Music

Since Spotify I've slightly neglected my Last.fm radio favouring playlisted music over radio style chosen tracks, but I may start using the Last.fm radio again since they've introduced the new 'Mix Radio' station. It's a great way to discover new music without being overwhelmed by too many unfamiliar tracks.

What is 'Mix Radio'?

Mix Radio combines:

• New recommendations (similar to the 'Recommendations' station)
• Tracks by artists in your library that you haven't scrobbled before and
• Tracks in your library that you already know.

Last.fm is great for listening to music when you don't know what you want to listen to or you want to hear something you haven't heard before but you might like. The new 'Mix Radio' station does the job nicely, and if you hear something you really don't like just skip it or, if Last.fm completely misjudged your taste, ban it and Last.fm will learn what you don't like. Last.fm is great for all music fans so if you haven't used it before I'd definitely recommend giving it a try – it's free and can be accessed from the website, through the free downloadable player, through Android and iPhone mobiles and even through many new DAB/Wi-Fi radios.

For more information on the new 'Mix Radio' station from the official Last.fm blog, visit:
http://blog.last.fm/2010/10/29/mix-radio-a-new-radio-station

Very smart demo of the up and coming Spotify client for Google Android. Also featuring offline sync. Check it out!

Spotify is an online music service which allows you, much like Last.fm, to stream music to your computer via a downloadable app.

You can play individual tracks or build, share and collaborate on playlists. The free version allows you to listen to unlimited music with the occasional ad. They come up about once every 4 or 5 tracks so it's not too intrusive. You can also buy a day pass for 99p which gives you an ad free service for the day or sign up for a premium account and get unlimited ad free listening for £9.99 a month.

So far I'm very impressed with the service. It has almost everything I want to listen to and the best bit for me is that you can build custom playlists and share them with people or collaborate and build them together.