Grooveshark

A few weeks ago, misteravery turned me on to Grooveshark. It's similar to Pandora, in that you can search for music and play it on demand. But I never used Pandora, and Grooveshark came into our lives at just the point in time when I wanted to search for and listen to Christmas music - but not the traditional Bing Crosby Christmas music... I was looking for the remixed loungy stuff, like what you would hear if you were shopping at Williams-Sonoma or Old Navy during Christmas.

So, we began using Grooveshark. Search for songs, build playlists, save. Yes, you need to be online to listen to the songs, and you can't download them nor rip them (can't as in 不可以 rather than 不会) ... but I'm practically always online. And now I get to hear the whole song instead of just 30-second samples from itunes.

So since then, I've put together a playlist of songs that were on the radio back when I was in high school - Counting Crows (Mr. Jones), Ace of Base (All That She Wants), The Proclaimers (500 Miles), Pearl Jam (Daughter). And then, another playlist of songs from Wii Rockband... just so that I can build familiarity.

The interface for Grooveshark could use some work. It looks like it's built on FlexBuilder, and menu transitions run a little slow. On top of that, searches that yield multiple results of the same song get a little bit unwieldy. I just want to build quick playlists without repeats, and then let my music play. I'm looking to see how Grooveshark will improve in the days to come, or to see how long it'll last. In the meantime, it sure is nice to be able to bring back the music - but only the music - of my not-so-fond high school years.