Words & Tricks

Music library getting dusty? 3-and-a-half websites you may not know (but should immediately bookmark)

Finding that you’ve gotten into a rut with you music? If, as my fellow Twitterer BigBrightBulb said (who blogs here and twitters here), you’ve been filling out your 80’s pop collection based on Muzak from your favorite burrito shop,, then I’ve got some tips for you below. Or, maybe, like me, the hard drive that housed all your music crashed beyond repair. The smell of burning plastic does not bode well for my Tori Amos Discography.

Either way, I’ve got a short list of sites you’ll want to check out.

They’re not as famous or popular as Last.fm, iTunes, or Yahoo! Music, but maybe you’ve already tried those, and just maybe they’re boring you to tears. Especially since you want to find music that challenges you, and pushes your boundaries. You want to find music uncovered by the most music-obsessed people on the planet. Music bloggers.

Look no further.

1. The Hype Machine: Pure brilliance. The developers of this site have put together an extremely useful tool for searching, bookmarking (they call it “loving”) and listening to fair-use mp3s from all over the Internet. Downloading is strictly verboten, mind you! The Hype Machine sweeps the Web, finds music blogs on which people have uploaded, and often reviewed, mp3s. It then aggregates these and serves up streaming links to its users.
   At the end of 2007, the developers in the Machine Shop put together the 2007 Music Blog Zeitgeist, three lists of the Best 50 Song, Best 50 Albums and Best 50 Bands as determined by the blogs they aggregate. A sort of grassroots approach to annual Best of lists that fulminate across the Internet every December.
   You can also search for and love blogs, artists and other users. Find me on the Hype Machine and give me a little love here.
   
2. Muxtape: The mixtape of the future. Right now. This site is simply gorgeous in its retro simplicity. Create an account in 3 seconds, and Muxtape provides you a subdomain with your own RSS feed. Upload up to 12 songs, each one less than 10 megabytes, and you’re done. No fuss, no muss.
   Or, you can just click around the colored boxes on Muxtape’s front page. Each one represents a mixtape that someone has lovingly crafted for listening to at work, for a friend, or on their iPhone. Each Muxtape tells a story, like mixtapes of old: a relationship gone wrong, a relationship gone right, or a mix carefully prepared to represent a close friend’s odd personality.
   You can find me here, but I’ll warn you, I have no music up yet.
   
3. DoCopenhagen: Despite its name, this is not a website devoted to sex tourism in Denmark. Apparently they’d started their blog to recommend places to see and venues to visit in Copenhagen. At some point, the purpose of the blog changed. Lucky for us.
   I stumbled across these guys last year. They’d put together a list of the best music videos of 2006. Nearly every video captivated me, and the music kept me clicking down the list, one after another. How was there so much good music I’d never heard of?
   With these kids you get not only video blogging, but also a European sensibility that you can’t find in the other two sites. Though, strangely, most of the music is in the English language.
   

And the half

Finally, my last recommendation is this: if you’re on Twitter, a short-messaging bulletin board type micro-blogging service that can connect your cell phone to people all over the globe, then try following Tweetmachine. This little ‘bot is composed of two Perl scripts and a database. It knows what songs Twitterers are loving on the Hype Machine and it broadcasts a link to a new mp3 every hour to its followers.

So, there you are. If you enjoyed this post, and feel like you got something out of it, all I ask is that you share your favorite music website/blogs in the comments. Also, hit me up on Twitter, or FreiendFeed with any recommendations you have for artists I should check out. Thanks!

Further Reading on Words & Tricks

• Gift Guide: DoCoppenhagen’s Top 15 (of 50) Music Picks for 2006 (0)
• Freelance Clips (0)
• Check Back Here for Your Holiday Gift Guide (0)
• About Chris Pommier (1)
• 4 differences between Belize and Costa Rica (4)