1. Pandora - The best all around music streaming service on the web, period. Pandora's ability to recommend artists and songs similar to those you enjoy is second to none. Based on the "Music Genome Project", which analyzes songs with up to 400 different musical attributes to generate playlists based on amazingly similar music content, not just the "people who liked this, also liked" stuff. A simple straightforward interface, with a thumbs up / thumbs down allows you to fine tune your listening experience.
You can select a "Quickmix" of the stations of your choice and the player will shuffle between them. Pandora provides detailed bio's of the artists and their music with the ability to purchase should you so choose. The free service is limited to 40 hours a month (that's a lot of music) with minimal commercial interruption. I've been listening for years now, and just recently upgraded to "Pandora One" pay service. 36 bucks a year gives me unlimited air time, no commercials, a higher quality music stream @ a stellar 192 kps... and a nice stand alone desktop player.
Pandora has apps for iPhone, Blackberry and Android phones, along with apps in a number of the new blu-ray players and tv's with integrated internet capabilities. If you listen to a lot of music that's not considered "mainstream", as opposed to the same old top 40 stuff that's played on broadcast FM radio, ( based on what everybody else thinks is "cool") try Pandora, their music recommendation engine is truly musically mind expanding.
2. Grooveshark - A very nicely designed interface and a colossal music library are the main selling points of Grooveshark ( oh yeah, and it's free ). The best feature in my opinion is the ability to build and edit playlists of specific songs and use them as your own "virtual mp3 player". I threw a lot of obscure artists and songs into the Grooveshark search engine and it usually returned with multiple hits.They also have a radio service with recommended artists based on your playlists.Grooveshark offers a pay service called "VIP", currently 3 bucks a month or 30 dollars a year, for this you get no advertising, a nice desktop app player and a much larger personal music library.
The downside of Grooveshark is the fact that it functions as a psuedo peer to peer network with all of it's content uploaded by other members. I'm not a fan of P2P networks as a whole, I don't want files downloaded into my computer from just any asshat out in cyberspace, nor do I want to give said asshat access to files on my system. There's a considerable amount of corrupted data being passed along @ P2P and torrent sites. That said, I wouldn't download, or upload any files (that I don't own the copyright to) through Grooveshark's network, but I'm confident it's perfectly safe to stream their vast library of music through a web browser. I commend Grooveshark for what they're trying to do and I think they have come up with a good, if somewhat "unusual" concept, (selling music that members uploaded and give the artists a royalty). Lets hope the money mongers in the music industry don't sue them out of business... But until then enjoy...3. Slacker- A huge music library, slick interface and over a 100 genre stations programmed by professional DJ's make Slacker an enjoyable experience. Add the ability to create stations based on a specific artist, while Slacker fills in the rest of the playlist with similar music. A user can add 15 or more artists into a selected personal station and Slacker will not add any additional artists, only songs from the chosen bands will play on that station.
The whole player is extremely customizable, allowing you to achieve a really personal radio station. The free version is of course ad supported, with several levels of subscription service, allowing for removal of ads, turning off DJ's on stations and unlimited skips and replays. Slacker also comes with all the usual smartphone apps, including iPhone and Android. All in all an excellent interactive music service if you're willing to put in a little extra effort to customize the experience...
My take on free stuff is...there's no such thing as free, it cost the provider something, and yet if you look on the user forums and feedback sections of websites that offer free versions of their software, information, ect, many folks belligerently complain about the service as though they were actually paying for it, (the "it should do this" or "why doesn't it do that", crap) maybe the whiners believe that there are people out there whose only purpose in life is to provide free software, information, massive computer data banks and network infrastructure just for them.The point being that if you frequent a favorite website, news, music service or whatever, click on their banner ads and links occasionally, that's what is paying for our "free ride". (unless it's a porn site, in which case it's likely to become an "interactive experience", and you'll probably take some nasty throbbing malware up the proverbial backside).
Sometimes you just have to spring for the pay version of a software or service. It's one of the principal reasons I upgraded to "Pandora One". Although I've been quite content with the free version for years, I'm more than happy to give a little something back. Plus read my lips, "No Advertising", just 100 % music content 24/7....Are you getting that on your current "pay TV" service?.... Probably not...
