The proliferation of mp3 blogs online has made it relatively easy to get fresh new music on to your ipod. If you are sitting there stagnating with 3 year old songs on itunes and want to update your image, this may be a good place to begin.
For a start, you need either iTunes (windows and mac), Peel (mac only), or an rss feed reader like google reader (all you need is a browser). Basically any application that can handle rss feeds, cause that is your mechanism for downloading. Next step, find an mp3 blog, subscribe to it’s rss feed and start downloading the music. Simple! 🙂
In iTunes, subscribing to an mp3 blog is as simple as following these instructions at learninginhand.com. Not every mp3 blog supports the itunes rss format however, so for those you’ll have to use the rss reader and download manually (i.e. right click and choose save link). For the manually downloaded ones you’ll have to add them to itunes yourself.
I use Peel for my mp3 blogs which is a Mac only application which allows me to automatically download songs from some blogs, while with some other hit and miss blogs I can stream it and download only the songs I like.
So what are some of my favourite mp3 blogs?
Fluxblog
One of the oldest mp3 blogs, it specialises in indie pop, but Matthew is not afraid to drop in some rap or obscure asian band if he likes it. He introduced me to Robyn (Konichiwa Bitches), Bertine Zetlist and The Russian Futurists. Don’t know who they are? – you will when you subscribe. 😉
Good for happy pop lovers that don’t like formulaic mainstream music.
Stereogum
Doesn’t have as high a success rate as fluxblog in my itunes ratings, but still one of my favourite. This is for the introverts. Lots of sad guitar music, angry music and folk. Examples are Bloc Party, Cat Power, Artic Monkeys and Fleet Foxes. Also now has a music video section.
Think Triple J.
Discodust
A recent addition to my auto subscribe list, it’s getting a good star rating hit rate. This ones for the dancers since it has a lot of remixes. They are pumping through the mp3s, you’ll never be short of music once you subscribe to them. Examples of artists that have gotten the remix treatment are Weezer, Katy Perry, CSS and Santogold.
Think Nova.
Who The Bloody Hell Are They?
Aussie focused mp3 blog which isn’t very good at tagging it’s mp3s, however it’s important to know what’s going on in your own backyard. Haven’t had my mind blown here yet, but I’m giving it a chance.
Think indie aussie.
Other suggestions:
- Music for Robots
- Aquarium Drunkard
- Said the Gramaphone
- The World Forgot
- Anything on the right hand side links on the fluxblog site
- A round up of mp3 blogs is on metafilter
If you want to look at some music aggregator sites that don’t offer downloads, but tells you what music is hot on the mp3 blogs, you can visit these sites:
Another method if you want to listen to new music at your computer is to go to some of the streaming music sites. These are sites that aren’t designed for you to download the music, but to introduce you to other artists so that you can either buy it online or get the cd.
- Blip.fm – overtime it learns your taste and plays songs it thinks you might like. You can also be a dj and suggest songs to other people. Integrates with twitter. My profile is here just hit play at the bottom
- Last.fm – Socially networking site that also links with itunes so it will update whenever you play a song. Great way to find likeminded music lovers
- Hype Machine – Just click on the popup player link and you’ll get the most popular songs of the moment
- Myspace Music – It’s a little bit lame since you need to know who the artist is first, but it’s a resource
So now that I’ve told you all my music secrets, don’t blame me if you run out of hard disk space. 🙂
Good music is that. I wonder if i can play that on my guitar 🙂