The Best Music Discovery Sites

The List

Pandora Radio

Pandora is a well-designed site with a wide range of music. Throw an artist or song into it, and it will immediately begin to play similar songs. You can let Pandora know whether you like a song or not, and it will cut it off and never play it again if you don't. In this way you can customize your own stations to share with the community.

Last.fm

Last.fm is a downloadable radio application that also plays songs based on your input. But its main draw is its ability to play music based on your music application's history, whether it be iTunes, Winamp, etc. Last.fm also has a wide community on its site that is much more fleshed out than Pandora or Musicovery's.

allmusic

Allmusic is not a radio, and can only play sound bites. It does, however, have a much broader knowledge of music than the radio sites, with large recommendations lists. Strangely it's lacking in the community department, but it's invaluable for finding new music.

Grooveshark

My fave. This site isn't as clean as Pandora, but it comes with the huge bonus of letting you listen to and replay any song you want, anytime. Their database is very large and their recommendations are unique.

Musicovery

This one is really cool. Select the genres you want, and then pick a point between Energetic, Dark, Positive and Calm. Musicovery will generate a colorful map of bubbles, each with its own song, and play them as it bounces around. It's a little haphazard but very interesting.

Mflow

Thanks to Robbie for this recommendation. He writes, "mflow lets your friends recommend music to you and lets music go social- it's like itunes and twitter in one!
They also have weekly offers and free downloads, it's great!
Definitely try mflow out, you constantly find out about new bands, songs, remixes, etc, brilliant."

iLike

With iLike, you upload your music libraries and connect with like-minded users to find new tunes. You can also download new music from aspiring artists. It's a well-designed site.

uPlayMe

This is another site that makes recommendations based on the music you've played on your computer. It's very focused on meeting similar users and connecting with them. uPlayMe allows you to post music to your blog and even let readers play samples.

FoxyTunes

Listen to music on FoxyTunes and it will make you recommendations in real-time. Search for an artist and you'll find a thorough profile with music, video, and info widgets, which are customizable.

iRate

iRate is a simple site that offers a downloadable radio. The radio plays tracks and based on your rating and those of past users, plays songs it thinks you'll like. It may not be as far-reaching as the more popular applications.

LivePlasma

Really frickin' cool.

LivePlasma has an simple, colorful layout that is reminiscent of Musicovery's. It won't play music for you, but enter an artist and it will create a pretty map of bubbles with other artists you may like. It is kind of annoying to navigate though.

It also recommends movies.

Live365

Live365 lets you search radio stations that play music you like. It covers thousands of stations but won't be near as exact as sites specifically for recommendations.

LAUNCHcast

I know, I know, it's Yahoo. But this radio's not so bad a design and can make you good recommendations and play them. The community is of course huge.

MOG

I'll let them do the talking this time.

"Listen...to millions of full-length songs, for free.

Share...your music library, playlists, and opinions on music.

Discover...music recommended by users who share your musical tastes."

Their design is kind of a mess, but it definitely has an active community.

MyStrands

A very community-focused site that makes social recommendations. Download their player and upload your music history to start getting recommendations. MyStrands is somewhat complicated (or maybe just a little badly designed), but it has a lot of options.

musicmesh

Type in an artist and receive a map of lines and albums. Click on one of the rotating albums and musicmesh will combine that and the original entry to make new recommendations.

EpiTUNES

EpiTUNES covers many bases (radio, search, etc.) to help you find new artists. It also keeps up a concert watch and focuses on community.

Haystack

Haystack lets you find music by searching playlists, and lets you make playlists of your own. You can listen to new music with ease, although it may not be so close to your original search.

Social Suggester

I won't lie, this site won't win any design awards anytime soon, but their recommendations are spot-on. Enter an artist and receive dozens of recommendations in return. Social Suggester also recommends movies, TV, books, and even interests.

musicmap

Another search-and-see bubbles site. It's not so well-done; it tends to give you several albums by the same artist each time, and sometimes this means you only get one artist recommendation at a time.

Seeqpod

Search and discover! Uncomplicated.

Slacker

A customizable radio; especially good if you want to please the rocker in you.

Gnoosic

Gnoosic is the simplest design you'll find, but gosh it works. It recommends music, books, and movies.

Songkick

This is the only site I know of like this. It tracks concerts across the US and UK and not only lets you know when and where your favorite artists are playing, but will even recommend you concerts based on it.

Tastekid

This site recommends music, books, or movies based on the titles you type it. It also allows for members (free) to get more personalized recommendations based on their past ratings. It often gives YouTube examples of artists. Its recommendations are generally really good.

My Bands Music

Listen to independent artists. A little cleaner design than Garage Band.

GarageBand

Now we're getting into independent artists. This site lets you listen to lesser-known musics, as do the remaining sites.

Opsound

Download, remix, and share music from independent artists.

Beatmaka

Underground music site.