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Looking for some good streaming music? I’ve recently discovered Pandora, where I can enter a few artists or song and create a “station” that will play a set of songs similar to the ones I’ve entered. I’ve been impressed. I’ve heard a lot of good music, some from artists I’ve never heard of, and they  do a remarkable job of determining what is “similar”. And, it’s free (like I’d pay!).

From Pandora.com:

On January 6, 2000 a group of musicians and music-loving technologists came together with the idea of creating the most comprehensive analysis of music ever.

Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or “genes” into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It’s not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it’s about what each individual song sounds like.

Since we started back in 2000, we’ve carefully listened to the songs of tens of thousands of different artists - ranging from popular to obscure - and analyzed the musical qualities of each song one attribute at a time. This work continues each and every day as we endeavor to include all the great new stuff coming out of studios, clubs and garages around the world.

I’ve discovered a radio show on KCRW since moving here that plays some really great music, and regularly has bands in to do a live set. Sometimes it is people I’ve heard of, sometimes something completely new, but usually good. It is called Morning Becomes Eclectic, hosted by Nic Harcourt. They have broadcasts available on the website, or a few of the live shows are available as podcasts on iTunes. I’m currently enjoying some West Indian Girl because they were on the show recently. It is so nice to have radio that isn’t completely commercial junk.

It is not exactly reliable, but at least one poll puts the average price paid for In Rainbows downloads at 4 pounds, with a third of users not paying anything. This is, according to here and here, from a poll of 3000+ people conducted by Record of the Week newsletter. Of course, this is self-reported data, as anonymous as it may be :). But none the less, that’s pretty high. Paying $8 when it could have been free…I’m surprised. I suspect none of the members of the band are hurting for cash given their past sucess, but it’s a cool thing to do and I’m glad it seems to have proved successful. They’ve probably reached a wider audience, ditched the record companies, and still made good money on the album.

Radiohead released a new album, “In Rainbows” yesterday. At the moment it is only available for download from their website. Which, by the way, is…different. Not a lot of info. Very funky colors. When you try to buy your download, there is a blank textbox where the price should be. When you click the question mark next to it, it says “It’s up to you”. You decide how much to pay for the album. The only catch is the 0.45 GBP (about $1) processing fee. But, I think you can get the album for anywhere from $1 to $200. I’d be very interested in seeing what people choose to pay.

Oh…and I’m liking the album too. Go get it. And give them at least a couple quid :).