BLADAM - Entry - Great ways to discover and (legally) listen to music online

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Great ways to discover and (legally) listen to music online

Here are a few thoughts on music services I’m in love with online. CAVEAT: Many, if not all of these only work in a limited number of countries due to lame licensing complications… typically the United States, often coupled with Canada and/or the UK. And it’d be wrong, oh so wrong to use proxies to get around this .

* * *

I just learned that on Last.fm you can not only play tons of (full length!) songs on demand now, but do so without even having an account. This makes it a great service to share neat music finds with others!

Here’s an example:
The short, catchy, and wordless 47 Reasons, from the charming and often hilarious a cappella group, The Bobs.

Downside: Individuals are technically only supposed to be able to stream a song full-length three times.

Other music services online that I love:

Yahoo Music Unlimited, but it’s being discontinued soon, sending all of its members to…
Rhapsody, with limited free streaming online and a service that offers memberships with unlimited streaming / tethered downloading for $13-$15/month. Great selection of artists and tunes!
Imeem, which—like Last.fm—also lets you stream a ton of awesome music full-length for free… and on Imeem you can even embed/share it, too, but all of this only for folks who are logged in. Others get 30 second snippets. Still, better than nothing… and better than services like iTunes which require you to use proprietary software.
Pandora, which doesn’t let you stream on demand or download, but it’s a fabulous (and free) online radio service that learns quickly what you love. Not just artists or genres, but actual sounds… swing feel, lots of trumpets, major keys, fast tempos, etc. Note that you can establish many different stations to fit your mood (big band jazz, laid back acoustic piano, etc.). Try this one out, create a couple of stations, seed ‘em with a few artists and/or song names, and then rate a handful of songs (thumbs up, thumbs down). You’ll be amazed and grateful .

Have thoughts on the ones I’ve listed above? And are there other music services online that you love and I haven’t mentioned?

[Hat tip for Last.fm info: DeWitt Clinton]

- Blathered by Adam on Saturday, March 29, 2008 at 18:11 [ Permalink | Trackback ]
- Filed under
- Commented on by 15 folks so far. Scroll down and see for yourself (and join in the conversation!)

Comment from jon [ BLADAM Profile \| URL ]	I like the zune music pass with like rhapsody for $15 a month it allows you unlimited downloads but its teathered. With this it will work in wmp, media center, xbox 360, zune, and a few otheres I think. - Posted on Saturday, March 29, 2008 at 18:58 [ Permalink to this comment ]
Comment from member Adam San Francisco [ BLADAM Profile \| URL ]	I’m curious, Jon… how’d you pick the Zune music pass service over, say, Rhapsody or Napster? Is it because of special compatibility with the Zune? - Posted on Saturday, March 29, 2008 at 19:21 [ Permalink to this comment ]
Comment from jon [ BLADAM Profile \| URL ]	Yeh compatibility with zune was the main reason I chose zune pass. - Posted on Saturday, March 29, 2008 at 19:43 [ Permalink to this comment ]
Comment from member Ashley [ BLADAM Profile \| URL ]	I love Pandora, but often find that I have to create 17 bajillion different stations on my account because my taste in music is so varied, that listening to music that “sounds” the same for too long drives me kinda bonkers. But my sister-in-law, for example, really only listens to one or two genres of music, so it works particularly well with her. If I could make a list on pandora of about 15 different songs that I like for different reasons, and then it created a playlist that shuffled all those kinds of music, then I would find it a better match for me personally. I wonder if something for people who like several types of music like that would have a big market. - Posted on Saturday, March 29, 2008 at 20:02 [ Permalink to this comment ]
Comment from member Adam San Francisco [ BLADAM Profile \| URL ]	Well, Ashley, there’s a difference between bajillion and “several” . You might try seeding Pandora stations with a diverse group of artists and songs; maybe that’ll help the stations be a bit broader in nature? - Posted on Saturday, March 29, 2008 at 20:05 [ Permalink to this comment ]
Comment from Passer By Piedmont, CA [ BLADAM Profile \| URL ]	I think you missed a key feature of imeem, they way it gets all this music on its site is by users uploading their favourite bands. imeem is essentially ‘youtube for music’ which means it has a larger catalog than any of the other sites mentioned. (and unlike last.fm there’s no 3 play limit) This user created catalog has helped imeem to become the biggest of all the sites you’ve mentioned. - Posted on Sunday, March 30, 2008 at 6:44 [ Permalink to this comment ]
Comment from member jon heckman North Carlina [ BLADAM Profile \| URL ]	Wow I just remembered I can log in. Why did my other comments say im from Germany? - Posted on Sunday, March 30, 2008 at 6:57 [ Permalink to this comment ]
Comment from member rockya [ BLADAM Profile \| URL ]	Funny, the Bobs performed at Tellme’s all hands this year. - Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 at 23:07 [ Permalink to this comment ]
Comment from pcheing [ BLADAM Profile \| URL ]	I used to use Yahoo! Music all the time, I just kept wanting to rate the music to move up to the next level (have no idea what it entitled). I also tried pandora for a while, and imeem is good for searching. The only other one I have used is http://www.radioblogclub.com which is like imeem, but not as good. - Posted on Tuesday, April 1, 2008 at 22:28 [ Permalink to this comment ]
Comment from dave [ BLADAM Profile \| URL ]	My favourite service is deezer.com (formerly Blogmusik). Similar to Pandora but better in my opinion. - Posted on Friday, April 4, 2008 at 16:20 [ Permalink to this comment ]
Comment from John Mp3 Songs [ BLADAM Profile \| URL ]	Hi Adam, If you ask to girls the same question they probably would been reply like. “we are downloading the favorite songs” rather than to listen those online. - Posted on Monday, April 7, 2008 at 13:22 [ Permalink to this comment ]
Comment from Paul Columbus, NE [ BLADAM Profile \| URL ]	I use esnips. Its also as good as imeem. - Posted on Wednesday, April 9, 2008 at 17:13 [ Permalink to this comment ]
Comment from ThomasB [ BLADAM Profile \| URL ]	How do you like http://www.muvibee.com ? - Posted on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 4:12 [ Permalink to this comment ]
Comment from member Adam San Francisco [ BLADAM Profile \| URL ]	Wow, lots of neat suggestions. - radioblogclub: I’ve tried this, and it’s nice to be able to embed music on one’s own site. Decent selection, but often not very accurate tagging. Of questionable legality, too. - deezer: Eeek, slow slow slow! Curse that Flash. Played with it a few weeks ago, but just got too frustrated. - download vs. listen: For those of us who are at a computer for many hours a day, it doesn’t seem to make much difference - esnips: Did a search for a popular artist, and very little came up… at least that was tagged coherantly. Bummer :( - muvibee: Interesting! Quite a variety of videos. But no free streaming of high-quality audio from what I could tell :(. Anyway, thanks much, everyone, for all the sharing of sites. Cool to see what’s out there! - Posted on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 12:22 [ Permalink to this comment ]
Comment from Lisa [ BLADAM Profile \| URL ]	Well, you probably know this already but try muxtape.com. - Posted on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 at 6:05 [ Permalink to this comment ]

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