DISQUS

markhorne · 10 months ago

I've loved Grooveshark but look forward to going through this list.

Jandy · 10 months ago

I'll tell you what I think it is about Grooveshark, is that because it's P2P-based, there's very little control on album titles, spellings, that sort of thing. If I search "Jenny Lewis" and click "albums" I get everything from "Acid Tongue" (her actual album) to various mixes that people have made that happen to have Jenny Lewis songs on them. And choosing "artist" yields not only "Jenny Lewis" and "Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins" (which are all it should include - maybe Rilo Kiley if it's being very lenient), but "Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins" and "Jenny Lewis & the Watson Twins" and "Jenny Lewis/Watson Twins" and by then my eyes cross and I want to go somewhere with some standardization. Last.fm has this problem to some degree, but they do a far better job of integrating people's improperly tagged songs into the service as a whole.

It's cool to find some live versions mixed in on Grooveshark, but as a whole it's far too unorganized for me. I think in the past I've also had issues of it having corrupted or truncated versions of songs and no good version, which turned me off immediately. I can see the appeal in Grooveshark for people less borderline-OCD than me, though.

Jandy · 10 months ago

I just realized what I didn't include were good sites for listening to a specific song - Grooveshark is good for that. Last.fm is pretty good at that, now that they've struck a lot of deals for full tracks with the labels, but there are still a number of tracks that have only 30-second previews. I think iMeem is a good place to try, too. Or, use elbo.ws or another music search engine to try to find an mp3 on a blog somewhere. Pandora and Slacker have no way to choose a specific song to listen to at a specific time.

Goannatree · 10 months ago

I love Pandora...but i'll check out a few of the other sites you mention!

Jandy · 10 months ago

Pandora's great! Only Slacker and last.fm are really in competition with it, and each of those three has strengths and weaknesses depending on what you want at the given time. The other sites focus different things.

markhorne · 10 months ago

On iTunes, you didn't mention the unnecessary mp4 format they use for songs. I am rebellious and use my iTunes as an mp3 storage device, almost never buying mp4s from them. I'd rather buy used cds and just convert them to mp3s. I don't own an iPod and am not likely to do so any time soon. mp3 players are cheaper

Jandy · 10 months ago

Do they still use mp4s with the iTunes Plus offering? I thought the DRM-free ones were in mp3 format. But I haven't actually bought any, so I'm not sure.