Steve Symington’s Blog

I rarely use P2P clients anymore for music downloads (no, I’m not concerned with RIAA lawsuits), and I absolutely don’t want unneccessary software on my work machine. Free, streaming online music sites simply make more sense for me right now. If I just want some music to pass the time, and don’t feel like sifting through my collection or can’t install unneccesary software on a given machine, I’ve got a decision to make: Pandora.com or Blogmusik.net? I know I won’t ever come to a definite conclusion, but I think people need to know about these two awesome sites. Here are a few simple observations for informative purposes…

Pandora

I’ve recently made extensive use of the online music player provided by the folks at Pandora. With Pandora, you can choose an artist and the site will typically play one song from that artist, followed by music from other artists with similar music qualities. Additionally, you can take advantage of their “Quickmix” feature and listen to any combination of the different music styles you chose.

This method is nice because 1.) you can be lazy, allowing the player to do all the work, and 2.) you’re occasionally introduced to new artists whose music you might thoroughly enjoy. If you really like or dislike any of the music they play, just tell them and they’ll adjust the music style accordingly. The longer I listen to a Pandora station, however, the farther it seems to stray from the music I had originally antipated. Too many times I have ended up listening to music I absolutely hate. This can be partially remedied by using the “Quickmix” feature to include more artists, but perhaps it’s simply prolonging the inevitable by adding more aritists. Also, every now and then you’re forced to listen to short audio advertisements (not so bad, though…the last one I heard was a brief McDonald’s Dollar Menu ad). In short, it’s important to remember the prominent purpose of Pandora is to provide a medium to allow visitors to discover new music. Update, 2-20-07: One last note here: you will not find classical music on Pandora. They haven’t yet figured out how to include the drastically-different genre given their current system of organization, but certainly “have every intention of providing a classical music listening and discovery experience of great quality within the foreseeable future.”

Blogmusik

Blogmusik, a newer flash-based site boasting a virtual iPod interface, seems to have proven itself a viable alternative. The site is still in Beta, and has a fair number of mildly annoying (though ignorable) glitches. Blogmusik gives you complete control of the music to which you listen. Just type your search into a simple text box at the bottom of the player and it will display a huge list of results. I’m not quite sure of the origin of their music. There seems to be quite a variety in the results,

including filenames that look as though the files were ripped directly from someone’s CD collection. Curiousity aside, you can simply add the songs of your choosing to a playlist and listen away. I have found nearly every song I set out to find, and now have a customized music list that perfectly suits my personal taste. This obviously requires a bit more work and you’re much less likely to find new and exciting music, but if you know what you want and don’t feel like exploring this is the way to go. Because of the shifty nature of Blogmusik.net and it’s music sources, however, I’m scared it might not last long. They’ve also got a small blog at BlogMusik.net/blog.

So try them out. Listen and enjoy.

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