In theory the web should be a very good place to find recommendations for new listening material. In practice it isn’t quite that simple. Ariel recommended allmusic, which is an excellent site for information about bands, but their audio facilities insist that you install Windows Media Player, which I refuse to have stomp all over my existing audio set-up. As discussed elsewhere, Pandora is a very intreresting system, but is only (legally) available to listeners in the USA. But now I have discovered 3hive. This is a rather clever idea. What the guys who run it have done is look around the web for sites that have samples from albums freely available (whole songs, not snippets). When they find something, they do a blog entry about that album, complete with links to the downloads. They are now starting to get bands sending them sample songs to use. There’s lots of material there already. I think I’m going to the site very useful.
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Anoter option: iTunes Store [formerly iTunes Music Store]. Yes, you have to install a piece of software, though that shouldn’t stomp over anything (when prompted, don’t let it change file type mapping). But you don’t have to buy from there if you don’t want to…yet you can play the 30-second samples (for me, frequently enough to tell if the song’s any good). 🙂 I’m not trying to debate DRM, iTunes v. WMP, etc. But it is a way to explore (mostly major-label) music. I’ve found plenty of things and then bought the CD via Amazon. (I’ve also bought many…okay, far too many…individual songs from iTunes Store.)
If you’re only interested in free music, then forget I mentioned this. 🙂 And thanks for mentioning 3hive, I’ll check it out.