Online Radio? Grooveshark - the best music streaming service
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In the beginning... there was Pandora
As an avid listener of music I was completely blown away when I
discovered Pandora and the Music Genome Project a few years ago. It was
an amazingly intelligent music streaming system with a great music
library, and it was 100% free to use. Unfortunately, the high fees that
the major labels asked Pandora caused the music platform to shut their
doors to the rest of the world, remaining open and free only to the
United States. Being from Europe, I was left out and sad, although I
understood their decision.
Like many people I went looking for
an alternative to Pandora and ended up migrating to Last.fm. It wasn't
great, it was (and still is), in comparison with Pandora, a dumb and
deaf music streaming system that will mix up bands from different
styles now and then and get really confused when two bands have the
same name. On top of that, the site layout was horrible and there's
this social networking side of Last.fm that I just hate. But hey! It
was free. So I settled for it until recently.
Oh, and the audioscrobbler function is extremely overrated.
Locking the rest of the world outside
And that probably brings us to the reason why you're reading this page. Last.fm has decided in April 2009 that there are first grade and second grade users. The first grade users are from the United States, United Kingdom and Germany and will be able to keep using Last.fm for free. All others will have to pay for it. How's that for fairness? The reason behind this decision is the same one that affected Pandora a few years back - the licensing fees.
I'm sorry but I won't pay. I hate the recording industry as much as the next guy but I refuse to pay for internet radio as I never had to pay for regular radio. That's the proof that radios can be fully financed with advertising. So you (Pandora, Last.fm and other alternatives) will just have to find a better business model. My suggestion, develop a model that first and foremost respects the users.
And then there was Grooveshark...
On my search for an alternative to Last.fm I found the one that, in
my opinion, is the best free online radio. In fact, after a careful
comparison, I can honestly say it's even better than Pandora. The
service is called Grooveshark,
and from what I experienced they have as much music on their library as
the others. Grooveshark is the best free music streaming service for
several reasons, but the main one is that you actually get the chance
to choose the songs you want to listen to. Let's say you wake up and
you feel like listening to The Beatles' "Abbey Road"; all you have to
do is search for it, and probably some other user has already created
and shared a playlist containg the songs from that album. It really is
that easy! But if you're feeling adventurous and want to explore new
music, you can also ask Grooveshark to create the playlist
automatically. Just give it the motto - the first song - and from there
it will work on its own. If by any chance Grooveshark brings up a song
you don't like, just let it know and that tune won't bother you again -
and the opposite goes for songs you loved. And if you liked the songs
Grooveshark chose for you, you can save the playlist.
Another
cool feature is that there is a social networking side to it, but it's
not as in your face as Last.fm's. And since Grooveshark's content is
user-sourced, you can even upload mp3 of your own songs and see what
the community thinks of them - all music uploaded by any user is made
available for everyone.
Sound quality is top notch, the music
downloads very fast and the stream never gets choppy. And have I
mentioned the looks? The site layout is perfect, easy to navigate,
sleek and very well organized. Grooveshark is supported by advertising
but they are strategically placed and not at all intrusive. Another
positive point to the Grooveshark team is that no matter what you do on
the site the player will keep playing - you can go looking for other
artists and songs, add to your playlist, manage your personal library
and unlike Last.fm, it won't stop playing! :-)
What you waitin' for?
I hope this review was helpful for those who are looking for a great free internet radio service. If you're a music lover looking for the best site for streaming music, you have to try Grooveshark. You will not regret it. Grooveshark is all about the music - everything else is just noise.
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I had the exact same experience, Pandora first, then last.fm which got really annoying and required fees. Grooveshark is practically perfect- so much flexibility to choose what you want to listen to and no limits on tracks you want to skip. The radio gives a good list of songs to discover!
Dude. Its either Grooveshark or nothing! I tried it, created my own profile, its the best. Cannot think of any other internet radio thats as good as this. If anybody who is an admin of Grooveshark, thanks so much for making it possible. I love pretty much EVERYTHING about Grooveshark. Anybody who hasn't tried it and wants a absolutetly FREE internet radio, Grooveshark is your best choice. Absolutey brilliant.
do u have 2 pay?
http://crackedjobs.blogspot.com/2010/01/stream-fro i hav a blog to how to stream thru mobile.
I would like to invite you to http://www.ShareTheMusic.com.
Users of ShareTheMusic can listen to the music and share their music collections with others – legally and for free.
Radio Tuna is the best online radio search engine: http://radiotuna.com
After Pandora, I too had to look for alternative solutions. Living in France I went for Deezer for a few years (this french website was obviously very popular in its home country). At first it was great, a nice UI and a vast music library.
It's not based on user-uploaded music but rather it took the bet to pay licenses from the start to stream legally. Their first marketing message was: "if we are enough to use Deezer, then it can pay licenses and live forever". But the story turned out differently.
So came all the limitations --which I observe throughout the whole free music streaming offer on the web, one site after another:
- Login required, and usually a fee to use the service on smart devices (as opposed to flash-capable computers). Costs vary so much it tends to hint there's just no established business model yet. For instance Deezer asks a shocking $13/month! Compared that to $3/month for a Grooveshark's VIP membership and tell me what you make of it...
