Just a quick break from the salt mines (making my way through a large collection of CDs, with an interesting jazz collection in the wings) to strongly suggest that you check out the new features of MOG.
MOG has been around for a while in the music blogging/socializing sphere and they have just launched a streaming music service. (US only for the moment, others soon come)
This link is to the overview page and the guided tour. Free trial now going on (it lasts one hour) and after that the pricing is $5.00 a month or 6 months for $25.00 You can stream unlimited songs per month. You can add them to playlists and save them in a number of useful ways. A particularly interesting feature is the “Artist Radio” and the associated “slider”. Start with an artist and load the player, then move the slider from “(artist) only” to “related artists” . The slider moves in increments, adding in more and more related artists as it gets further away from the starting point.
Artist list is good, with all the majors and plenty of indies represented. I tried a small chunk of some things I’ve listened to in the last few days (stuff that was at the top of mind) : Tackhead, Misty In Roots (but only one track from the live record), Venetian Snares, Guy Clark, Pet Shop Boys, Skream, Rusko, Dengue Fever, and found entries for all of them. A few were represented only by a couple of tracks, most were represented by full records. Some odd omissions of course (no Undertones?).
(Tech note: The MOG streaming service is VERY heavily script-oriented. If you are surfing with any heavy security or privacy barriers in place you’ll have trouble. I had to use my most promiscuous settings to make it work smoothly)