Are you tired of commercials that seem to have taken over your favorite radio station? Do you turn down the volume every time a song you don’t like comes on? Would you like more control over what your radio plays? Or maybe you simply don’t have access to a radio at work, and are in need of some constant good music to get you through the day.
Whatever you’re looking for, I’ve found it. Once in a while, I get tired of regular radio stations, and go scouting the internet for something different. These are the three best sources of customizable music I’ve found online.
One dot fm (1.fm) – One dot fm has every possible genre you can think of. Choose from indie, country, dance, alternative, and so much more. 1 dot fm is a streaming online radio. You pick a station and get songs of that genre playing for as long as you want. Every three songs or so, there is a short commercial (less than half a minute), and then it’s right back to the music. There are different stations for different bandwidths available (128k, 32k, etc) for those with slower connections. I have DSL, so I have no problems with the buffering. A warning though, if you have a slow connection, the buffering might break up the song too much and get annoying.
Pandora – I have written an entire article about this station before (in this article), and it’s still one of my favorites. This website allows you to find new music that fits your style. I discovered a lot of my favorite bands through it. Although you can’t go back to any songs, you can skip songs, mark them as ones you like or dislike, and browse the names, bands, and CD the song is on of all the songs that have played already. The design is slick and lags my slow computer a little, but not enough to bother me. It’s a great source of new music.
Imeem– Imeem allows you to create playlists online using songs that you and other people have uploaded. You can listen to other people’s playlists and favorite them for future listening. Here you are in complete control. You can pause, rewind, skip songs, whatever you choose to do. If you know what you want on your playlist, just search for it and add it. If you want to find new songs to listen to of a certain genre, simply look through other people’s playlists. Many times, people like to make lists of similar songs together. Recently, however, Imeem has started cutting certain songs into 30 second previews, to urge their download through itunes. This has discouraged many Imeem users. I still recommend this site, though. There are plenty of things to listen to. And if you like a preview, you can just get the song or cd itself. I hope you like these music sites online. Personally, I love not having to listen to people banter on about things I don’t care about. When I turn on the radio, I want to hear music. So now instead of turning to my boombox, I just click onto Pandora and know that I can expect hours of the kind of music that I like.
