Awdio.com

I quiet like the idea behind Awdio: the site allows you to listen live to various DJ sets happening at the same time in clubs or venues the webradio has a patnership with. From the Vegas, a club in Sao Paulo, to the music of Hotel Costes in Paris, through New York and the Zebulon, you can choose a location all around the world and check what is going on there. The concept is refreshing and very original.

The number of "channels" available is - quiet logically - limited though, with around five to ten locations sharing their music with the site, depending on the time of the day and the clubs/venues programme obviously. The site has its own recording system installed in each of the clubs/venues.

The Flash interface is simple but nice and efficient.

Even though the music itself is not often my cup of tea, I guess Awdio is the perfect webradio for those into clubbing but too lazy to go out! Or for those who are just curious to know what's "hot" in various clubs around world!

For those who speak or understand French, there is a really interesting interview here of Awdio's CEO Julien Ulrich.

 
He explains how Awdio works extensively and I learnt a lot there on the site's history and economic model. Julien Ulrich notably explains that the future aim of the webradio is to be a platform for live music in general, whether that is clubs or concert halls or other locations. He also explains that the clubs that have a partnership with the site get 20% of all the site's commercial revenues. That sounds fair, I suppose. Ulrich also says quiet honestly that there is currently no legislation as far as legal rights are concerned for the type of service Awdio offers: the clubs pay the rights locally but the site and that's it! I wonder if that will always be like this though. Meanwhile, good for Awdio!

Record Labels websites

Finding a good site for streaming music isn't everything. You also need to know what you want to listen to. We have all experienced times when, no matter how much music a site has to offer, we simply don't know what to listen to anymore. In such time websites like Pandora or Myspace can be really valuable for the way they help you find new music you might like.

But we shouldn't forget that record labels websites can also be quiet helpful. Well, it obviously depends on your music tastes, but pretty much all record labels websites now offer streamed music of the artists they produce. Long gone are the days when record labels and music stores expected you to buy an album just based on a band's reputation, without having listened to it first.

Let's say you really dig one artist of a given record label. There is quiet a chance you might also like other bands/musicians they produce. Checking the record label website is then the best option to verify this.
Let's take the exemple of a tiny independant label like Polyvinyl. They have a really good page with at least two songs per artist available on their site. They even have songs you can download for free.

Same thing with a record label like Subpop, each band having at least 3 or 4 songs streamed on their page, as well as the same number of video clips. Quiet a lot to discover here is as well. See here with Band of Horses' page for instance.

But this also true for majors such as Universal music or Sony BMG, if you dig some of the things they produce. Universal has launched its own platform for listening and seeing videos of its artists.

Same thing with Sony BMG with their site Myplay. The obvious goal for each of these two sites is to make you buy the music.

I must say I am not a big fan of these two sites but again, to each is own when it comes to music. So do visit your favorite record labels websites. You'll be surprised by how much you can find.

Grooveshark

I was quiet puzzled at first by the Grooveshark interface. It doesn't look like any other websites in its category which is honestly quiet refreshing. Grooveshark is a Deezer/Spotify-like website where you are offered to listen to the bands/songs you type in. Like its "rivals", Grooveshark retributes the artists per play. Once again, it's another opportunity for you to "put your money where your mouth is". Well, not exactly seens Grooveshark is all free! To go back to the site's original interface, I found the way the playlist is displayed horizontally quiet nice and original.

But most of all, it seems to me that Grooveshark has a much larger catalogue than its 'rivals', like Deezer for instance. I would certainly put it on my top 3 list of websites for streaming music. Certainly before Deezer. And maybe even before Jiwa and Spotify.

UK's 18 most popular sites for streaming music

The site readwriteweb.com has a good article listing UK's 18 most popular sites for streaming music, with a quick description of each site.

Jiwa

Even though its layout isn't the sexiest thing ever, I was quiet surprised by how much I actually found on Jiwa.

The site is a lot similar to Deezer: a search engine helping you finding the bands/songs you'd like to listen to, the songs being displayed as a list, with the possibility to add songs to your own playlist/library.
Its default language might be French but it is also available in English.

All in all a more than decent site for streaming music. Probably in my top 5 right now.

