug gave you the best advice, go to Verizon or Best Buy or the like and play around with the display models, see what feels good to you, and make a decision on that.
Also, since you said price wasn't important people all suggested $1,000+ phones, but honestly there is really no particular reason for you to get that if all you want it for is call/text, spotify etc. There are a ton of Androids in particular anywhere from $200 up that will easily handle what you want them to do, which is one reason I'd suggest going to a Best Buy or something, see what you care about, and what you like. Capability isn't going to matter to you, a 5 year old phone can easily handle everything you want, higher end gets you better screens... usually, always gets you better cameras and better finishes. So try them out... do you really like a glass back? Then buy a high end phone. Do you actually like a lighter plastic phone's feel... then go mid-range.