Listening To Music Online

     I don't remember what age I was, but I remember very clearly my father introducing me to the record player and showing me how to use it. I was a quick learner. For many of us, other than radio, this is how we listened to music.(and sometimes, how I still listen to music.) the closest thing to a playlist we had is stacking 6 45s on that arm. One record would play, the next one wold drop and it would play that. What's a 45? It's a 7 inch disk with two songs on it, one on each side. It had a big hole in the middle, sort of like a donut. For more information, see your mom or dad. Then cassette tapes were introduced and we borrowed our friend's albums and recorded them. Then CDs came out. No more scratches! This is one way we listen to music today.

There is another way. Online.There are various music sites where you can listen to entire songs. For free. Instead of the money coming out of your pocket, it comes out of the pocket of advertisers. I'm going to tell you about three of them. Which one is my favorite? All three. Each one has its own features and issues.

Project Playlist

This is a "music serch engine." instead of bringing up web sites, it brings up music tracks you can listen to. If you are not sure ofr the title, you can put in the artist and it will bring up every song by that artist. Or you can put in one word of the title and one word of the artist. Sometimes, even putting in the title and artist will bring up a few versions. Like "dream on" by aerosmith. Not only does it bring up Aerosmith's version, it also brings up a version by Ronnie James Dio. Why? because the title says "dream on (Aerosmith)

     As thge song suggests, you can make playlists. To the left of the title there are two icons. An arrow and a + sign. hit the arrow, it plays the song. Hit the + it adds it to the playlist which always appears on the right of the screen.

It has a volume control on it. It starts off half way and you can turn it up or down, which is fine when listening to a playlist. But when bring up individual songs, when you it always resets it to halfway.  You can  frast forward or rewind a song. On the playlist there is an orange thingy (that's the only thing I can think of calling it.) Drag it forward or backward.

Nutsie

     Nutsie plays music continuously. You can pick an  artist and it plays all the songs by that artist in it's library. You can make playlists so you can hear only the songs you want to hear. There are also pre-selected playlists and there is a very wide selection. Hit "top 100 radio" and you can play top one hundred songs from any year, from 1948 to 2009. It has top 100 love songs, top 100 break-up songs, hip hop/rap. It even has a top 100 romantic songs by e-hamony.

   Making the playlist is very quick and easy, using the "grab" feature. There are two ways to use this. You can hit it while you listening to the song. Or even better yet, when you bring up an artist, a list appears with all the songs appear. You can check each song that you want like you do when choosing e-mail messages you want to delete. Hit "grab selected songs and you got your self a playlist!

     Song selection depends on the artist. Nutsie has the largest selection of songs by the Monkees.(Hey, don't laugh. I grew up during that time. They have alot of good music.) But for Rick Wakeman, you want grooveshark.

     Nutsie does not have a volume conrol and you cannot rewind a song. No orange thingy. What you can do is hit the forward arrow and it will stop playing the song and go to the next song. But to hit more than 4 or five songs in a row, you have to sign up which is easy.

Grooveshark

     Grooveshark is simular to Nutsie. Put in an artist, it will bring up every song in the library. On  both Nutsie and grooveshark, when you put in an artist in the search box, it brings up the artist, the song and the album it's from. The difference between the two is, on Grooveshark, you are clicking on the song, the artist and the album at the same time. So if you search for "the Animals" it brings up all trhe songs by the Animals. It also brings up every song that has animals in the title and any album that has animal in the title. With Nutsie, you can click one of those, so it narrows it down.

On grooveshark, there is one band you cannot listen to. The Beatles. When you put in beatles, it brings up alot of beatles songs - all cover versions.

     But Groovehark has a feature Nutsie does not have. The "play now" and "play next" button. On Grooveshark, you can bring up individual songs and play them. While one song is playing, you can search for another song and hit play next. When the current song is done, it will play the next selection. Your selections will appear at the bottom of the screen. It's like stacking those records and letting them drop that I told you about earlier.

     If you are a music lover like me, you'll probably want to visit all three of these sites. And I'm not saying these are the music sites. Maybe you know one that you use. I just told you about three of them.