The 1880

Fact: "I've heard of them" adds nothing to conversation.

I love Pandora. Really. Last.fm is great too. The only beef I have with those types of services is that sometimes I just don’t know what I want to listen to. I’d rather just have someone serve me stuff they really like. I’m a sucker for the curative aspects of music sharing. Mixtapes are laborious, and iTunes playlists aren’t as accessible as I would like them to be. There has to be a better answer somewhere on this big Internet. People all over the wold run music blogs, where they offer up what they like in hopes that you will like it too. The Hype Machine is exactly the type of thing I have been looking for. It aggregates music blogs from all over and presents them in a nifty player using what I can only imagine to be some RSS voodoo.

The search functions are great too. Only want to listen to one band? Search and all of their results pop up. Like a particular blog? Every player links to the relative post on the site that accompanies each piece. The “Most Searched” sections put your finger right on the way- cool pulse of the rest of the music world, positioning your tastes precisely three years ahead of the sad blokes that wait until Pitchfork craps onsomeone’s album before claiming “I heard it wasn’t that great.” Alternately, sometimes people just post old stuff they have just found or feel in the mood to listen to, which oddly enough can be the most refreshing aspect of the whole thing

Hype Machine is a great little Internet tool that just contributes even more to the whole Internet roolz radio droolz ethos. Cept for , WERS and WFMU, ‘acourse.

PS: MGMT is pretty good. Thanks, HypeM