Since the death of Napster music lovers such as myself have been looking, praying, hoping for an easy way to access and discover good music. So far what I have tried has spotty or mixed results-
- File sharing, illegal downloading, I am a horrible person depriving artists (wait, I am an artist!) of their ‘rightful’ fortunes, liberating the future of music way.
-OK here are my problems with that. I just want a few tunes. Or a record. Now, with the bit torrent world, I am forced to wait, like hours dude for the ENTIRE Iron Maiden catalog. No Bro. I just want the Killers album. C’mon.
-Firewalls and broken connections and failing torrent loaders… I don’t want to become computer torrent downloader guy -I just want to hear WRATHCHILD!!
- The ‘New’ Napster and subscription services of the like.
-Um, I don’t think I want to pay 4 or 10 or 15 bucks a month just to listen online to what I already have and MAAAAYBE find something cool. No way.
So here is what I have found to be very, very cool-
My favorite so far. Why? Because it rocks that’s why. If you do not know of Pandora here is the deal- You pick a ‘station’ -could be an artist or a song or a genre. So let’s say it is… “Heartbreaker” by Led Zeppelin (hell yeah…) Pandora will create a radio station based upon reasons you might like the song. So as you listen to your newly created station you might get a Rage against the machine song (which is just recycled Zep riffs. Don’t get me wrong -I love ’em) based upon the musicality of Heartbreaker or you might get a song that was also recorded in 1969 -obviously based upon the time period rather than the musical qualities. Then, you get vote a thumbs up or down on whatever the ‘station’ spits out at you. So the station will learn what it is you really like about the song and obey your wishes to steer it in whatever direction you please. PLUS -this is really cool- they have an iphone app which allows you to experience all the joys of your own customized station on your phone. That is supremely awesome when you want to tune into your Iron Maiden collection on the road for a little Metal mania.
Drawbacks? When you give thumbs ups on certain tunes it starts spitting those at you a little too frequently. I only wish they would make it a little more random and somehow keep track of how many times they have played you a song in a certain period of time. So I find myself refraining from giving the thumbs up on certain tunes because I don’t want to hear them EVERY time I listen to the station.
OK I am a little new to this one but so far there are a number of things that sold me on it’s merits.
When I join it will scan my computer and match all the songs on my computer to what is in there data base. What ever is not matched they will actually upload. Then, since I ‘own’ all of the tunes on my computer I can listen to them anywhere and anytime I want on LALA. Then, if through their matching service or networking (which I admit I have not thoroughly explored yet -I am still in uploading mode) I find something I like I can listen to it for free. Once. Then, if I want to be able to listen to it anytime it is 10 cents. Dude, 10 cents is not a bad deal. Then if I love it so much I want to download it and put it under my pillow THEN it is 99 cents.
Now what I like about this is first, I don’t have to pay to listen online to any of the 10000 songs I already own. Then if I do like something I only have to pay 10 cents to be able to listen to it. Now that is a good deal.
Rock on.