How to listen to and find new music online
Posted by: leimrod in Media, internet, tags: free, Links, music, online, SoftwareI have to admit, I’m no longer a member of the MTV generation. In fact I can’t even remember the last time I watched a music channel on TV. The idea of letting somebody else govern what music I should listen to seems bizarre to me, especially considering the wealth of sites out there that will let you listen to whatever music you like, whenever you like.
So first off, how do you find new music?
Music Discovery Sites:
Well there are quite a few music discovery sites out there that will link bands and music depending on their genre, so all you really need to do is start with a band you like and work from there. The difference with the ones I’m about to list is that they have used really intuitive visual environments to help you navigate through the recommended bands.
Top 5:
This is usually my #1 stop when searching for new music as its interface pretty much has everything, apart from the ability to increase the amount of results displayed. Each node in the music map is an album recommendation. You navigate through the bands by clicking on the album, which will bring up track listings, allow you to access wikipedia info, play videos, read reviews and purchase from amazon.
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Next to Musicmesh, this site is really intuitive and fun to use. It doesn’t provide near as much info but it is still quite well designed. It is powered by Last.fm and Amazon data. My main gripe with it is its complete lack of ability to allow you to listen to the music. But if you matched this fairly simple and fast site with a music listening site it could work really well.
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Much the same as music-map but a little bit more graphical. As with music-map, the closer a node is to another the more related they are. Also, the larger a node, the more popular it is. Colours are also used to show which artists music is most similar. It’s worth registering with this site as it will allow you then to save your favourite artists and also share your saved maps with friends.
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This was one of the first music discovery sites that I came across. It seems to be fairly widely known. Unlike Musicmesh it gives Artist recommendations rather than Album recommendations. The way it works is that when you search for an Artist, the closer the nodes in the map are the more likely those Artists will have a similar sound, thus giving a greater chance that you will also like their music. Use this site in conjuntion with a good music listening site as it doesn’t allow you to listen to any music.
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This site is mainly used for exploring Amazon’s product catalog, thus the name mashup “Amaz” “node”. Just type in an Artists name and watch the map of that Artists and related Artists albums start filling the screen. It’s a neat tool for searching Amazon, but as it does not allow you to listen to music and it also can take a while, depending on your connection, to fill the map, it might be worth using either Tuneglue or music-map if you want a simpler interface.
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Other Music Discovery sites you can check out:
Music Listening Sites:
Now that you’ve found your new music, you might want an easy way to listen to it, create playlists… etc. The following sites offer these features. I’m sure there are a load more of them out there but these are the best ones I’ve found so far.
Top 4:
This site, unlike songza, has a very extensive interface, reminding me of iTunes slightly. What’s great about it is that you can open it up in a winow and resize it and the webpage will resize accordingly, keeping all the relevant features in the window, allowing you to have it the size of your average desktop music player/library. It’s definitely my first stop when looking to queue up a few songs into a playlist and listen to whilst in work or at home browsing. The interface is also very intuitive so needs little explaining. Visit this site and wonder how you lived without it.
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This is the first site I came across and seems to be widely used at the moment. It has a very simple, google-esque, homepage, although recently adverts seem to be taking over the top of it. You simply search for your desired artist/song to get a list of songs related to your search then click on it and choose to either share, rate, add to playlist or, of course, play. My only problem with it is that it can get flooded with poor quality songs, but I guess the older the site gets the better the rating system will be.
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Like songza and grooveshark lite, but doesn’t really bring anything new to the table except for a great search box, which brings up recommendations from its library as you type. Its a good site and should be used it either of the previously mentioned sites are running a little slow.
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A fairly interesting take on the music search engine. You search for a band you like and then are given a selection of “muxtapes” (i.e. playlists created by other users) to listen to that match closely the band you are looking for. View it more like an audible music discovery site rather than visual. But don’t use it if you specifically want to listen to a band as most of the time the playlists are anything but the band you are looking for.
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Other Music Listening sites you can check out:
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I have used Deezer before when it was Blogmusik and find it a great source to find out old talent. There are some great sites out there to trawl, but I’m the type who might only listen to new music once every two months. I prefer my collection as it is.