rdio, spotify, iTunes, 8 track, gramophone?

[TC]

How's everyone listening to music these days?

I subscribed to rdio a couple of weeks ago and I can't believe that there is such a thing. For a long time I thought the two years that Napster was around was the golden age of online music, but this is absolutely ridiculous. I can listen to almost anything on it, no limits - I guess Spotify is the same sort of service with some annoy-your-friends-on-Facebook features thrown in.

Am I the only one who is blown away by this? I listened to Ryan Adams' entire catalog last week - something I would never have paid money for but I'm glad that I got the chance to go through. Pandora and Last.fm were never even close to this for me - I like listening to albums front to back.

[hoyainspirit]

I, too, thought Napster was the greatest, especially when free Napster was about to die and everyone with the software was online. The amount of music available was amazing. Thanks for the heads up on spotify and rdio.

Lately, I've been scouring music blogs with download links. If you are into hard to find and/or out of print music, these are great. As well, I enjoy listening to live concerts which were recorded and are now available on the internet. Dimeadozen, a torrent site, has tons on live shows, lots of different types of music.

[TC]

I've used dimeadozen and Wolfgang's Concert Vault is pretty great for live stuff as well - and it has free streaming and no conversion needed from flac->mp3. rdio and Spotify are really another level though right now.

I can't imagine being a brick and mortar record store and trying to compete with these sites - is Kemp Mill Records around at all anymore anywhere?

[Boz]

Anywhere and everywhere.

I still buy most of my music from iTunes. People can bash it all they want (and as I pointed out in the Steve Jobs thread, I find it ridiculous that I can't buy music from the iTunes UK store), but I still think it's great. I buy from other places as well, but mostly from Apple.

I listen at artist/band pages a lot, where you can usually hear quite a bit from their catalog, and also usually get free downloads, particularly with newer bands.

But I'll use Spotify (haven't used rdio yet), Sirius/XM, Pandora, NME Radio, any number of other sites/apps/etc. It is a very rare occasion when I am awake and there isn't music playing from some source.

Quick note, as long as we're on the subject:

A lot of you are probably familiar with my music tastes. If you share that taste at all, there is a new band you absolutely have to hear: The New Division out of California.

I've been listening to them for about a year now & they just came out with their first full LP in September.

They are, to put it quite bluntly, brilliant. Derivative, yes. But brilliant.

You can listen to them online here: thenewdivision.bandcamp.com/

(bandcamp is also a great resource)

[hoyainspirit]

The great thing from the artists' perspective about sites like dime and the out of print blogs is that they lose no royalties since the shows were never intended for commercial release, or the music is no longer available or virtually impossible to get. They like the fact that more of their music is available to hear. Drives sales of stuff that's available. For music that I buy, I generally price shop, and prefer to download than order. Can't remember the last time I visited a music store, other than the Louisiana Music Factory in New Orleans.

[EasyEd]

Player-piano.

[tgo]

three that i use that havent been mentioned are

1- Myspace... most bands have a myspace page and have a bunch of tracks there, you can make playlists very easily and i use it to try out new groups for instance, i get a weekly email from two different record stores with different tastes where they give short reviews and suggestions. i skim through and if the band sounds intersting i add their tracks to my myspace playlist to try them out. the benefit this has over spotify is that spotify doesnt have every band on there, if anyone knows how to add a band there let me know, there is one i like that it has an older album from 3-4 yrs ago but not the one they released in July

2- rcrdlbl.com

there are a lot of email lists out there, one i am on is free and sends me two downloads a day. they have a couple different lists based on genre and their stuff is hit or miss but i have gotten some good track and it has turned me on to some stuff occasionally and it takes 2 seconds to download and throw in to your shuffle

3 beemp3.com
free download site, occasionally tough to sort through to find a good copy but usually the first one that comes up when i search for a song is good. i am also facinated by looking at their top 30 list. #3 right now is G n R "Patience" great song ... 20 years ago, how does that get to the top of a download list? there always seems to be a couple in the top 10 that are like that.

Boz, i am liking The New Division, good suggestion, thanks.

[Cambridge]

spotify is amazing, simply amazing

also, I use google music, itunes, napster, etc.

[Bando]

I buy a lot from iTunes as well, though I do the free download thing as well. I generally decide the buy/download question by whether the band is defunct or not.

I generally want something to point me to new (or at least new to me) music, so I listen to both Pandora and FM 94.9 in San Diego, which is IMO, the best radio station in the country.

[HometownHoya]

Pandora, Grooveshark or various blogs out there. Fortunately, a lot of my music uses samples illegally anyway for their songs so they get released for free!

Boz, I'm liking the New Division

[SFOHoya]

turntable.fm - I don't DJ but I like it on in the background during the day

[Coast2CoastHoya]

Like boz & Bando, I buy a lot of stuff on iTunes still, but also take full advantage of free podcasts.

Haven't checked out spotify and rdio yet, but am totally going to now.

And Bando's absolutely correct re: 94.9 in San Diego.

And then there's good old fashioned live music, too

[Coast2CoastHoya]

Addendum: just started listening to rdio and it's AWESOME.