Free Sensory Stimulators!

I can remember back in the day when I not only knew the name of the song and what album it was on, but for certain fave groups (Motley Crue and the like), I even knew the birth dates of the band members! Well, at least the hot ones. I can't say that my level of interest in music has wained, but my time certainly has. Here are three websites that I use to get my new music / films / reads whenever I can.


Tune Glue music map is a one way for you to discover new music. It works almost like 6 degrees of separation in that you type in an artist you like, click expand and it selects similar artists. You can keep expanding on any artist it selects and even see what albums they've released. There is also a delete feature so you can really create quite the "tree" of artists.


Pandora Radio from the Music Genome Project is basically a radio station where you choose the music it plays. To use Pandora it does require that you sign in but no worries, I've been using it for at least 6 months and have yet to receive any emails or spam. To create a new station, just type in an artist you like and Pandora does the rest by playing songs by the selected artist, as well as other similar artists that it finds in its extensive database. While the artist is playing, you can give it a thumb up or down. Thumb up means you like it (duh) and thumb down means you'd like to move on. Because Pandora is free, you can only skip so many songs but if you do give it a thumb down, it won't play it again. Personally, I just let it play and don't even bother with the thumbs unless I really dislike something.


I discovered both of the wonderful sites through Very Short List. VSL is a free daily email that I subscribe to in order to feed my eyes and ears new pleasures that I may not find elsewhere. In their words: Each weekday, we tell our subscribers about a single recommended gem from among the vast pile of feature films and documentaries (in theatres and on DVD), television shows, novels, nonfiction books, magazine articles, Websites and services, CDs, radio programs, and more. The focus is on products that really deserve attention but haven’t already been subject to giant media pile-ons.

Enjoy!