Have you been playing the same album on repeat for a week? Is your iTunes looking a bit lackluster? Are you searching for more sweet, sweet tunes to savor?
If you’re at all internet savvy, I’m sure you’ve heard of Pandora and Last.fm, but here are 3 more sites that are great for discovering new music.
Turntable.fm
Turntable.fm, where everyone is a DJ, is a foray into the questionable new territory dubbed “social music.” It is composed of an endless number of rooms, each typically themed to a genre. When you enter a room, you see an animated nightclub dance floor where you and all other members are represented by cute little avatars. Up on the decks are 5 DJs, each taking turns playing one song at a time for the room. Users can take a turn at DJing by hopping on the decks when there is a empty position.
Here is where the gameability of social media comes into play: for every song played, the listeners can either vote it “Awesome” or “Lame.” Every Awesome vote gains the DJ a point, but get enough Lame votes and your song gets skipped. In addition to gaining points, DJs can gain fans who follow their activity on the site. More points means you get new avatars and well, bragging rights.
Turntable.fm is currently in an invite only Beta stage, but so long as you have a Facebook friend (literally ANY friend) who is a member, you can get access to the site.
8tracks.com
If the algorithmic accuracy of Pandora gives you the heebie jeebies about artificial intelligence and has you wondering about the impending robot apocalypse, then head over to 8tracks.com for a little human touch.
8tracks is simply a site where people (yes, real people) post mini mixes of 8 or more tracks in any genre. There is no math and no method, each mix is as quirky or unpredictable as the person who made it. 8tracks is just like swapping mixtapes in high school, only you have access to over 300,000 of them.
Musicovery.com
Musicovery.com has been around for a while but it’s not as well known as it deserves to be. Musicovery lets you pick music based on mood. You select a point on a graph where the horizontal axis goes from Dark to Positive and the vertical axis goes from Calm to Energetic. You can refine it further by selecting or de-selecting different genres and the music will continue streaming indefinitely, aligned with your mood.
The idiot-proof interface and eye-catching graphics make Musicovery.com a joy to use.
About the author
Electronic Music Director - Shawnasty, natural born heartbreaker, eats tasty bass and beats for breakfast and turns out fat playlists for dinner (lunch is only for the weak). She can often be seen walking down Pacific Avenue whipping her hair back and forth and hustling locals for beer money.