5 Great Sites for Listening to Music on the Web

One of the things I've found harder and harder over the last ten years, and I know I'm not alone on this, is dealing with the many thousands of pieces of content I have on an increasing number of computers and hard drives.  This has been the most difficult with music and photos, and only exacerbated by my move to Mac this year due to file and organization incompatibilities.  So as hard as I try, and as much as I work to rebuild and refine my collections on each new computer, each transition more and more gets cut.  In particular, I'm starting to realize it takes way too much effort than it's worth to maintain an up-to-date music collection.

But I do love music, and I love finding new music, so how am I replacing the thousands of MP3's I've collected?  I'm becoming obsessed with the plethora of amazing places on the web to discover and stream music.  The websites below comprise the current roster of music sources that I rely on daily.  Each of them has a different model for music discovery and recommendation, and access to different sources of music.  But they all have a mix of known and unknown, and they all provide a really enjoyable listening experience.  So without further ado:

1) The Sixty One
My current favorite, a site I visit daily at home and at work. A great source for popular indie + independent music, and a beautiful site to boot.  As songs play you get full-page photos, facts of the bands, and fan commentary displaying on the page.  The community helps songs rise, so make sure to sign-up and vote.  Don't forget to try out the different playlists available in the top-right corner.

2) We Are Hunted
Great site for listening to music that's popular on the web.  They index all sorts of sites and social networks, and let you stream the 99 most popular songs in a variety of categories.  The 'popular' category is usually pretty mainstream, but there are also tons of ways to discover new stuff.  Try different things like visiting the 'app' section to listen to music being actively shared on Twitter.

3) Pandora
Pandora probably isn't new to anyone, but I couldn't leave it off the list.  It's still the best streaming radio site ever invented.  It's the most reliable way to get  a full station of music you really like, on your computer or on the go via the killer mobile apps.  If you use Pandora on Mac check out PandoraJam, which gives you a desktop app that sync's with last.fm and has other cool features you might want.

4) Hype Machine
These guys describe themselves as "Discover music blogs worth listening to", and that's the general idea.  The front page is an aggregate of the most popular songs based on coverage from a curated list of music blogs.  The music is very indie and lately seems to include too much techno remix, but it's still a great place to find new music and best of all it has a useful search engine.

5) Tumblr
This last one might be a surprise since Tumblr is so much more than just music, but right from the beginning one of the site's primary uses has been to share songs.  Many Tumblr users post their favorite songs along with the rest of their creative output; the trick is to find the right Tumblr users to match your taste- both with music and other content.  Here are a few of mine: Fred Wilson, Bijan, Tuneage.

A Huge Day for the Big Web Players

It's been a huge day for the major web companies, news pouring out every hour, so I thought I'd recap and offer some thoughts:

Music

• Facebook users will soon be able to gift each other songs, web-streaming copies for 10 cents or downloadable DRM free files for 90 cents, powered by lala.com (paid thru Facebook credits)
• Google is expected to unveil a music tie-in next week that lets users stream songs and potentially purchase them right from the search engine, powered by i-Like and lala.com
• MySpace will now be housing a full library of music videos from the major music labels, and also providing Artists with deeper analytics of how fans engage with their content

Clearly this all points to one thing - multimedia content is rapidly becoming available everywhere. The entertainment industry is learning the only way they can fight piracy to offer easy access at fair costs. Also, I think the ability to gift Facebook friends songs could be a huge money maker for all parties if it's easy for the user and the music is easily played back as a library. And I want to see if users buy their own songs to house on their own profile for easy listening. Also, its amazing a full mp3 is cheaper than the virtual gifts people can send now. Finally, it's impressive that Lala was able to get themselves into both the Facebook and Google music deals, taking them from relatively no-name to top-tier player in a matter of hours.

Myspace's announcement is them trying to hold onto their claim as the best place for Musicians to set up their home-base website as they watch more and more of the grassroots marketing move to Twitter & Facebook. They're doing a pretty good job as an Entertainment portal, but this helps them with actual artist relations.

