Rdio

I am on the look out for new music and I want to hear it before I buy it. At this point of time I have iTunes and Pandora. I like them both, but they both have their weaknesses. iTunes is great way to store music you already own, but it’s not very good at finding new music. The iTunes Genius has never worked very well for me and listening to even 90 seconds of music is not very helpful. Pandora is a little better at discovery, but you have little control over the music it plays once you have entered initial song.

So I was looking for something that would let me discover new music, and allow me to listen to it both on my Mac, and my iPhone. I was looking for a good subscription service. I had heard some good things about Rdio so I decided to try it. When I first opened up Rdio on the web I was initial disappointed, I wasn’t sure what to do, they do have a grid of albums wich are in heavy rotation, which is nice but not what I was really looking for.

Then I saw the search bar at the top and I entered the name Velvet Underground A page came up with a list of their albums and popular songs. On the right hand column are a list of band members. Below that are artist that are similar to them, those they influenced and who influenced them. On the mobile app once you choose an artist their page will pop up. It will have a list of that artist albums and most popular songs. If you play the artist radio station it will play that artist and those that are similar. You can also look at the playlist of other users who like the same artist. Next to a song there is a plus sign if you click on it you can add the song to your collection, sync to your mobile device, add to a playlist, or remove from playlist. Once you start playing a few songs if you go to the home screen and hit Recommend, Rdio will offer recommendations based on what you have played. You can also have Rdio scan your iTunes library and it will bring all songs they have licenses to into your Collection folder.

I do like Rdio so far, I am finding a lot of new music and rediscovering music I had forgotten about. I have 3 more days before I will have to pay the $9.99 subscription fee. I do wish they had a how to use video when you first sign up for the initial trial period. If you use Rdio have you run into any problems. If you use some thing else what is it and why.