Trend: Free Music Streaming Sites
As cliche and trite as I might sound saying this, music streaming services are hot right now. For the past week or so I haven’t even used iTunes. I’ve just been listening to the Muxtape playlists of friends and random people. If that doesn’t do it for me, I tune into The Feel Good and see what’s popular. The list goes on.
While some of these services blatantly violate copyright laws, they are as viral as it gets. Within 24 hours of Muxtape’s launch, it had 8,685 users, 19,731 songs, 35,000 visits and a $118.17 Amazon S3 bill.
My point with this post is just to point out some of the more interesting music streaming sites I’ve come across and use daily. Audiophiles have heard of these I’m sure and if I’ve left any good ones out, please let me know. There’s hardly a time I’m computing that I don’t have some background music on, even when I’m very busy. My de facto standard for listening to music used to be various stations on iTunes Radio but I’ve started branching out and discovering new bands with some of these sites below.
- Band pages on Virb or PureVolume
- The Feel Good
- Muxtape
- The Hype Machine
- Pandora
- FineTune
- Songza
- imeem
- Anywhere.fm
- iLike
- Last.fm
- MXPlay
- Blip Bloop
- RCRDLBL
What music sites do you take advantage of? My other favorite way of finding new music is going to a Wi-Fi dense part of campus where many students are bound to share their iTunes libraries, such as the library or student center.
As for what effects these sites and services have on musicians and artists, well I actually think it helps. I view streaming services as being great for temporary uses, where I’m on the computer. If I like the music, I won’t have a problem buying it to toss on my iPod for a run or offline listen while on a flight. I also turn to these services to listen to music that just isn’t out yet such as singles I’ve heard on the radio but just cannot find anywhere on the iTunes Store or Amazon MP3.
I have to say I use Last.Fm the most, I have gotten to know a lot of people on there, actually in turn it helps connect with other people that I have gotten to know in other social bookmarking websites. Sometimes I think it is a small world and how connected we really are, everybody knows what is pretty much going on with everyone else, for example Friendfeed,twitter,flickr,last.fm etc etc. But yea, I have not legally or illegally downloaded music in a long long time, there is hardly a need plus they just take up space.
Cheers.
I’m using last.fm right now. It’s definitely one of my favourite sites, and the only one I use for listening and discovering music. It also integrates well with my ipod.
I’ve been noticing that as well. Currently I’m using seeqpod, or slacker. Radioblogclub and Mucelli also used to be a good source, but I think they’ve gotten into some “problems”. Of course there is always youtube and myspace (I barely ever stoop this low. But you have to admit it is a great source for musicians to get their word out, or should i say song).
I like last.fm too. But Reverb Nation is worth checking out. You can listen to music and change pages without losing the music you are hearing. Nice for exploring while enjoying. Its got incredible tools for musicians as well - like free email, etc.
I use alot anywhere.fm, as I have more then 4k songs there :) and I can also listen o friends and random ppl songs there! I love it!
Great links. Enjoying some completely random but new and good music.
Thanks for the headsup on muxtape.com! What a great little site. The design is phenomenal…no information overload. The RSS style mixtapes are perfectly laid out, and the quality of the music has been exceptional, in my opinion.
I liked Pandora better than last.fm because it required a lot less work to set it up and start getting recommendations.
Here’s a review I did of Pandora vs. last.fm
http://snipurl.com/23bu5
Muxtape is awesome too. would be great if they allowed you to design a cover or artwork to go along with your tape.
Etan
I definitely lean towards Pandora over last.fm. Also here’s my muxtape:
http://jeffchin21.muxtape.com.
http://jeffchin.com/2008/03/25/discovering-new-music-with-muxtape/
Both last.fm and Muxtape are my favorites.
Blip Bloop is my favorite. :)
check out maestro (http://getmaestro.com) — the fact that you have to download the device isn’t that cool, but thought you might be interested since their local — we were talking to them about doing the techcocktail in atl
Jango.com: like Pandora + last.fm (only better)
Mixwit.com: like Muxtape, but with the added ability to search for music links instead of uploading, minus a playlist for the player.
Great list! I really like The Sixty One. Very good for finding new music!
I’m using Spotify. An app that streams music from their (Spotifys) servers. Currently in private beta.
That is a whole lot of mixtape sites. I didn’t realize there were that many. I’ve only used muxtape.com thus far and made a mixtape last week.
jphill.muxtape.com: mostly laid back music. I look forward to making more, but these sites are awesome.
Nice list Paul. I’ve been a user of PureVolume for a few years for my music, but I’ve recently been annoyed by their full screen ads of the Jonas Brothers :-/. I just checked out Virb and it reminds me of a young PureVolume, good find!
Hi, I’m currently using Last.fm but when I want to listen to a specific artist, song or album I go to Deezer.com wich is in my opinion, the best site on the web for on demand music.
Hey, Paul.
If it wasn’t for this post, I wouldn’t have been introduced to The Feel Good. I love it. Non-mainstream but nonetheless cool music.
I love your blog. I got so envious when you posted your review on the MBA. Gaah.
Hey everyone, we just started the public preview of JogPlay. It’s a music streaming tool that lets you listen and organize your music from the web. The Base Station (streaming server) runs on Windows, Mac OSX, or Linux. The player is flash based. You can even test out the interface with our public domain library. Please give it a try and we would love to hear any comments.
Thanks
Paul. Great post. Check out http://www.radioio.com. I listen to it all of the time.
They even have a mobile version that I listen on my blackjack.
Nice list! For the most part I use either my iTunes library (not that large, maybe 5,500 songs), Last.fm or I go browse through Pandora or the iTunes stations. I haven’t really tried Muxtape or The Feel Good, but from what I just saw, they’re definitely sites I’ll check out in the future.
For the most part, though, I just like having the music I want to listen to, especially because most of the time I do my listening on the bus or walking around, and not at a computer.
Came across another one: guitarati.com. Still budding, but the discovery method is quite interesting.
@Etan - mixwit (mentioned by Jared) lets you do the upload picture deal.
Good list. Have you heard of Spotify? Check that out, it’s the music revolution!
itunes radio is pretty much all i need
thesixtyone is doing a cool thing too, check them out
I use TheSixtyOne, TheFeelGood and Anywhere.fm more than any other music sites. Each one has their advantages and disadvantages but at the same time they all offer a different approach to sharing music.
The Sixty One is definitely where it’s at. It is the definition of Web 2.0, and I’ve found more amazing music there in the past 6 months than the past 6 years of my life.
yeah, i checked out maestro per greg m’s comment… apparently they’ve changed to http://www.maestro.fm and offer direct upload now too… hmmm, seems pretty cool so far. i’ll keep you posted
Muxtape + http://www.amplifir.com
Last days I’m using http://www.EnterTube.org
It had also a playlist feature,with lots of songs & artists.