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[Pieter]

Two years ago, I used to listen to online country and jazz radio stations because I was sick and tired of commercial radio. I didn't know about the existence of podcasting back then, so that was the only way I got my music. But then Total Country 103 merged with Kickin' Country and now they run ads on the radio station. That's too bad, but it's not like there's a commercial break after every song.

Oh, and I don't like old country music, just the commercialized country such as Lonestar's songs. "Commercialized". Heh, that's exactly what I ran away from. Go figure.

[Ashley Wagner]

I like the more modern "country" stuff- that doesn't sound too countryish if that makes any sense. Like Faith Hill, Rascal Flats, Carrie Underwood...

[DKong]

The best rock song of the past ten years was probably "Take Me Out" by Franz Ferdinand.  Other than that, there hasn't been much in the way of rock except for some stuff in the nu-metal scene, such as Linkin Park.  The last great rock band was Nirvana.  Rock seems to have died alongside Kurt Cobain.

It just depends on what you like. Also, just about all new rock bands fly way under the radar, except for Fall Out Boy....so you never end up hearing about any decent bands unless you actually go look for them.

If Warped Tour is any indication, punk (and many other rock genres) is still thriving. It's also not all whiny emo bitch crap. That seems to be a common stereotype of all modern punk music, but that just isn't true.

If you want a list of new bands that are fairly popular, yet still way under the radar, check out the bands I listed.
Also, a good site to find new rock music is www.purevolume.com (start at the charts, there's a top 100 bands list).


Also, for electronica fans- Have any of you guys heard of hellogoodbye or Mindless Self Indulgence? They are both great electronica/rock bands that are from the USA.
Here are their purevolume pages:
http://www.purevolume.com/hellogoodbye
http://www.purevolume.com/mindlessselfindulgence

[Ryan Wagner]

I love purevolume. It's a great site, and I find it quite remarkable how much great music is on there.

[DKong]

Yeah, and what's even more surprising is how much you can actually download straight off the site.

[Pieter]

I like the more modern "country" stuff- that doesn't sound too countryish if that makes any sense. Like Faith Hill, Rascal Flats, Carrie Underwood...

Yeah, that's the kind of stuff I was talking about. I always like listening to Rascal Flatts whenever it passes by on Kickin' Country.

I love purevolume.

Me too. And that's just the top of the iceberg. If you have a lot of patience, you can go find good free legal songs over at GarageBand (not to be confused with Apple's GarageBand), Amie Street (not always free, you have to find the good stuff before it becomes popular to get it for free), Goombah, Download.com Music or the Podsafe Music Network. You won't be able to download music from the Podsafe Music Network directly, but if you find good stuff you can always go to the artist's website and see if they have any free downloads up there. And believe me, they often do.

Here are some songs I discovered through the internet. Tip: to listen to a song without downloading it, right-click a link, select "Copy link" from the menu, press WIN+R, type "mplayer2 [PASTE LINK HERE]" and press Enter. Linux users: "mplayer [PASTE LINK HERE]" in a terminal. Press CTRL+C to quit mplayer while playing a song. Alternatively, you can use FoxyTunes if installed. Just right-click a link and select "Play media" from the menu.

GarageBand links cannot be played by some media players, including mplayer (Linux), FoxyTunes and VLC. You'll have to download the song first to listen to it.

