Internet Music

Lately I have been listening to a lot of music on the Internet. It makes me wonder how much longer traditional radio stations will be around. While I doubt they will all disappear completely, I do believe we will see a number of them cease to exist. After all, how many "Top 40" radio stations do we need in one broadcast area?

I started going to the Internet for music because I was tired of listening to the same songs over and over on the radio. The first place I went went was Pandora which is like an Internet radio station. You can listen for a number of hours each month for free as long as you are willing to also listen to advertisements. One nice thing about Pandora is that you can specify what types of music you hear. If you don't like a song, simply click on the thumbs-down icon and you will never hear it again.

Pandora is great when you want to hear different music than you might already have on your iPod or in your MP3 collection. Many regular broadcast radio stations also have an Internet presence and allow you to listen to their content even though you are half-way around the world. However, what about those times when you want to hear a specific song? For that, my preference is YouTube. If you bring up another browser tab, you don't even have to watch the music video (some of which are really awful).

YouTube has been a lot of fun lately. There were some songs that I remember hearing on the radio when I was a young kid and I have been able to listen to them again. I was really young when the Bay City Rollers released "Saturday Night" but I remember that it was very popular. I also remember C. W. McCall's "Convoy." I can't help but laugh when I go back to listen to some of those old songs. Some are still good while I can't understand what I found appealing in others. However, it is fun to take a walk down memory lane every once and a while.