Music Guide Photography Shack Guide
Music Guide For Better Music Online
By Sylvia Adolvana
It seems that the free music landscape is always changing.
For a time, everyone was using Napster for their music
downloads, but lawsuits and tales of "cyber spies"
linked to the site destroyed its legacy. Then there
were a group who followed Soul Seek, but the torrent
system wasn’t as user-friendly to Napster
converts.
Another group headed to Kazaa or Limewire, other new
download sites. However, many of the files were corrupted
with viruses or pornography, which made the whole process
intolerable. Today there are many ways to listen to
music for free online, without enduring all of the headaches.
Use this free music guide to find your way around.
Myspace (www.myspace.com)
quickly became one of the best sources of free music.
In fact, many bands shut down their websites completely
and relied solely on this social networking site to
list their gigs and post new music. You can use their
music guide to look for local music, bands that sound
like other bands you like or music from a certain genre.
Streaming Music On MySpace
On many pages, you can also buy music for 99 cents
a song. The benefit of Myspace is the ability to listen
to a number of songs by a particular artist, while also
gaining access to music news, blogs, videos, photos,
tour dates, merchandise and more.
The downside is that you can’t usually save these songs
on your computer; it’s mostly a streaming site, but
sometimes you can save select songs or make them play
on your Myspace page with a single click.
Listen To Music Of A Particular Genre
Another great resource in our music guide is the ever-popular
Last FM (www.last.fm),
which now has more than 3 million unique visitors each
day. The complex search engine allows you to review
your options and analyzes your likes and dislikes, to
refer you to other songs and new music artists you may
like.
You can tag music, recommend it to a friend or blog
about it. The more people listen to and like a song,
the more it gets passed around. Users can peruse the
most popular artists in their genre of choice and listen
to a radio station of that artist, along with videos.
Last FM Radio also allows users to listen to a particular
genre.
Options To Buy Music From Amazon And iTunes
There’s a button that allows users to buy music from
Amazon and iTunes too. The benefit of going with Last
FM is that you can gain quick access to band videos,
photos, bios and tour dates as you listen. The downside
is that the suggestions are a little more commercial
and a little less intuitive than Pandora (www.pandora.com).
You’ll find there are many sites that advertise "free
music downloads," although we haven’t included
them here in our music guide. If you’ve ever visited
www.mp3raid.com
or www.ez-tracks.com,
you’ll realize that you have to jump through hoops to
get the top music that is free.
There are tons of irritating pop-ups (whether you have
a pop-up blocker or not) and even more noisy banners
hooting and hollering at you. With a less annoying website
like www.bearshare.com,
you have to download interfaces onto your computer,
which you may not feel comfortable doing. Deep down
you know it; the best way to get the songs you want
is simply to buy them.
About the Author:
Sylvia Adolvana is an author of articles on digital media, digital photography and software including
Adobe Upgrade,
Photo Albums,
Photo Enhancement,
Create DVDs,
DVD Burner Software,
Family Web Site,
Bridal Portraits,
Wedding Photos,
Wedding Announcements.
Keep a lookout for more articles coming soon.
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