Webradios.com

The idea behind Webradios.com is pretty simple: the site offers a list of links to various webradios, classified either by genre or by geographic area. Radiostations and their music selections really suck in your area? Well why don't you try this webradio in Quebec or Australia?!

You can now try to find this obscure webradio with the best music selections perfectly fitting your own tastes! This way I got to become quiet a fan of Chicago Public Radio and one of their music shows like Chicagocore or Re:Sound. Here again, the possibilities are endless.

Myspace

It is hard not to talk about Myspace when talking about free and legal streamed music. Not that I have things to say here that most people do not already know. But it just seems to me that a lot of my friends keep forgetting about myspace as a good - even if temporary - alternative to illegal downloads.

Like for most people, Myspace is what I use when I hear about a band and want to check out what they sound like. In the past, I would download their album straigt away without thinking twice. But then I would always end up with tons of albums on my disk that I wouldn't really like or just wouldn't have time to listen to. Considering that pretty much every band (from the most obscure amateurs to the most mainstream ones) now have a myspace page, the possibilities are endless.

The other good thing about it, even though it might sound like a cliché, is the interractive aspect of it. I did find myself a couple of times sending messages to bands or musicians that I really liked and was always really pleased to receive a reply from them. Besides, if you have a band and a Myspace page yourself, you might even find yourself in the pleasant position of receiving messages from people that actually like your music too!

I aslo quiet like checking what influences a band that I like lists on its profile. It's always inspiring. Plus it is even easier with the "top friends" functions showing what bands and people the band is friend with, with a direct access to their profile and music. I have discovered quiet a lot of band like this.

Deezer

Deezer and Pandora both have in common to be free and legal web radios. And even though I am much more a fan of Pandora than Deezer, the latest clearly has something for itself that Pandora has not: when Pandora only allows you to listen to songs and artists that sound like the one you select Deezer offers you to listen to the exact song and/or artist you type in. Add to this that there is no limitation here: you can listen to a song as much as you want, when you want.


But let's be honest here. Deezer clearly doesn't offer the same service that Pandora. First, Deezer catalog is clearly not as rich as Pandora's. Deezer is mainly about "mainstream" music, and I usually don't find all the bands I like in its catalog. Secondly, you won't find the quality of Pandora guys' associations between songs and bands.

But still, let's not be too picky here. Deezer still offers a lot and is, again, both free and legal, which means that - just like for Pandora - the artists you listen to get retributed. That is another chance to put your money where your mouth is and support the artists you like!

Pandora

Finding out what would be my first post on this blog did not take me too long. Pandora.com was actually on of the sites I had in mind when deciding to open this blog. I have been a fan of this web radio for three years now, using it almost on a daily basis.


The idea behind this web radio is smart enough in itself: you enter the name of a group or song that you like, and Pandora offers you to listen to other bands or songs from the same artist that it has identified as close artistically. To help refine it suggestions, Pandora also offers you to say if you like or not the song it suggests you.

What separates Pandora from other similar web radios (apart from its really neat, user-friendly, and aesthetic design) is that I have rarely been disappointed by what it suggests me. I'm actually most of the time really amazed by the selections created, listening sometimes for more than an hour without really disliking any of the song I listen to. And I think I am quiet picky when it comes to music. More than this, Pandora has helped me discovering quiet a few excellent bands.

The selections and associations are really smart and, amazingly, all decided by the Pandora guys themseleves, not some shitty algorythm! The result of their work was called "The Music Genome". Here is how they describe it:

"Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or "genes" into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It's not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it's about what each individual song sounds like.
Since we started back in 2000, we've carefully listened to the songs of tens of thousands of different artists - ranging from popular to obscure - and analyzed the musical qualities of each song one attribute at a time. This work continues each and every day as we endeavor to include all the great new stuff coming out of studios, clubs and garages around the world."

The site also offers some really smart and well-informed band descriptions:

Another great thing about Pandora is tha tit is legal and that the site actually pay the artists you listen to. Which means you not only get to listen to music and artists you like but that you also get a chance to suppport financially these artists. I love the concept.

The only bummer here is that Pandora (and that is actually not a small one) is that, for legal reasons, it is theoratically only available to US citizens. Not sure if sorting out this legal issue is part of Pandora's guys agenda (especially as it originally used to be available worlwide). I hope it is!