Nothing beats Pandora for creating ambient background music of a particular genre. Nothing beats Pandora in this area, but it lacks definition. The listener can’t pick individual songs or create specific playlists.
Lots of people I trust online were talking about Rdio, but for some reason I tried Spotify and was repelled by the advertising. For a time I wrote streaming radio as another failed fad, but then I remembered Rdio and decided to give it one more shot.
Wow!
You see, another factor driving me from providers like last.fm et al. was the dependence on Flash and a web browser. Rdio’s native Mac app makes the listening experience as intuitive as using Apple’s own iTunes with a virtually bottomless library. Rdio adds a social aspect to sharing and finding music. You can visit my page there.
The first sweet spot I found came about while watching AMC’s Breaking Bad. The series has a pretty incredible soundtrack and Rdio came to mind. Sure enough, Brian Talbot had already compiled all of the songs from the series into his Breaking Bad playlist. Awesome!
After Julie and I began watching the British series Misfits I returned the favor by compiling a Misfits playlist of music from the series to enjoy and share with others. After watching The Big Lebowski (yes, again), I found Paul Armstrong’s “Definitive” The Big Lebowski Soundtrack.
One morning I was obsessively listening to Iggy Pop’s The Passenger and reading about how Siouxsie and the Banshees covered the song and wondered how many other bands had covered it. I found nine covers in Rdio’s library and tossed in three versions by Iggy to keep it real. There was some gold in there, so check out The Passenger playlist if you’re a fan of the man or song or just want to witness my testament to Internet-enabled OCD.