Find Yourself Some New Tunes
I've been stuck in a musical rut lately, listening to the same old jazz CDs over and over again. That's gotta stop, I told myself, and did some searching to get myself some new tunes (as long as it's jazz...).
First stop, PC World's Narasu Rebbapragada did some searching and came up with Great Online Sources for Finding New Music.
And I have to say, Narasu came up with some gems, like Pandora, a site that lets you make your own "radio station." Just enter an artist name and sit back and enjoy tracks from that artist plus some you may not have heard of.
For a free offering, they offer lots of nifty features. For instance, I can add cuts to a favorites page or, conversely, reject specific albums, so I won't have to hear it again. There's a smart option -- "I'm tired of this song" -- that pulls the plug on that specific cut for 30 days. After a while, Pandora picks up my likes and dislikes, and a pattern emerges, making the songs they play in the future fit my style.
If you're curious, you can tune to either of my two radio stations (sorry, nothing Madonna-ish; strictly straight-ahead, West coast, Bill Evans kinda music). I named the first one Bill Evans Radio (now there's a surprise) and the other is originally named Jazz Radio.
Use Pandora to create a radio station and listen to your favorite category of tunes
In Your Face Music
OTOH, I dunno about Narasu's choice of Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music... it's a little in-your-face (my face, anyway). On the opening page, the welcome warns you that "if you've never been here before, you may find this a bit daunting." No lie. Decide for yourself.
Tomorrow: More music sites, including a free music site that rivals Pandora.
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What I really need is a service in which I can enter a band I like and it can make me a playlist of similar music!
thats what Pandora is! and Last.fm, too, you know!
Sounds like a real good idea, Anonymous. The problem is that sometimes a person likes to listen to smooth jazz, other times Black Sabbath, or perhaps Gordon Lightfoot. Yeah, I'm going to extremes...
But for someone to provide the kind of thing that you are looking for is pretty much impossible.
You'll have to put your own playlist together, and then you'll have to worry about all of the new CDMA regulations, and then....
It seems to me, things were a lot easier when I was growing up. Buy a record, record it to tape, carry it with you when you want to.
Too many greedy lawyers these days.
Turin: You're one day ahead of me with Last.FM.
Accuradio.com offers a similar service, not as specifically by artists but they have a good range of genres and you can choose some very specific "subchannels" and deselect artists or skip songs you don't like.
"But for someone to provide the kind of thing that you are talking about is pretty much impossible."
Okay, so after a hectic day of job hunting I took at a look at the Pandora site. Needless to say, I found that it blew my comment from yesterday right out the window. Pandora looks like a fun tool that bears further investigating.
The great thing about Pandora is not only is it easy to use, it seems to work much better than the competing sites I've tried. It's also very smart and has a pretty wide range of music.... bet of all, the interface is extremely simple, considering the high-tech aspects of the site.
Narasu Rebbapragada "Great Online Sources for Finding New Music" article is very good -- thnaks for pointing it out. I've got a very, very long list of music site (and software) reviews on my blog that you might be interested in as well: http://celebritycola.blogspot.com/2005/03/cheap-music-for-masses.html
Pandora is simply the most easy, intuitive, effortless way I have found to listen to music on the World Wide Web.
John Tully
http://nyheraldsun.com
THIS SOFTWARE IS ONLY FOR US RESIDENTS !!!
See: http://www.pandora.com/restricted
We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for most listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative.
The great thing about Pandora is if you love "smooth jazz, other times Black Sabbath, or perhaps Gordon Lightfoot" you can create separate stations based on each of them then put them in your "quick mix" and Pandora will shuffle those stations all together. So you'll hear a little bit of everything! Give it a try.
In reply to Joffreyv:
I found this site through google called www.globalpandora.com.
I am not in america and can use fine.
rgd
juan moriza