I think the height of my musical interest was during high school and early college. I would spend hours upon hours listening to the radio (this is before MP3s were born). In order to not blow my entire allowance/paycheck on music I’d limit myself to buying a new CD once a month. Back then you were bound to the entire CD so it was more about liking an artist and their style than just liking the most popular song at the moment. In college I upped it to twice a month, or sometimes more if I bought used CDs. Regardless, I spent a lot of time figuring out what was worth my hard earned coinage.

These days, obtaining music is far cheaper and simpler than it used to be. You can go to the iTunes store, subscribe to a music service; or if you’re one of those twisted deviants of society, you can pirate it. Regardless access to music and information is easy. I think because of this, many of us put far less thought into our music. It’s easy to just download the hits of the moment and not pay attention to who’s singing them, what else they’ve recorded, or finding lesser known gems. The bad (if that’s not bad enough in itself) is that you’re not really identifying and listening to music that you like; but just choosing between what’s presented to you.

What seems infinitely harder now is figuring out what to listen to and try. There are studies showing that if you give a person too many options, they become riddled with indecision. That’s pretty much how I feel that about music now; too much to choose from and nothing to point you in a direction.

Although, the radio isn’t dead… afternoons at home after high school spent listening are. I find myself relying primarily on sporadic conversations with friends. A testament of the inefficiency of this is the fact that I didn’t know who Coldplay was until maybe 4 months ago… and Radiohead I just discovered 2 months ago. (Don’t worry I haven’t been in THAT thick of a bubble. I’ve ‘heard’ their music… and I’m ‘familiar’ with their names.. .but never made the associations between the bands and their songs… okay maybe I am THAT bad).

As is my first instinct with all that troubles me… I looked to Google for the solution. My goal was/is to find a community to share and learn about music. So far in my quest, I’ve come across a few interesting (and a lot of not so interesting) applications. I haven’t decided yet whether or not any of these are the holy grail I’m looking for; perhaps the solution will be to just make it myself.

If you find yourself suffering from the same malady as me… here are the top contenders:

Mercora – http://search.mercora.com/
This is my top contender so far. You can lookup a band/artist/genre, and it’ll return you whatever others out there are sharing. You can listen to whatever you want or let it stream it’s suggestions to you. You can also add friends and see what they’re listening to.

LastFM – http://www.last.fm
This site installs a plug0in to your music player and tracks your listening habits. It generates reports and makes recommendations based on what you listen to.

Pandora – http://www.pandora.com/
This site creates a custom station for you based on an artist/track/genre you specify.

If anyone has anything else they really like… let me know.