by Mikey Wasnidge
Since the dawn of the internet, mix cd’s, and 80+ gig hard drives, music lovers have sought endlessly to fill their music libraries with more variety than ever thought possible. For some, this means every top 40 single to climb the charts since junior high. If this is the case for you, any radio station will be helpful. If you are like me however, you appreciate putting a bit of work into finding the newest and bravest music out there. So, born out my own frustration with trying to sift through the plethora of sites with either poor quality music, 30 second samples, or Canadian “licensing restraints”(thanks Pandora.com), I figured a list of the most useful music discovery websites could help an individual who is in need of a new music fix, but has no idea where to start.
Deezer.com has changed my life. This site has many great features, but the best one is that ability to stream any full album from its extensive library for free!!!! Deezer is 100% legal, and has a great selection. You can also sign up for free, and create playlists so that you can listen to your pre-organized favorites from any computer that you have access to. Not only can you listen to, and organize music on this site, but you can also use this as a tool for finding some great stuff. Before the Ting Tings jumped on the iPod commercial bandwagon, they were featured on Deezer. Want to listen to the 6 CD’s worth of the newest Kink’s compilation; it is currently featured on Deezer. This site should be bookmarked by everyone who has a computer.
Before Facebook became social networking king, Myspace kept people connected with each other. It was also, and still is, renowned for allowing musicians to post their music on their Myspace page. While the Facebook community grows, Myspace is still the best way to hear even the most independent artist’s latest recordings. For this reason, it also is the easiest way to expose yourself to local maritime artists. Recently they have reformatted their music player to allow artists such as Ben Folds to upload their entire album for your listening pleasure. They also have featured artists, which can be very helpful when looking for new artists, and unlike Deezer, you can find out a lot of information about the bands that you like.
Insound.com is an online CD, vinyl and MP3 retailer based out of New York. When I first started listening to indie-rock, I found this site very useful because of how beginner friendly it is. Band supported MP3 downloads, links to similar bands, and honest artist profiles made it easy to find out what I liked and what I didn’t. If you are a vinyl collector, as I fancy myself to be, Insound offers the largest selection of indie albums at the most affordable price on the Internet.
Last.fm is a “music community website.” What does this mean? Well you can find an online radio, artist profiles, music videos, weekly charts, and basically everything music. It also offers a useful music suggestion radio popularized by the American only website Pandora.com. This application allows you to type in an artist whom you enjoy, and it will randomly play songs by similar artists. This is a great music discovery tool, and has a very large music library to draw from.
The last website on this list is pretty straightforward. Throughout the day, Hype Machine will post the most popular songs that are posted or discussed on thousands of MP3 blogs.
This is for a fan of pretty obscure new music. Not to say that they don’t often feature popular artists, but only the most elitist of music fans will know most of the music posted. This is why Hypemachine is so great! You can find some interesting tracks on this site, and then use any of the previously mentioned sites to listen to more from them. You also only have to wait minutes before new songs are added
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