Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
A couple of days ago, I wrote about how to watch TV online for free. With a few tools that are readily at your disposal, it’s easy to find any show or movie you’re looking for, without spending a dime or wasting a minute. I don’t have cable TV anymore, and I couldn’t care less.
What’s great about the Internet is the same basic rule applies to music. There are a ton of tools (some more forthcoming about their legality than others) out there that let you play, save, and share enormous amounts of music. For me, someone who’s at my computer more often than I’m anywhere else, listening to music online means saving money on CDs, iTunes downloads and more.
Here are 11 of the best ways to listen to music online:
Grooveshark
Grooveshark, flat out, is the best place on the Web to listen to music. Just search for a song, artist or album you want to listen to, and Grooveshark pulls from its massive database so you can listen to whatever you want. You can create your own playlist, or let Grooveshark autoplay by choosing similar songs to what you’ve already played. It’s a fast, simple interface, with a monstrous set of songs.
Mixtape.me
I love mixtape.me because it lets me share my own music taste with the world. Rather than listening to individual songs, mixtape.me is about playlists – you create a playlist of your favorite songs, or some funny songs, or whatever you can think of, and then share it with the world. It’s not the best if you’re just looking to hear a particular song (though it does that fine), but it’s as good as it gets for music discovery, and for sharing your favorites with the world.
Pandora
Just because I’ve written the eight reasons Grooveshark’s better than Pandora doesn’t mean Pandora isn’t awesome. It’s a polished, complete Internet radio station that lets you make a station based on a song or artist, and then it plays endlessly with songs you’ll love. Personally, I use it mostly for studying, because it’s easy to just set and forget. It won’t let you just play a single song you’re looking for, but that’s good for the music ADD-ers like myself.
Frat Music
Frat Music is hilarious, and far more useful than it should be. Basically, the site is just a collection of playlists you might want to play in a certain situation—things like “Power Hour Mix,” “Homework Mix,” and “Kickback Mix”—and they’re impressively accurate. The playlists are perfect if you’re looking for some thumping bass for a party, or just need some new music for the holidays. There’s not a lot of selection, or customization, but the playlists are really well suited for their purpose.
Last.fm
Last.fm is one part music search, one part encyclopedia, and one part social network. Pick your favorite artists, and Last.fm gives you information about them, lets you listen to them, and recommends other artists you might decide you like. If all you want to do is listen to music, Last.fm might be overkill, but it’s a fantastic total music immersion experience. And that’s why my ears love Last.fm.
Stereo8
Digg and Reddit meet music with Stereo8. Log in via Facebook, and as you listen to music, vote for your favorite songs. All the music is user-uploaded (meaning you can add music if you want), and the best songs rise to the top of the playlist for new users. It’s a neat way to find new music, and be your own DJ on the Web.
We Are Hunted
We Are Hunted is the Billboard Hot 100 of the best bands online. It’s got charts for the best songs of the week and month, as well as what people are listening to right now—it compiles the charts by monitoring music blogs and websites, and figuring out what’s hot and popular across the Web. Some of the music is Top 40-type stuff, but a lot of it is more underground, and thus much more allowable for cool kids to listen to.
Soma FM
Two words: Groove Salad. SomaFM has 18 different radio stations, with all sorts of different music playing 24 hours a day, that you can listen to online, in iTunes, and all sorts of other ways. Groove Salad, the “ambient beats and grooves” station, is your best friend when you want to shut out the world and work, sleep, or just disappear into your brain.
LaLa
LaLa has always been good, but it got even better when Google put LaLa music into search results. Now, in addition to the great LaLa website that lets you listen to any song you want to, you can just Google the song or artist you want, and play the songs right within your Google search. It’s as simple as it gets, and makes the whole “how does that song go?” game a lot less annoying. But still annoying.
The Hype Machine
The Hype Machine is a lot like We Are Hunted—it searches and crawls tons of music sites and blogs, pulling the best songs they post onto the Hype Machine site, making it a place to find all the super-indie and hipster music that music bloggers love so much. I kid, except not really. There is a lot of great music on the site, plus a pretty great listing of some of the best music blogs on the Web.
Imeem
Imeem’s made deals with most of the major labels, putting it into a relatively unique class of music players on the Web. It’s a great place to find music, as well as view and make playlists of music on just about any topic you can find—“Songs About Food” helped me find the best song ever, “Nicotine and Gravy.” You’ll have to log in before listening to anything, but it’s all free and easy, and the huge library that’s legal and not going anywhere makes it worth it.
Where do you find music online?
