Last.fm

If I really want to listen to some new music while I'm working and I don't want to pay attention to how I get it (ie, read articles) I use Last.fm. For me, it's better at finding obscure new music than Pandora. Although I find some of the pay upgrade prompts annoying (you have to pay if you want to hear a radio station based only on your favorite songs) and you have to download a client, which often crashes on my Windows Vista. Net net - not bad.

Preferred over pandora - after finding that pandora really wasn't suggesting any particularly fresh or new bands, i turned to last.fm. Last is user-friendly and chock full of good bands and songs, without being repetitive in its suggestions. You can allow it access to your music folder and play songs straight on last.fm. Each new track shows you a couple of other bands you might like that aren't necessarily in your library yet. I've found a handful of new bands in one sitting, everything from chamber pop to folk to shoegazing to rock and on and on. Each piece of feedback that you provide, whether you love a track or ban it, seems to be taken into consideration.

An ongoing music recommendation database - "Last.fm" (once known as "Audioscrobbler") offers media player plugins to its users. These plugins, which can be installed onto iTunes, Winamp and others, will monitor and record the ID3 data of any MP3 played by that media player. This is uploaded to a large database, which finds other users who have played the same tracks and recommends you new musical artists based on their databases. You can even download the Last.fm Player and listen to sample songs by your recommended bands. I have used this service since September of 2005, and it has never ceased to be a source of new music for me.

Maybe the best music service ever. Great site, functionality. Listen to music and enjoy.

Got to track news of mine fav bands. No need to follow each of their tweeter.