- Commercial (who said irrelevant?) ads inserted between tracks. Dude, *that* is annoying.
- Country restriction (usually IP-based), which I sincerely fail to understand (do they work as intended?) since some albums/artists that are officially distributed in a given country may appear as restricted on websites (while other artists from the same major are available). It seems that more than just licensing, for majors it's about promoting some artists (or later parts of their career) while digging the grave of others/olders. Could those restrictions just be the tip of the marketing iceberg?
- Ultimately those sites all end up as closed, or cost too much, or are simply emptied of half the popular tracks in music history.
Now, login & ads are GOOD things in my opinion. A business model needs to rely on some customer fidelity and sharing (the whole purpose of registering); while ads are mandatory if the service is to be both free (or VERY cheap) and legal. As long as it's non-intrusive, regarding privacy and appreciation of music, it's fine by me.
But this leads me to two questions.
For one, is Grooveshark destined to the same gloomy fate that made us leave all its dead clones? It's true one lost lawsuit can kill such a business. It happened before and will surely happen again.
But thinking further, is a free music streaming service really viable, if advertisement only is to finance it? Radio does it but struggles to keep doing so, the sector is in crisis --much like all traditional, pre-web media. The whole concept (constrains, limitations, possibilities...) of rights and intellectual property has changed so much since the digital revolution that old business models just won't cut it. We have to think anew about all this. Think Fb not Ford.
I believe that music should not be free. But it should cost VERY MUCH LESS THAN IT EVER DID, for two reasons: many more people make music today than ever, thus the offer is so much larger that its value should drop significantly ; secondly it costs 1,000 less to produce music today than it did 50 years ago, so why has the final product price increased so much in the same period?($/minute of music)
The answer is simple: the artificially high value of some media comes from the insane money fed to marketing.
When you consider that, today, a $20 album did cost only $2-$3 to make and a shocking $15 to promote (TV ads etc), I say --I scream!-- sell it at $5 and just DON'T promote it, let the web 2.0 decide what's good and what's not. Honestly, let's get real: we don't need to be told our tastes by marketing campaigns, we can (want to?) decide by ourselves. And it would make music 75% cheaper to sell and to buy, while artists would still earn the same.
Such a dramatic shift in the music industry business model would lower legal streaming offers cost to about $10 per year, maybe less (I'm just guessing here). I would gladly pay that membership. Because in such an industry paradigm, Grooveshark and others could live off advertisement.
You think I'm dreaming? No I'm not, but music majors are indeed, when they believe they can kill music sharing by maintaining artificially high prices --and consequently killer-lawsuits. 6 billion people just won't (and can't) pay the ridiculous value asked for a song.
But for now let's enjoy Grooveshark for as long as it lives. : )
Awesome, thanks! I didn't know about grooveshark and just signed up for them after I read your hub. Great site, I'll use it every day from now on :-) Even have the songs that are not so popular, great selection
This is one of the great finds in streaming music. Having lost all my playlists following the downfall of Deezer, I’m a bit wary. However, after a year of terrific Grooveshark music service I’m just having a blast. I like the site layout, ease of searching, and range of music. And I’m finding so many new sounds, it’s incredible. Yes, I have the same gripes with Pandora, not even close to Grooveshark. In fact, neither are the others (Last FM, Songza, etc). Keep up the good work!!
I absolutely love Grooveshark!! It even has an app, which is super awesome!
Grooveshark, I have seen the light, bit the chum, sunk head o'er heels in love. Praise to the kind souls who have created and bring us the glory of the Grooveshark. Glory be!!
many of stream radios here too http://www.online-radioportal.de
Great stuff you got here..I love it...I am considering it and will be use for the future needs.
Nice hub! Thanks for sharing.
try http://www.jampri.com if you have a Facebook account, its the #1 site today for social playlists with friends
Grooveshark has been a loyal companionship in lonely nights. It has been all good
Grooveshark officially stopped serving Germany due to insanely high licensing fees.
A sports company has made this annoying audio ad that takes over your computer.
I did a search and found out Groove shark says for you to email them (hopefully with a screenshot) of the Ad.
I wish I knew how to take screenshots because I tried to once and the feature didn't work on my Win 7.
Sometime last fall Deezer started blocking me out saying it is not available in my country (USA) where the summer before I was able to use their website.
What the *beep* hell happened?
Half of Groovesharks songs DO NOT work and it's very annoying that you don't know what songs will and won't work which there isn't any pattern to it.
I am liking Grovoeshark less and less but this is part of humanity on it's way to self destruction.
mcacreate 2 years ago
I just discovered that a few weeks ago. I do like the idea of listening to a whole album. But I found one that's just as good. Nutsie. It does not give you actual choices of songs but it does give you a choice of bands. And it brings up almost every album they made and randomly plays everey track from those albums. Then from that you can make playlists, with only the tracks you like. Check it out.