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You know how when you learn a new word, you suddenly hear it all the time? Well, that's what it's been like lately with the word Pandora. I didn't just learn the word, but I just learned about the internet radio site called Pandora. Now that I know about it, I find all sorts of people talking about it.
The latest comment was from a friend who said she turned her mom on to Pandora so they could listen to holiday music around the house for the holidays. Seems her mom took off with the idea and set up all sorts of playlists.
It makes sense. We're spending more and more time with our computers and less and less with our radio and TV, so why not stream radio broadcasts with your computer? Why buy or collect music to save and store, when music you love can be streamed into your ears all hours of the day and night? I wondered if Pandora was the only Internet radio source, and it turns out there are several great sites for streaming music of your choice. Here are some of them.
Pandora is popular, as I mentioned. It evokes enthusiastic endorsements from listeners. Such as A Mom on a Misson's I Heart Pandora and iVegasFamily, who say Pandora is so good it's "bad ass."
Pandora takes a hint from you in the form of a song or genre or artist that you like. Using that clue, you get a custom playlist of music that fits into that style or type. People often find new music they really like this way. Pandora can also work on smart phones.
Rhapsody is another popular music streaming site, with music around the clock. There's a monthy fee of about $13 at Rhapsody. For that fee, you can find music, artists, albums, artists, even lyrics. Set up a playlist of your own and play the music on your computer, your stereo, your mp3 player, or using a Tivo. Rhapsody will sell you mp3s, too.
At A Second Cup, Carol Taber wrote about sites for Christmas music and mentioned Rhapsody and free music from Karaoke Version saying,
If karaoke is your thing, some Christmas karaoke sites:
Rhapsody and Karaoke Verison You down load the music to your MP3 player. Both these sites say they are free to use. I don't know because that tech stuff makes my head hurt.
Rhapsody isn't free, but if you want to sing, you can find free music at Karoake Version. Anything Said tells a funny tale about drinking a bit too much with friends and using Rhapsody to relive junior high:
On Friday night we drank the aforementioned three bottles of wine while listening to the greatest hits of junior high on Rhapsody. "Poison" by Alice Cooper. "Love Song" by Tesla. The entirety of Slippery When Wet. The husband kept trying to insert Fugazi or The Cure into the playlist. His seventh grader would not have hung out with ours.
Napster started life as a site distributing music free, but illegally. Now you subscribe for around $13 a month and get unlimited music of your own choosing for that fee. Sea Bird Chronicles laments the older version of Napster, saying,
The last time I was truly up on the current music scene was 2000, when Napster was functioning – ahem – properly.
Sea Bird Chronicles will be happy to learn that Napster once again has a free music component. I just enjoying hearing Robert Plant and Allison Krause singing Raising Sand and didn't have to do anything but click to stream it.
Live 365.com connects you to radio stations. You don't get customized playlists and you can't search for a particular artist, but you can select a radio station that plays your favorite genre of music and stream it free. The twist for this site is that you can become a broadcaster yourself, and use the site to broadcast music of your own choosing.
An interesting new site that connects you to radio stations that are playing exactly what you want to hear is One Llama. You search by artist, popularity, genre or location and a list of stations comes up that meets your requirements. Just click and you're listening. The location search allows you to listen to radio stations from all over the world. With the location search, One Llama might be a huge hit with people who are far from home and want to hear their native language, or with reporters searching
