I Love to Listen to Online Music...

Given the number of songs I like to play every day, and not having enough space to store all the CDs it would take to be able to play them at will, I find I love to listen to online music since I have access to all the classic music and new release songs I crave without having to find a place to store it all. (Since we also collect books, something had to give, don't you know...! And music is DEFINITELY a lot easier to manage on a computer than books are, at least I think so!!)

Depending on the service, I can either let them pick the tunes (based on genres, decades, or artists) or I can make up my own playlists to suit my whims and whimsies for that day. Plus, quite a few services let you 'try before you buy' - you can listen to the songs as many times as you want as part of the monthly fee, but if you find one you want to be able to 'take with you' (i.e. download to your iPod or burn an MP3/CD copy), they'll let you do that, too, either as part of your monthly fee or for a one-time small charge. That's such a nice change from having to buy a whole album when you really only liked 2-3 songs out of 10 or 12. (I can't count how many old LPs/CDs I ended up with just so I could get the few tunes I really wanted. )

A few of the (legal) music services I really like for listening to online music are:

YAHOO:
If you have Yahoo Messenger or just want to listen using your browser, you can use the Yahoo! Music LaunchCast Radio for free as long as you don't mind listening to commercials every 10 songs or so. They offer such genres as Big Hits of the 80's, Pop, Urban, Rock, Dance/Electronica, and many, many more, plus let you skip tunes, unlike the real radio. However, you can't download/keep any of the music and the stations tend to have only a small sampling of each genre so you end up hearing the same songs frequently. They have a basic upgrade that runs $3.95/month, but it pretty much just gives you the songs commercial free - no downloads.

If you want to be able to also burn your own music CDs, then try out the Yahoo! Music Unlimited Free Trial. They have 14-day free trial so you can 'try before you buy', and then it's as low as $5.99/month to listen all you want, with downloads/burns running only $.99/each. With over 2 million tunes available including new release songs, you're bound to find ones you can't live without...

RHAPSODY:
This is another online music service I like. They're more expensive per month ($12.99/month), and they have over 2 million tunes, including hot new songs, but their interface is a bit friendlier than Yahoo's and their download price is a little lower plus they let you also manage your iTunes songs along with your Rhapsody playlists. So if you burn more music than just use the service as a 'radio', this might end up costing you less overall.




MP3 ROCKET:
This is a file-sharing service boasting of over 12 million songs available. Their basic service is free, but they do have a 'premium' service that has a one-time fee for the upgrade. Based on the Gnutella standard, these guys allow you to download to MP3, iPod and CD. This product has received 5-star ratings on C-Net and many other download sites. Try it free at MP3Rocket.