The Wonderful World of Internet Radio

Years ago my husband told me about www.pandora.com, a website that recommends and plays music to you based on what musicians you already enjoy. I refused to listen to it, annoyed that some program purported to know what music I ought to like.

"I like music because of its structure and emotional content, not because of its superficial texture!" I insisted pompously. Many times someone has come up to me and said, "Oh you like this band, so you'll probably like this other band which sounds similar" and so I listen to the recommendation and usually find I don't like it.

Then a friend mentioned "Edith Piaf radio" on Pandora (thanks Denis!) and that inspired me to give it a try. I played with Pandora for a few weeks. I tried Edith Piaf radio, Cocteau Twins radio, Sigur Rós radio. But eventually I got annoyed that it seemed to be serving up the same songs over and over again. It is possible, however, to add variety to your station by adding additional artists or songs as "seeds." I have only just recently begun experimenting with this feature. (which you can access via Station Options > Add Variety to this Station.

I've had better luck with www.last.fm, especially with the "Sigur Rós radio". Of course, your results may vary depending on the performer you input. Last.fm introduced me to the music of Max Richter, Stafrænn Hákon and Yndi Halda, which I could not find at all on Pandora. Each artist page on Last.fm provides easy access to all available tracks by that artist, and also has videos, photos, news and more.

Although Pandora and Last.fm both call themselves "Radio," their playlists are customized for the listener. There are plenty of other Internet radio stations out there that simply serve up playlists in various musical genres.

For example, tune into SomaFM which features playlists for musical styles underserved by regular radio, such as ambient, house music, American roots music, lounge, avant-garde jazz and indie pop. They even have a Halloween station called "Doomed." SomaFM requires a third party music player like iTunes or WinAmp

Then there's AOL Radio, which has more traditional music categories, like metal, hip-hop/rap, rock and world/international. It has it's own player window that comes up and shows you the album cover for the song that's playing. One thing that's nice about the AOL Radio is that you can skip ahead to the next song if you don't like what's currently playing. Last.fm and Pandora have that feature, too.

Radio-locator provides a search engine to over 10,000 radio stations from around the world. From there I can easily locate, for example, WVUD (the station I used to dj for in the late 80's and early 90's when it was called WXDR). You can search by music style or country. Bonanza! When you listen to these "real" radio stations, you are typically hearing the live broadcast, complete with dj comments and commercials.

If you keep an open mind (and open ears) Internet radio is a great way to discover new music.