Social Search

• Microsoft cut deals with Twitter and Facebook to incorporate their content streams in real-time into their Search index. Microsoft unveiled an early beta of their Twitter search engine at http://www.bing.com/twitter , which not only shows recent updates but popular links being shared around a search term
• Google announced a similar deal with Twitter (no Facebook for now), but hasn't yet incorporated the content fully, with more details expected in a few weeks
• Google announced a separate product called Social Search which will enable users to search their own social graph for content. Google will create a personal index of content for a user based on the social profiles attached to their Google profile, helping users surface content such as friend's Flickr photos and profile info

The social search space, also known as the real-time search space, is heating up big time. The major search engines Google and Bing are realizing that more and more users will start their web searches with their social graph and want the latest information that their social graph is highlighting as valuable. Microsoft's early search site shows how it will try to take on the memetrackers and the real-time search engines at once, a space that's currently being owned by new web start-ups Tweetmeme and OneRiot.

It's clear Google will jump into this space as well, but their personalized social search product is separately very interesting. Helping users to unearth their own personal information from their own individual social graph is potentially even more important than a broad real-time search engine. The key here though is what content Google will be able to index - given that Facebook especially is behind a wall. The great thing about FriendFeed was that you could add RSS feeds to supplement the content that was already being indexed, a way to overcome the Facebook walls. Will Google be able to do this?

Photos

• Flickr announced people tagging on their photos similar to Facebook's features, but with more privacy controls. Users can choose who exactly can tag them in photos.

This is a feature that's made sense for a long time, but I don't think by itself it will matter much. Not enough people have Flickr profiles for it to matter, and because of the upload caps not enough people will ever choose to upload to Flickr. If this was done through Facebook connect it would be totally different (similar to PolarRose's offering). Also I would really like to see some integration with Apple's iPhoto, since they are working on syncing their products already and I've invested the time in tagging my friends on my desktop computer. This would be a good rivalry to the sync'd tagging of Picasa and Picasaweb. Finally, since serious Flickr users have been stockpiling photos for years, Flickr really needs to integrate Facial recognition on the site - both to keep up to par with competitors, and to make tagging less daunting of a task.

Getting to see U2 live

Last night I got the chance to see U2 perform live at Giant Stadium; it was their last show before the stadium is torn down, and it apparently set a record for the number of people in attendance (not sure how this could be bigger than another sell-out, but). I've been to in-door stadium shows before, but nothing ever in a huge stadium packed like this; the energy in the crowd was crazy, and U2 played it up down to the last second. They put on an awesome performance, one I'm going to remember.

Oh and I made the above video in about 3 minutes using iMovie - I didn't want to take time to crop or anything, I just dropped everything into the tray, chose a transition theme, and published it. I know with some effort it could be much better, I don't know about starting with that weird clip about Bloomberg, and the missing end-title is shoddy, but I'm impressed with how quick from start to finish it was. There are 8 or so clips in there, catching different songs and different energy levels - I think it gives a pretty good feel of the show!

Music Blogging With BLIP.fm

Lately I've been getting into music blogging on BLIP.fm. The premise is simple - search for a song you want, add a 1-line comment, and post it to your page. You can listen to all of the songs the entire BLIP.fm community is posting, or you can follow specific users and listen to a continuous stream of songs posted by your friends.

The music is powered by imeem and YouTube, so you I'm able to find most songs (or videos) I'm looking for. And if the song exists somewhere else online, you can provide a URL to add the song to the library.

For the last few years I've been moving more and more to the web and social music communities for my music listening. Pandora is great for streaming radio, and Hype Machine and Tumblr (specifically music-oriented blogs) are pretty good for new band discovery. I haven't tapped into MySpace or iMeem much yet, but I'm sure I will over time. Right now I'm following friends as they post music daily to their BLIP.fm microblog, and I'm loving the variety of music that I'm listening to daily.

Listen to my radio station below or add me on BLIP.fm here.

