The internet music bandwagon

My sister has forwarded me links to Last.fm many many times before, but I have only just recently truly become aware of it.

I am having the discovery that I was meant to have (and that everyone else seems to have had) to Pandora. Only I was never really into Pandora. I kept hitting my max number of skips per hour per station. And not only that, but all the songs I liked on my Pandora stations were artists I already knew about. And maybe that's also true about Last.fm - I just started a Beirut station and it's playing me Panda Bear. But, the crucial difference here is that I love Panda Bear. And they are suggesting a few bands I'm not familiar with.

I think maybe where Pandora tried to be too clever pulling out similarities between songs I did and didn't like, Last.fm succeeds by sticking to quality. Not all of these songs sound much like Beirut to me, but they do sound like songs a Beirut lover might love. It's as if there is some kind of god-editor putting some love into the songs it magically decides to play me. And in exchange, I'm loving it back.

At the end of the day, I'm still loyal to KEXP, otherwise known as the only music radio station I am willing to listen to, because they really take it a step further. True they have a bit of DJ chatter, membership drives, and some theme shows I'm not super into, but I love the community they've created and the pure humanity of it all. And you can even stream them online through iTunes.

But, if you're looking for some good no nonsense internet radio, check out Last.fm.