Let’s face it, the radio stations and the music video networks have pretty much all gone to hell. Most of us don’t have the time to sift through the smoldering ashes for quality music anymore, so we often have to take it from wherever we can get it. If relying on movie soundtracks, nightclub DJ’s and the sporadic opportunity to rape a new friend’s iTunes isn’t enough for you, here are a few decent, uncorrupted sources of new music to help you out.

Hype Machine
Easily my favorite of the bunch, Hype Machine is an aggregator that tracks blog music uploads. What this means for you is that there is a constant feed of which songs and artists are most talked about right now at all the best-liked music blogs on the net. There’s no evil record company sticking its grubby hands into this gloriously democractic process, this is simply music that people like. All songs can be heard through the built-in music player, and links to the original posts almost unfailingly offer easy MP3 downloads, often carrying the added bonus of showing you an interesting new blog to keep track of.
http://www.hypem.com/

iHearditOn.com
Not to it’s discredit, iHearditOn is the least democratic of the group. It’s essentially a blog run by four guys with great taste who work or have worked in the music industry. They scour the net looking for the best music and post a daily feed to this website for our listening pleasure. This site is a favorite of my DJ friend, and in the brief time I’ve been aware of it I’ve found an inordinate amount of tracks that I actually like and still listen to. Their tastes are broad and well-defined, you’re bound to find something you like on there.
http://ihearditon.com/

Last.fm
While UK-based music website Last.fm is the most well-established of the bunch, it’s also the one I’m least familiar with, but I have friends who love it. This service tracks the popularity and palatability of individual songs by recording its members interactions with them, how often they are played, recommended, tagged and even mentioned in its built-in community. It then recommends new songs for logged-on members based on their personal tastes, picking well-liked songs from other users with similar music preferences. Last.fm doesn’t have quite as wide a music selections as others on this list but it is certainly the most attentive and customized to your music needs.
http://www.last.fm/

Pandora Internet Radio
The Music Genome Project gave birth to Pandora Internet Radio almost a decade ago and it’s been giving audiophiles orgasms ever since, but only recently has it begun to spring into mainstream popularity. The simple interface allows you to enter in a song, artist or group of songs and artists and have it automatically compile and play a list of songs that are similar to the music you submitted. It works this out using a complex algorithm that looks at hundreds of fundamental attributes of the music (tonality, rhythm, instruments, etc) and knows more about the music you like than you ever will. It doesn’t care what’s popular or in-style, it just gives you more of what you want, so it’s a great way to find dope songs that no one’s ever heard of.
http://www.pandora.com/

thesixtyone
Thesixtyone is a music service with the sole purpose of giving its users fresh new music. It’s built with musical democracy in mind and flaunts this fact with confidence. Artists can add their own music to the database and listeners collectively decide if it’s good by clicking a simple heart button. Those tracks that are hearted the most make it to the front page and play on the site’s built-in media player. There’s no middle man, no marketing plan.
http://www.thesixtyone.com/

Comment with your own favorites and I’ll be sure to add any good ones to the list.

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