THRU YOU | Kutiman mixes YouTube

If you like Girl Talk, or anything in the style of remixes of music and video, you're going to like THRU YOU.  It's a full album put together by overlaying YouTube videos of people playing individual instrument tracks or singing, to come up with a full robust song out of the individual pieces.  It's really pretty impressive, and depending on your taste you'll find at least a few songs you really like - they're all different.  Listen to the album here THRU YOU | Kutiman mixes YouTube or check out a sample video below:

The Rural Alberta Advantage at Pianos

One thing I really missed out on writing about in January was the night I headed over to Piano's (map) to see The Rural Alberta Advantage, a band I'd never heard of before outside of a recommendation by Fred Wilson.  There are several reasons why this was an awesome night:

1. The RAA are awesome - I went from never listening to them to listening to them almost exclusively for the last month (check out Edmonton and The Ballad of RAA posted over on Tumblr by Fred Wilson)
   
2. Piano's was a great place to see live music.  I went there at 10PM on a Tuesday, saw a pretty interesting opener The Loom that I'd also never heard of, and then a great show by The RAA. The small room was packed to the edges, but it wasn't so bad.  The crowd is there for the music, which is something you just can't say anymore about the crowds at Webster Hall etc., and even when you're in the back you really aren't very far from the stage.  Pianos is the kind of place I want to see more bands at, and spend more time at.  It's nights like these that make me love music again.
   
3. I actually ended up getting to meet Fred Wilson, a venture capitalist / New York & new music evangelist who's reading I've been absorbing diligently for the last few years.  I wasn't the only one who ended up at the concert because of him, but he was happy to meet everyone - and a lot of us ended up trading stories about the concert the next day right on his blog.

You can check out a few more videos I took of Rural Alberta Advantage over on YouTube.

Rockwood Music Hall Revitalizes My Love For Music

Sometimes it takes an unexpected event to reawaken your love for something. Lately I’d been sick of concerts. I was tired of the crowd, the getting pushed around, the being unable to see, the people more interested than drinking than the music. I hadn’t seen many shows in months, and going when I did make it out to see Vampire Weekend a few weeks ago, I skipped the opening acts so that I could minimize my time in Terminal 5 to about 1 hour (they play a short act).

But last night reinvented my love for live music. I went with a friend over to Rockwood Music Hall, a little place as small as an apartment that is really all about the communal music experience. Maybe 40 people, all there because of the music, you don’t have to pay to get in and they just pass a hat around afterwards asking you to contribute as you see fit after each set. 5 feet away from the stage, mostly acoustic, very intimate and personal. The way music is supposed to be.

I ended up seeing two bands that I’d never heard of but really loved – the first was Dan Torres; I recorded this jam session from him last night, which captures how connected you could feel to the musician right in front of you. Afterward, I purchased a CD/DVD he was selling of a previous performance at Rockwood Music Hall, and you can try out the same song, “You Don’t Even Want to Know My Name” with a little less ‘jam’ here.

The second band I saw was Dandelion Wine, another great performance. I didn’t grab the CD, but you can check out some live video over at my YouTube channel. It’s worth watching all 3 videos – I’ve replayed them several times this morning already.

Most people probably never make it over to Rockwood Music Hall; most of us will probably never recognize a name on their set list. If your sick of big concert venues, though, and you have forgotten how intimate and mesmerizing a live music performance can be, you should make your way over. And you might even discover a few musicians you never knew existed that you’ll love.

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• Young Jazz / Blues Band " The Back Door Slam " Grows Up

Technorati Tags: dandelion wine,dan torres,rockwood music hall,concerts,live music,acoustic,acoustic music,new york city,nyc

A song, a photo, a moment

Tonight I've been posting over at my Tumblr. I haven't really ever gotten to the point of defining how I'll use Tumblr, but for now it seems more suited for short expressions. It's easy to post all types of content, and it's easy to re-post other people's content with comments.

Tonight I am running various thoughts through my head via Tumblr - a song, a photo, a moment.

• Many nights I find I’m the only one still awake; I’m borrowing this (sort of related) picture to reflect on that.

• Song of the night - Mysterons, by Portishead - handling the mood perfectly

• (reblogging) iraqi man throws shoes at Bush at press conference. i suspect there’s quite a few US citizens who would like to do the same thing!
  

You can comment seperately on all of the content over at Tumblr; on the content, or on where Tumblr should fit in the scheme of things.

Why The Music Industry is in Good Shape

Ian Rogers, the former head of Yahoo! Music who left to form a startup called Topspin that helps artists promote themselves without a major label, gave a great speech on the evolution and the future of the music industry.  I’ve highlighted two slides here that I thought were particularly poignant. 

