In love... all over again...

...and for those who get those thrills by livin' their lives vicariously through me, NO, its not about a woman.

In love with music all over again..

I've been, for the past so many months, almost years, been gradually losing patience with the process of searching for or discovering new music. Seems like I am now only the source of music referrals or recommendations for other people, not the target. No, don't get me wrong, I don't mind that. I love sharing music, and exposing people to my choices and music, and spreading my "awesome music taste".. ;).. But even I want new music right? Even I want someone to tell me.. "Anuj, doood, you gotta listen to this song/ band/ tape/ single/ CD/ album/ mix/ lyrics/ music.. whatever..." Like the good ole days.

And the radio stations ain't much help in this. A handful of stations.. Classic Rock? they repeat a bunch of great classic songs a million times. Its fun, but nothing new right? Same with the other pop songs of the 70s, 80s and today type of radio stations. And then those radios with "todays HOTTEST latest hits" ?? Well, even if you like a song, you hear it about 15 times in an hour and you quickly, VERY QUICKLY, get weary of that song.. and don't even get me started on the commercials.

Anyway... what this rant is leading to:

there's this AWESOME new service online music suggestion service called Pandora, created by The Music Genome Project. My words will not be able to justify the service. You have to try it...

but, in short.. it is a simple music suggestion service. Say you want to know or discover more songs/artists that sound (musically) like a song/artist that you like in particular. Go to the site, type in your song/artist, and it creates a "radio" channel for you.. and that channel streams different songs and music from various artists that sound like the one that you entered. Some that you've never heard of.. and so can discover.. It is like a streaming, personalized, favouritized, genre-fied radio station with no commercials ever...

and its free.. and you can save your favourites and create upto a 100 channels and basically let it replace your CD collection or your iTunes.

It is like listening to a mix-tape that's been gifted to you by a friend, but one that's unlabelled, so that you dont know what's on it, so every song is a surprise..

Try it... am freaking out right now on my "J.J. Cale Radio" ..

Oh yes, the next best thing.. one on my wish list.. is a Squeezebox 3. It is simply a box that connects to your computer (thru Ethernet or wirelessly) and reads your music files in your computer and plays them through your (maybe expensive but gathering dust) stereo system. (Ya ya, I know apple has some airport express stuff that kinda does that with itunes and all that crap, but that's for mac users. This one is for Mac, Windows, Unix. And its cool)

So anyway, 300 bucks and you have access to your computer's music anywhere in your house that you like.

And now add up the two cool things..
This Squeezebox 3 now directly (with your remote control) streams from Pandora.com.

Et voila.. isn't that enough to make you fall in love again?