Yet Another Cool Music Website

It seems like every other day I'm hearing about a cool new web 2.0 music website that's launching. There's been a ton of them lately - Reverb Nation, Amie Street, Imeem, and on and on. The latest one that's come to my attention is Seeqpod.

One of the best features that most of these sites offer is the ability to create a personalized "Playlist". What does that mean? Well, if you want to listen to songs from different artists on the internet, you typically have to bounce between blogs, artist websites, and artist MySpace pages, and listen to songs individually. What several of these new web 2.0 sites allow you to do is easily search their directories, find MP3s, and add songs from various artists to a playlist that you can listen to straight through, without jumping from page to page. You're essentially programming your own radio station which plays in the background as you go about your day.

Seeqpod, which I discovered today, essentially marries this playlist idea with an MP3 aggregator (think Elbows and Hype Machine.) It allows you to quickly search tons of blogs, artist websites, label websites and more, find MP3s, and add them to a playlist you can listen to. For example, the playlist I'm currently listening to looks like this:

Grizzly Bear, "Lullabye"
Magic Numbers, KEXP session
The Whigs, "Violet Furs"
Guided by Voices, "Smothered in Hugs"
Kristoffer Ragnstam, "Fashion"
Damien Rice, "9 Crimes"
Darker My Love, "Summer is Here"

It took me about 3 minutes to put this playlist together. It was just a matter of a couple quick, easy searches for artists I was in the mood to hear, and the click of a button. Good stuff.

Hype Machine has a tool like this, but I find it a little clunky, and I don't think their directory of websites is quite as extensive. (I could be wrong, but I think Hype Machine only looks at blogs to find MP3s.) Seeqpod looks at label websites, artist sites, and more. The only thing that Hype Machine has over Seeqpod, at least right now, is the ability to drop your playlist onto your website as a widget, allowing you to share your playlist with other people. Another great idea.

Anyway, do yourself a favor and check out some of the sites listed above. All of them offer interesting new ways of finding and listening to new music.