I like to listen to music while I work, but I don’t always like to listen to albums all day long. I like to mix it up a bit – I’m more of a radio girl. But other than listening to BBC Radio 1 Scotland in the morning, and a bit of CBC throughout the day, I don’t have a lot of options.
I like the “genius” function on my iPhone, but that plays music I already have. I want to hear songs I already like, with some new songs thrown in there too. I used to LOVE Last.FM, which would play a customized radio station for me (it would “learn” my preferences over time, based on me giving songs the thumbs up or thumbs down). But Last.FM started charging for their service, so I stopped listening.
I read this article in the New Yorker last night (about internet radio and music streaming services), and my interest in the topic has been renewed. I’ve heard amazing things about Pandora, but it’s not available in Canada. So now I’m going to try MOG, the other service reviewed in the article. But at first glance, MOG looks like Last.FM (same features). And I did spend all that time “teaching” Last.FM about my music preferences. So maybe $3 per month for Last.FM isn’t so bad. I think I’m going to sign up again.