When you need a song or two to ease you along the work day, just tune in to a music streaming website – an online music library to load and play songs from, via your web browser. We suss out four.
Editor’s Rave: GROOVESHARK
HOW IT WORKS It gives predictive suggestions as you type in your search keywords, be it a song title, artiste or movie soundtrack. You can then create a playlist of your own. The site also links you to other websites to buy tunes legitimately.
WHAT I LIKED It found exactly what I was looking for, every time. I searched for songs I liked, added them to a playlist, then clicked “Play All” – easy! Playback was without a hitch, too.
WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE It didn’t introduce new songs and artistes, based on my previous searches.
VERDICT 8. The easiest site to navigate, with the smoothest playback. Best for users who know what songs they’re looking for.
HOW IT WORKS The site recommends playlists according to your mood. For example, type in “rainy day” and you get playlists of slow and jazzy songs, all created by other users. Search for Mariah Carey and you get more than 50 playlists containing her songs.
WHAT I LIKED The concept is interesting and made it easy for me to discover new music, as well as indie musicians.
WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE The search results were preset playlists containing the song I was looking for, instead of the specific song alone. I could not see the song titles in the playlist, only the duration and how many tracks it contained. Nor could I customise a list unless I uploaded songs from my computer.
VERDICT 5.5. Visit only if you don’t have specific songs you want to listen to – useful if you need random music to block out office chatter.
HOW IT WORKS This is an online library of music videos found on Youtube. You can add your favourite songs to a playlist, minimise the browser window, and let the music play in the background while you work.
WHAT I LIKED It’s most useful if you don’t know a song title – it was the only one where I could search for a song using the lyrics. It was a breeze creating, saving and playing back my playlist.
WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE The search results are dependent on videos found on Youtube, so I had to filter through a lot of live performance videos and cover versions.
VERDICT 6. There is a huge variety of songs available since it’s linked to Youtube, but you may not get the original, studio-recorded versions.
HOW IT WORKS Besides streaming songs you search for, this website recommends other artistes and music you may like. You can enter up to three names and the website will create a “radio” for you, comprising songs by similar artistes.
WHAT I LIKED It was easy to locate specific songs via the search engine. The “radio” feature was also a great way to discover new music. The website also gave a brief introduction to each artiste or band’s music and linked me to sites where I could purchase their songs.
WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE I was able to bookmark songs and build a playlist, but I couldn’t find a way to play it continuously – I had to click on songs one at a time to play them.
VERDICT 7. Nice extras, like artist info and an intuitive playlist generator, but the playlist function didn’t work so well.
This article was originally published in Simply Her December 2012.
All product information was correct at the time of the magazine’s publication. We advise readers to check with the site for the latest information.
