Ways to listen to music both online and off

Back in the day, the ways to listen to music amounted to a record player, your friends beat-boxing on the street corner, or a stereo system on your shoulders as you walked the city blocks. Fortunately, those times of struggle and strife are over, as today’s technology has allowed a listener to be able to play their favorite songs wherever and whenever they please.

Laptops, tablets, smartphones, and desktop computers, allow the user to hear the world of rap, rock, country, classical, pop, and more, with more clarity and freedom than ever before. Out on the town, working out at the gym, sitting at your desk at home — Tunes follow you wherever you go.

Below, we’ll take a look at a variety of choices when it comes to listening to your favorite bands and artists. With most, you’ll need a computer, phone, laptop, or other such player to get the most out of the experience, as well as a good pair of headphones or speakers. With these items, you’ll be set to hear your favorite bands anywhere you would like to and with a clarity unsurpassed by anything else on the market today.

Online Listening Choices

For today’s population, there are ways to get free songs from online sites like Qtrax, Jamendo, and Last.fm. Some of these offer free downloads, while others — like Last.fm — are online radio stations that works with a listener’s tastes to construct the best possible listening experience.

The previously mentioned Jamendo offers listeners a way to find independent singers or groups, with 350,000 tracks to download or stream. Sites such as Y! Music, Soundclick, and Internet Archive, also offers tunes to download or stream online.

Sites like Music.com offer ways for listeners to watch new videos of their favorite artists for free. And AOL.com offers information, favorite artists, AOL radio, news, and ways to hear certain full-length CDs.

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Pandora

Just taking Pandora as an example to expand upon, the site offers a free range of songs that’s geared toward the user’s tastes. A listener would set up an account and then start searching for their favorite artists or songs. A listener can actually create up to 100 stations in which they can then save to the site.

Pandora began the Music Genome Project back in 2000, which saw their workers delving into (and dissecting) every form of music available in order to create the best possible experience for their listeners. The Genome project was a study which allowed users to find similar artists and songs during their initial search for their favorite bands and artists. 

With Pandora, you can input a search for your favorite bands and be given like-minded artists in the process. Thus, you’ll get a variety of new tunes that you’ll love to go along with some of your favorites, as well.

iTunes

Apple offers downloadable content (for a cost) that works with iPods, iTunes on your computer or laptop, and MP3 Players. One can download their favorite artists, albums, and even hear radio stations for free using iTunes. With iTunes for the Cloud, the songs/albums, applications, and books that you purchase will all automatically appear on your devices.

So, you can buy a song for one device (say, the family computer) and it will then automatically download to any other device you own (such as a tablet, iPhone, laptops, etc.). If you’re on the go, you can listen in a variety of ways thanks to this ever-changing field of technology. 

Remember when it was just an over-sized record player playing Michael Jackson’s “Beat It?” Now, the ways to listen to music have grown almost as quickly as the technology itself. Whether online, on the computer, through a CD or MP3 player, a smartphone, stereo sound system, or some other similarly talented device, songs and artists are literally at your fingertips whenever you choose to listen.

Resources:

Education Portal: 10 Free Ways to Listen to Music While Studying.

Pandora.com: About.

Above photo attributed vagawi