The first reveals some very compelling and optimistic numbers about the rise in consumption and purchase of music, in general.  It’s interesting to note the key stats – CD’s of course aren’t one of them, but music playing devices are up (iPods most specifically) year over year, as are individual music purchase moments are up, concert revenue is up.  Streaming music is also way up (which may be licensed) and music file sharing is up.  The interesting thing about the last point is, it parallels more music purchasing – file sharing and free (or advertising subsidized) streaming are music promotion vehicles, and more and more people are spreading the word about more and more music every day.

The second slide I want to point out is discussing the “shift in power” from the label to the artist, which also I think means some portion of power shifting from the label to the consumer.  The future of the music industry leaves little room for price gauging by the music industry, because consumers won’t allow it.  On the other hand, it gives a more direct relationship with the consumer and the artist that enables us to reward artists that we really truly enjoy their music.  Hopefully more artists step away from the major label contracts realizing they don’t need them, so we can feel like the money we spend on music really goes to the artist.  I also hope within the music industry and other industries there develops a system for consumers to give money directly to just about anyone we want to support in their creative endeavors.  If I haven’t bought an album from someone because I can hear it for free elsewhere, but I still want to give them money to support their creation of future music, I want to be able to do it.  In the mean time, I don’t buy songs very often, but I do spend a lot of money on Concerts, and I do try to spread the word about music, while buying a few tracks along the way.

By the way, if you enjoyed this presentation and want to see more interesting presentations and talks, I’m saving links to interesting content on del.icio.us here

Eminem coming out with a new album

Didn't expect to see this - Eminem is apparently coming out with a new album soon, after basically disappearing for a while (Here's a single from it).

Supposedly it will be coinciding with the release of new Dr. Dre and 50-cent albums as well:

Eminem’s album forms part of a “three-headed monster,” to be released alongside his new album, ‘Before I Self Destruct,’ and Dr. Dre’s much anticipated ‘Detox.’

I wonder if I'll like any of it or if it wi'll feel old and tried at this point?

The new single from The Killers

I have posted the new single from The Killers over at my Tumble Blog, listen and see my comments Human - The Killers

Ticketmaster is a terrible company that milks its customers

Every time I buy tickets to a concert I am blown away by how ridiculous Ticketmaster is in milking their customer base in ridiculous fashion.  Their "convenience charge" is nearly 20%, they charge a $2 "processing fee" for what is essentially nothing, and they won't provide the tickets in PDF unless you pay a $2.50 upcharge!  Why should I pay $2.50 to save them on mailing?

It's not that it's a lot of money, it's that they over and over find ways to increase their premium, with nonsense chrages.  It's a crapppy way to cheat a customer base.

Theater Was Once Afraid of Radio

Sticking on the theme of Old Media needing to learn how to adapt to and embrace New Media, techdirt has a hilarious post reminding us that at one point, Theater companies were afraid of Radio broadcasters mentioning their upcoming play on air:

Once upon a time, complimentary theatre tickets would come with a
covering note like this: "Dear Sir, The Management of the ------
Theatre will be much obliged if you will very kindly co-operate with
them in safeguarding the enclosed invitation from being used for the
purpose of broadcasting a notice of the play from any station of the
British Broadcasting Corporation. The invitation is intended to meet
the convenience of legitimate journalism, exclusive of broadcasting."
Dated 10 October 1929 and quoted in Ego: The Autobiography of James
Agate (1935)

Just helps to put the current music and movie evolution that we're going through, and the ongoing battles of the RIAA and the MPAA, in perspective.

Young Jazz / Blues Band " The Back Door Slam " Grows Up

Back in October 2007, I went to see a show by the wonders The Back Door Slam, an English trio of kids that, by the time they made it state-side, were only 20 years old, and playing music like they were 60 year old Jazz / Blues performers. At the time there were only 10 or so of us in the audience in the very intimate Mercury Lounge. 2 months later I went to see them again at the same spot, but the small room was now filled to the brim with middle aged men who were exhilarated by the sound of the young trio anomaly. In just the few months, seeing the audience grow from 10-15 to 70-80 was exciting, and I was very happy for them. Well fast forward to July 15th, 7.5 months after their first show, and they've moved to headlining at Bowery Ballroom. While it isn't the biggest venue in town, it's a huge step up from the handful of people that knew of their existance, and it's a huge reward for the endless tour. They continue to put themselves out there and are climbing the niche chart. Congrats to them.

