Music on the World Wide Web

I listen to music nearly every waking moment. I have it on in the car when I’m driving, at work I listen all day to Jazz, Classical or World music through my headphones and at home I have a stereo turned on in my kitchen. I even installed speakers on the patio so I can listen to music while working in the backyard. What can I say? I love music.
Living in the age of technology offers many options for enjoying music via the Internet. With a click of the mouse we can be transported from our desktop to a smoky bar room or to an exotic land. The only downside about this is that there may be too many choices. Hopefully this passage will help.
For the sake of discussion I’ll group the Internet listening choices into a few categories: radio stations, performer websites, subscription services and general music sites.

Internet Radio
Many radio stations have live feed options, i.e., you can listen to the broadcast as it is taking place. Some stations have created an archive of past shows where you’re able to search for a particular topic or performance and listen to it.
My current favorites for streaming music are:
KEXP A listener supported, Seattle based radio station that put the independence back in music!!! You can: listen live to the broadcast, check out the playlists, read reviews for new releases, browse the archives to find an interview and in-studio performance with some great artists. Check out The Believers, Mark Kozelek or The Long Winters.
KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic with Nic Harcourt (author of Music Lust). From the site, “Morning Becomes Eclectic is committed to a music experience that celebrates innovation, creativity and diversity by combining progressive pop, world beat, jazz, African, reggae, classical and new music.” So you get a litle bit of everything. I like to go to the archive and scroll through old Morning Becomes Eclectic shows. I suggest listening to the following: Joe Henry, M.I.A. and Robbie Robertson.

Performer Websites
Websites maintained by the artist either on their own or through a social network site such as Myspace. This a great place to stay current with your favorite artist. You can hear new tracks, sample alternative takes, get free downloads not to mention staying on top of what’s happening: tour dates, current projects and general news. I used Myspace links in my last post. It was a great way to find out more about the bands I saw at Bumbershoot. And locating a band-maintained site is as easy as typing their name into Google and following the link.

Music By Subscription
There are many companies offering subscription services for music. I don’t subscribe to any so I choose not to speak to that option. However, there’s an excellent article from CNET which was written earlier this year.

General Internet
Mondomix is a great site to sample World Music, read reviews; find downloads and listens to three great music shows;
Archives of Charlie Gillett’s BBC world music radio show.
Ian Anderson’s recommendations from his monthly World Music magazine fRoots
Dori Stein’s Tangents
Note: Some of the links no longer work

Shoutcast allows you to listen to mainly, commercial free music by genre. It does require that you download Winamp media player which is pretty quick & painless with DSL or better. I find myself going to this option regularly during the work week. Where else can you hear Algerian Disco?

Pandora
The result of The Music Genome Project, these folks have created an Internet radio station that builds playlists based on your input. You can search by song or artist and determine what you want to hear next by indicating what you like or don’t like.

LastFM
Type in the name of an artist of band you like and LastFM will list and play similar artists. You can try it with tags (think genre) and listen to music that way.

More to follow…

PS. Thanks to Washington Representative Jay Inslee, for leading the charge to thwart the efforts of record company moguls to silence Internet Radio stations.