I’ve been studying the analytics for this blog for sometime and one of the most popular search terms for people arriving on this site has been “free music on demand”. Apparently people keep arriving on to this blog post I had written in January. So I figured maybe I should help these people out by pointing them in the right direction(s) instead of just leaving my exclamation about Last.fm.
Let’s start with the big ones — or at least, the ones that I actually have used:
Honestly, my favourite. I had so many people I knew hooked on to it — and then they shut us out … that is, those of us who are outside of the U.S. Simply enter in a few songs into the player that are to your liking and it begins to showcase music that has been deemed similar according to the “music genome project”. You’ll get to give each song a thumbs up, in which case it would keep that in mind — or thumbs down, in which case it’d move on to another song. I can’t remember but when I was still permitted to use Pandora, they had a limit on how many thumbs down you could give in a row within a specified period of time. Pandora also allows you to create your own radio station or listen to your friends as well … or even mix ‘em up!
Second to Pandora, Last.fm continues to be a huge hit amongst fans of social media and general music aficionados. With it, you can network with your friends or other people with similar (or different) interests and share songs of a wide variety that you give a thumbs up or down to. Unlike Pandora, Last.fm bases its playlist on your network of friends and acquaintances which brings a whole different level of music exploration to your finger tips.
I discovered Musicovery not too long ago and it is brilliant way to discover new music by defining a mood. Not only does it allow you to discover music but it’s got a great visualization of how different songs relate to one another. Playing the music works similar to the other services in the sense that you can give songs thumbs up or thumbs down so that the system plays more music to your liking. From my experience, it didn’t seem to work that well but on the level of discovering new and international music, Musicovery does the job pretty well.
I realize Amie Street isn’t an on-demand music player however IF you are seeking free music, Amie Street is a brilliant brilliant website to discover some new and upcoming artists on the scene. I’ve found quite a few but it takes time to go through the site and sort through what you like. Of course, that depends on whether or not you’re a leader and like to explore — because if you’re a follower … you’ll end up paying up to 99 cents per song based on the level of popular demand.
Seeqpod is a favourite in the office (shh…) when things just seem a little too quiet. A relatively simple user interface, Seeqpod allows you to search through all sorts of media (mp3s, YouTube, etc.) but only allows you to queue up mp3s or other audio files. The great thing is that you can then save your playlist and return, or even embed your playlist on to your own blog, website, etc.
Another neat element to Seeqpod is that you can see what other people are searching for in real time. Good way to find new music.
Is very much like Seeqpod. Search for songs you like and queue them up on your playlist. Slightly more straight-forward cleaner interface and they feature artists.
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Now on to stuff I haven’t actually tried but looks pretty spiffy to some degree:
This reminds me of Musicovery — playing music based on mood. It’s really like a blend between Musicovery and Amie Street. The difference with Guitarati is that you get to select music based on a diverse number of big colourful circles! Oh … and you have to pay for some of the music but again like Amie Street, it varies based on demand.
A French start-up that looks like it’s got potential. To quote from the website: “The concept is simple: To offer, free of charge and legally, all kinds of music, from rock to hip-hop, jazz, electro and world music While at the same time, artists and rights owners receive a share of advertising revenue.“ So lots of free music of all kinds to enjoy. Supposedly you can even download and store mp3s for yourself — sound good?
For those who have iLike attached to their Facebook or Myspace or <insert social networking site> … iLike works similar to Last.fm and allows for discovery of music through your network of friends. I haven’t really touched this but it is likely just as popular as Last.fm — I guess when it comes to stuff like this, you have to ask — where are all of your friends? I presume you’ll be joining them…unless you’ve got a rebellious streak…
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Here are some other sites that seem interesting but I’m not so sure that I will likely make use of:
Wow… Napster… I haven’t touched Napster since my days in university. This is their free version as opposed to their subscription-based site. Seems to be good for all around music tastes but I left Napster a long time ago — don’t really intend on returning.
From scanning through this website, it seems like a large number of “stations” set up playing various types of music. I believe you can create your own as well. Just a glance noted that the highest number of stations were hip hop related but there are a fair share of other genres being played.
This is a download that allows you to stream music from social networking sites like Bebo or Myspace. While the interface reminds me very much of iTunes, it isn’t really to my liking. I like web-based applications that I don’t need to download on to new machines. At the same time, this may be to your liking if you’re quite involved in MySpace and just want to queue up all your favourite artists.
This reminds me of a blend between Highnote and YouTube. People often upload their own remixes and there are a lot of channels that you can subscribe to. Sort of like … stations?
This is like a slightly more complex looking Seeqpod or Songza. The user interface is a little more slick.
Not quite an on-demand website, this actually seems somewhat interesting. Primarily for concert goers, the idea is to listen to the tracks by various artists and decide whether or not you want to attend. It primarily streams from other social networking sites.
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I hope this has been helpful to you folks who keep arriving at my site looking for free music on-demand! Now go listen to your hearts content 
A few others that I haven’t checked out just yet:
Hmm… if only I had all that music handy on my road trips. But the local radio station was still cool.
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The only service I’d add is youtube rather perversely!
I know of at least one bar that takes requests for songs you want by searching for them via youtube on the mac behind the bar – which is very fun
i think you guys should have more web sites like that!!!