[GarageBand] Black Lab - Ecstasy - Weird type of rock. As with many songs that are a little bit different, you have to listen to this song a couple of times to start appreciating it.
[Last.fm] Berman - Fall Off The Earth - Hard rock. Don't stop playing the song before you've heard the chorus, otherwise you'll get a totally wrong view of the song.
[Found via the PMN, free MP3] Joshua Kadison - Love Will Rule the World - Super corny, but there are some occasions where it fits the mood perfectly.
[PMN] The Clintons - Strange Day In Mexico - Softer rock. No free download, but available on iTunes for 99 cents. When I first heard this song, I though "Wow, this is really really good!", something I don't say about songs very often. That's probably just a personal thing though.
[PMN] Howard Jones - Revolution of the Heart - First I didn't like this song. This is once again one of these songs that you need to listen to a couple of times to start appreciating it. Note: this guy has made music for mainstream radio some time ago.
[GarageBand] NewLeaf - Magic Carpet - Some type of cornyness I associate with Disney. Not necessarily in a bad way, but you'll get the most out of the song when in a certain mood.
[GarageBand] Rob Costlow - I Do - Piano, but not the boring "Fur Elise" kind. Heck, I'm 16 and I'm listening to his piano music! That contradicts every cliché about people of my age. So either Rob Costlow's a good composer, or I have a bad taste.
[PMN] Collin Raye - Hurricane Jane - A little bit too country-ish for most people.

Online music is a totally different vibe than old-school radio. Some people like it, some people just don't. Remember: it takes a while for you to start appreciating songs. Even radio stuff. Why do you think all that Rihanna bullc**p has become so popular? Because of repetition. It gets shoved down your throat several times without you noticing and that will lead you into believing that that song is good. Or something like that. I'm not a psychologist, but that's what I thought it came down to.

[DKong]

I agree. My sister likes hit radio and general crappy music like that...and I have to drive her to school next year, so the debate of who gets to listen to what on the radio is going to be annoying.

That Berman song sounds a lot like Incubus...which is a good thing, though that also means it's not horridly orginal.

Also, I found that a great way to play mp3 links off the web is using del.icio.us's playtagger bookmarklet. It works in Firefox for sure and probably Opera.
http://del.icio.us/help/playtagger
Here is the direct link to the bookmarklet:
javascript:(function(){var o=document.createElement("script");o.type="text/javascript";o.src="http://images.del.icio.us/static/js/playtagger.js";o.onload=function(){Delicious.Mp3.go()};document.body.appendChild(o)})()

You just click the bookmarklet and it'll put a play button next to any Mp3 links on a webpage. It's super helpful for "previewing" music before you download it.

[Pieter]

Thanks for the tip! This shouldn't be hard to turn into a GreaseMonkey script actually.

[DKong]

Lifehacker has an article about it:
http://lifehacker.com/software/greasemonkey/auto-inline-mp3-player-greasemonkey-script-192622.php

Though the comments point out that it isn't that great...but you might be able to find something else on the userscripts.org site.

[BUSMAN747]

Like the majority of you, I have a whole range of music according to my mood of the moment, but I will mention my current 3 "most listened to" bands............

3) Good Charlotte,  Far superior to the usual run-of-the-mill "punk" bands and just love the drummer (his playing of drums, NOT him personally )

2)Bif Naked, Canadian band, Bif being the female vocalist, are they still about? all my Bif Naked music is pretty old now

1) Nightwish, A Finnish band that is sort of Gothic heavy metal, All my nightwish music is from a couple of years back before Tarja Turunen left   She is trained in opera and puts it to brilliant use alongside heavy rock. If you haven't heard them, I would recommend you try it 

It has just occured to me that coming from the UK, I thought we had the best bands in the world and yet here I am singing the praises of American, Canadian and Finnish bands  Oh well

[Ryan Wagner]

I love Good Charlotte, but haven't heard of the other two.

[spock1982 (Ernie)]

I gave Nightwish a listen due to Busman747's recommendation and they are OK. Not something I would listen to on a regular basis, however they are pretty good and really different.

[BUSMAN747]

I gave Nightwish a listen due to Busman747's recommendation and they are OK. Not something I would listen to on a regular basis, however they are pretty good and really different.

At least you gave them a try    Did you listen to "Over the Hills and Far Away" off of youtube?  One of their best...and she's gorgeous

[Ryan Wagner]

That song is pretty good Busman...and it sounds like something I've heard before. I just can't pinpoint where.

[spock1982 (Ernie)]

At least you gave them a try    Did you listen to "Over the Hills and Far Away" off of youtube?  One of their best...and she's gorgeous

Well...I payed a little visit to MP3Sparks  . I will check out the video that you mentioned though.