Great Site For Music Lovers

I can’t help but write a little something about my favorite new website.  I’m listening to a playlist right now that includes Johnny Cash, Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, Hobart Smith, and Tom Paxton.  I’m sure the first two names ring a bell with some of you, but after that you may be saying “huh?”.  The last names are ones I’d never heard of until my brother told me about this site.  All you do is put in a band you like, so if you’re a Johnny Cash fan, type his name in the search box.  What this site does is starts you off with a song by Johnny Cash, then plays various other musicians with qualities very similar to him.  The site is called pandora and they call this process “the music genome project”, and it really is cool.  You basically make your own radio station with stuff that you would like.  If a song pops up that doesn’t tickle your fancy, you can go ahead and skip it.  I’ve found that I rarely have to do that.  I’m a self proclaimed music nut, going from 1930’s folk, to eastern Europe traditional stuff, to alternative country, to good old fashioned rock and roll, and most everything in between.  This site has really given me a way to find new stuff that I never would have known existed.  We all don’t have the time or money to try listening to a bunch of new unknown stuff all the time, and this site gives us a way to expand our musical view for free.  I go Ron Popeil on this thing and just “set it and forget it”.  Everything is generally easy to listen to and occasionally something really catches my ear.  I jot down who it is and what song it was, and if one artist turns up on my list several times, I may take the plunge and buy me a new CD.  Check it out!  There’s so much more music out there than we realize, and so much of what we haven’t heard is better than the stuff we hear everyday.  Good luck, and let me know how it works out for you!

Nick Mikulas