Collective Soul Plays an Acoustic Set in My Office and I sit Front Row

So my company does these really random "Brown Bag Lunch Concert Series" sessions where artists basically come in and perform 3 to 4 songs acoustic in an open area in my office. My company lures that are looking for doors in to the advertising/media world, and in the past we've seen Richie Sambora (from Bon Jovi) and Hanson (who are actually pretty good now) play, among a myriad of others.

Now this morning I came into the office and an email was waiting saying Collective Soul was playing - a random rare gem in the slew of nameless monthly concerts. A little history here, I actually paid to see Collective Soul play last summer as part of an awesome concert with Live and Counting Crows out doors in a minor league baseball stadium. So when I heard Collective Soul would be in the office, I made sure to grab my camera and head up a little early to ensure a seat in the front.

Collective Soul was represented by the two brothers - the main singer, and the guitarist. They played 3 songs acoustic: December, The World I Know, and a 3rd song that I hadn't heard before. Afterwards they stuck around to give out and sign CD's (I have the newest album signed for my father), take pictures, and even offered to connect us with back-stage passes if we make it to a show this summer. It was a really cool, really intimate concert experience that I never expected.

Technorati Tags: collective soul,the world i know,acoustic,acoustic music,acoustic concert,concert

Content Is Becoming a Commodity - ReadWriteWeb

ReadWriteWeb has an interesting article discussing the commoditization of content, which essentially means that online content (think blogs, etc) is going the way of music, where since anyone can produce it and anyone can (more or less) copy it, there is an economic drive towards of supply and demand leading all content itself to be valued at zero. Bloggers, then, are increasingly facing what musicians are facing, which is that they need to bring more to the table than just content itself. Some things that bring visitors back: the resources, the community, the first-to-print, etc. This is a powerful principle that is changing and tearing down traditionally monopolistic industries in the digital age.

Planning a summer event road trip

My friends and I just booked a summer weekend road trip:

Friday 6/20 - Pearl Jam Concert in Camden NJ
Saturday 6/21 - Nationals vs. Rangers inter-league play in Washington D.C.
Sunday 6/22 - Phillies vs. Angels inter-league play in Philadelphia

I'm psyched for all of these, should be an awesome weekend.

Atmosphere Concert Videos

As a follow-up to my awesome concert weekend, I did take a few videos from the Atmosphere that actually came out pretty good. You can catch them all at my YouTube channel

A big concert week - the Foals and Atmosphere

Tonight I am heading over to Bowery Ballroom to see the Foals, whom I'd never heard of until a friend asked me to hit up the show with him just a few days ago. Then Sunday I am catching Atmosphere at Webster Hall, which will be the 4th time I've seen them live in six years. Anyone going to be at the show? If you know the Foals, recommend me some songs in the next hour or so that I can listen to before tonight! Hopefully I'll have some pictures and videos from both these concerts next week.

Deep Blue Something comes to Brooklyn to Play Breakfast at Tiffany's one more time

Last night I went with some friends to a little bar/concert venue in Brooklyn called Southpaw to see Deep Blue Something, that 1-hit wonder band that came out with Breakfast at Tiffany's back in 1996.  Only around 25 people were at the bar, and it wasn't a usual concert setting; most of the crowd was sitting on couches towards the back, relaxing, and some people were even playing pool during the performance.  I'm not sure if the band ever pulled real crowds, but I wonder what they expected when they decided to go back on tour - it's got to be hard when an audience sits through your whole set and only reacts when you play that one single you are probably sick of playing.

Two other bands played as well - Porter Block, and Greater Good, the second of which made their way to New York City for the first time from Texas.  I enjoyed all three performances, but if I had to pick one to see again I'd go with Greater Good - they had the most energetic set (all the more impressive given the audience), and the most catchy music.  I'd see Porter Block too, and will listen to both bands more.  This is it for me and Deep Blue Something though  (after capturing the above video of "Breakfast at Tiffany's" live).

Technorati Tags: deep blue something,breakfast at tiffany's,southpaw,park slope,brooklyn,concert,live music,music,porter block,greater good