Internet Music

My journey with Internet music has had many phases. I began searching for legal ways to use the Internet for music about 5 years ago. Downloading MP3’s just kind of became a pain in the ass. I have found the ultimate in Internet Music, but first….My Journey.

I-tunes :

I-tunes was an acceptable way of listening to music from my computer. The obvious benefits were that I could listen to any music I already owned for free. I had to take the time of course to put those files into I-tunes. The drawbacks were the fact that I had to purchase any new music that I wanted to hear. I rarely did this. All in all, I-tunes was ok for configuring the ol’ I-pod but pretty bad for new music.

Pandora / Janga :

I discovered Pandora a few years ago and thought it was great. Pandora allows you to type in an artist and create a radio station of similar artists. The benefit is that you are exposed to new music that you may end up enjoying. The downfall is that you could only skip through so many songs per hour and were sometimes stuck listening to stuff you did not like. I thought that this would be the future of free internet music.

Rhapsody:

I discovered Rhapsody and fell in love. It only cost $12.00 per month and I had access to almost every song I could think of. They seriously would have any obscure song or band you could ever think of. I searched for a recording I made of me singing in the shower and they even had that. I thought that this would be the end all of music for me. It is worth $12.00 per month because I would use Rhapsody for at least an hour per day. That is until yesterday.

Groovershark:

My friend comes in and asks if I have heard of Groove Shark. He claims that it is just like Rhapsody, but free. I say that he is full of nonsensical madness. I then check out GrooveShark.com and he is right. I can listen to any song I want, for free. I have tried to dig around the site a little to see how they are able to do this, but I have not read a good answer. Maybe one of you will know. Anyway, Rhapsody subscription is gone and I do not see how they will not be out of business very soon.