Tons and Tons of Music

If you like music, this is a pretty good time to own a computer. I've talked about internet radio (SomaFM.com - still my favorite) and services that help you find new music (Last.FM and Yahoo Music) and places to download music (LimeWire and eMusic).

Quick updates on these - Last.FM has become part of CBS and now has agreements with all of the major labels. That probably signals the end of my interest - a pay scale is likely to follow. Yahoo Music bought MusicMatch, my player/tagger/ripper/burner of choice for many years. The replacement doesn't do MOST of what MM used to - that saddens me. LimeWire is like the old Napster but with new rules and potential for malware. SomaFM and eMusic are still great, and PayPlay (see the button to the right) is a haven for Creative Commons music and other truly indie stuff.

I've become aware of a few new services that are either excellent or up and coming:

1. The Hype Machine - this is a very cool blog that simply aggregates posts from OTHER MP3 blogs and adds a little player at the bottom of the page that plays the linked MP3s from each post. The music selection is as various as the whim of the multitudinous bloggers writing about the music that excites them that day. Fun for a totally random radio experience or you can search for a particular song or artist. Added bonus - you can listen to the music AND read the blogger's impression or reason for posting it.

2. Pandora - Elise from SomaFM talked about Pandora a lot during the fight against the CRB and SoundExchange last year. I never checked it out because I had tried Yahoo's predictive service (pick a band and they'll serve up others like it) and found it pretty unrealistic and very commercial. Pandora is the opposite. They're working to map the "music genome" to dissect songs based on smart characteristics, then make recommendations based on their database and your continual thumbs up or thumbs down. In the first two listens, I discovered three new bands I'd never heard of but will probably research further. Hell, I might even buy a CD! Further, you can create a number of your own radio stations to fit your moods. Very customizable, great selection of music, and continually learning your taste.

3. Songbird - The creators of Winamp and Mozilla software got together to create an open-source, fully functional, and free music player (based on Firefox, actually). The design is cool, the open architecture is commendable, and when it gets out of beta, it'll be my player of choice, no doubt. In the meantime, there are bugs and instead of "extensions" or "add-ons", they call their updates "feathers". If the release version is good enough I'll overlook that.

What are you using?