5 Internet Radio services outside the US

To be honest I'm not much of a music junkie. If I feel like listening to something, well, I don't really have a collection of 50,000 songs that can just "turn on". Instead, I depend on online radio stations to feed me with the latest music there is. Of course, it's even better when I can choose the type of music that I want to listen to, instead of just listening to whatever my local radio station is playing.

So, without further ado, here's a list of radio websites that I've started liking. Please feel free to share you own. Also, you may probably notice that there's no mention of Pandora here, because Pandora (and Spotify for that matter) doesn't quite work outside the US yet.

Jango

A cool radio station that allows you to choose the artist that you'd like to listen to, and suggests similar songs from quite a large list of popular songs. What I also like about Jango is their app for Android (and iPhone, Blackberry as well) because, unlike the next service I've mentioned (Grooveshark), they seem to be giving it away for free. And, you don't even nee to sign up! What puzzles me is that these people don't even have ads on their radio station (yet, but seems like they're working on it, judging by their advertising page). One thing that does bug me though is that the website will constantly nag you if you don't sign up for a Jango account if you're listening to music online. This sort of makes skipping a song a bit harder. But I suppose it does make sense to sign up though, because that's how the service keeps track of what songs you like and what songs you don't. Another great thing about Jango is it's ability to choose between a wide variety of songs, vs sticking to one artist only - which is a nice touch, although I really don't mind either setting.

Grooveshark

I must admit that Grooveshark does look quite a bit fancier than Jango (and doesn't nag you to sign up as much), and it great if you're only listening to stuff on your computer. It has the features that are similar to Jango, but it doesn't really allow you to chose your "variety" settings. Nevertheless, it also seems to have a huge repertoire of songs that you can listen to. One thing about Grooveshark is that their smartphone service is not free, so if you plan to create your play lists on Grooveshark, you will have to pay a small fee to listen to it on your phone.

Live365
Feels like the usual internet radio station where you choose a Genre to listen to, and tune into a channel. It does have quite a few ads here and there though. Also seems like they make you sign up for an account...

Shoutcast
Comes with WinAmp too, so if you happen to have it on your computer then simply open it up and browse to your desired radio channel.

iTunes
Simply switch to the Radio tab on the left hand sidebar to check out a wide selection of radio channels. This is great if you don't want to open a bunch of websites and just need to listen to some music. I usually don't like installing iTunes on Windows computers due to its tardiness, however, it is definitely my choice of music player on OS X.

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5 ways to download free MP3 music from the Internet - Legally!

Ever wanted to be able to just go on the Internet and download the new song everyone was talking about? Sure, your friends will probably tell you to go get limewire or start using bittorrent (both these ways are highly illegal if copyrighted material is being passed on), but taking that route will only result in your computer getting infected with viruses and spyware. Here are 5 ways you can get free music and guess what - they are totally legal!

To be honest, there aren't a lot of ways you can really get free (DRM free as well) music on the Internet. However, here are a couple of websites that offer free music downloads, so if you have a mp3 player that is just waiting to be filled with songs (that weren't downloaded illegally), this is the best place to start.

1 million Free and Legal Music Tracks - Tracks created by independent artists can now be downloaded from their websites. The Red Ferret Journal provides a comprehensive page that features the websites of such artists from where their music can be downloaded. Bear in mind though that these artists aren't prominent artists, so you probably won't find Akon or U2 tunes on there.

SpiralFrog.com - A website where you can download a lot of the latest music content, completely free. It will be in the WMA format wrapped with DRM restrictions though, so you will have to convert it to .mp3 or AAC (the act of removing DRM is illegal though) before you transfer those songs to a portable music player such as an iPod. The catch is that when you go to their website, you'll be bombarded by loads of advertisements so that they can pay the artist's royalties. Although their business model is a bit sketchy, it is legal and totally free.

The good thing about this website is you get to download all the latest hits and music all for free. The only downside of downloading music from this website is that it is DRM protected. So you'll have to figure out how to get rid of DRM (which is illegal of course) in order to use it freely. You also need to sign up in order to use spiral frog's service.

Download.com Free MP3 music downloads - Another website where you can get free music, One thing you need to keep in mind is that the music they offer isn't necessarily popular. It's very unlikely that you'll probably find the latest Gwen Stefani song on here and the same goes for other popular artists. But if you are open to new kinds of music then why not give this website a try! If you are into other stuff like instrumental music, it's quite a great website.

Freeplaymusic.com - This is a great website for getting mostly instrumental songs. It's also a great site if you are looking for intro/outro music for your podcast. According to their site, all music is for personal use only, but I'm sure they'll let you use it in a podcast if you put in a plug for them.

Ruckus.com - A great way for students to download free music from up and coming artists. You'll need a .edu address from universities that have an agreement with Ruckus, and you can find a list of universities signed up on their articles page.

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