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Turn Up the Beat: 6 Best Social Music Sites

The Internet is a great medium for a number of different activities. You can get your news, conduct business, or stay in contact with friends and family. Two of the most popular uses in today’s society are music and social networking. There are a number of great websites that perform one or both of these tasks. The following websites are the ones that I believe, offer the most unique features, have the biggest audience, or mix both aspects together most effectively:

5. Myspace

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Myspace is more than just a place to upload photos, blog, or communicate. It has offered many musicians another way to reach their fans. Musicians can offer fans the opportunity to stream or downloads their music. Musicians and fans also get the chance to interact through comments, messages and bulletins. Many bands got their start on Myspace, the best example of that may be Panic at the Disco. Myspace is great because of the access fans get to their favorite bands. Getting a message from a band to let you know about an upcoming show or downloading a free single from an artist is reason enough to put up with the other hassles that come with Myspace. Myspace is a great place for up and coming bands because it is extremely easy to creature your own profile and post your music and get it out to the masses!

4. PureVolume

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PureVolume is similar to Myspace music pages but is different in the fact that the entire website is set up for artist to promote their bands. It music before anything else and it a great place to find new acts with minimal distractions. It charts the most popular artists and songs so users can know what’s been popular that day and maybe hear about the next big act. PureVolume also is not as cluttered with ads like most of the other websites on this list so it makes it much more aesthetically pleasing. PureVolume is an extremely easy website to navigate and use.

3. Pandora

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Many sites have been trying to make Internet radio the next big thing. However, the website that does it the best is Pandora. The best thing about Pandora is that it takes what you already like and finds similar acts. Users give songs a thumbs up or thumbs down rating, which is taken into account in future song selections. Pandora also offers users the ability to purchase the song they are listening to through Amazon.com or iTunes. Recently MSN radio has dropped support for Pandora and users have had to decide whether to continue using the service for free with advertisements or pay a fee and enjoy ad free usage. Either way it is still worth the price to enjoy music you already love and possibly find a new love.

2. iLike

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Facebook has taken over Myspace’s reign as social networking site of choice. However one thing that the new giant in networking was missing was a music component. Facebook signed up with iLike. iLike has made equaled Myspace in features and practicality. Like Myspace iLike displays artist info, allows user to stream or download songs, and gives fans the opportunity to connect with their favorite musicians, however iLike has one feature Myspace is missing, iLike is partnered with ticket master and allows users to directly buy tickets from iLike. iLike, even though it is extremely similar to Myspace music, is better because it offers all the same features as Myspace music but has a great feature in that it is linked to ticket master and has a larger audience because it is on Facebook.

1. Last.fm:


Last.fm is a great music social networking site because it truly brings music and socializing together. It helps you find friends based on musical tastes and helps you find new music through your friends. Its hard to tell whether its more of a website for socializing or a musical haven. A great indicator of compatibility between friends is music, so why not make it one of the first factors when meeting new people. Last.fm is the best because it makes music the first part of your social networking experience and can link people with similar tastes as well as help you find new acts.

Honorable Motion: Ruckus

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College kids love music and Ruckus is the only music social networking site that is focused just on one market, the college market. Ruckus is available free of charge to anyone with a valid college e-mail address. A fee of $8.99 is required for alumni and faculty to use the service. Ruckus’ musical catalog is available for any college student to download for free. There are some drawbacks to Ruckus: it is only offered in windows format so Mac and Linux users are left in the dark, also the songs downloaded cannot be burned onto discs or copied into another file or program (sorry iPod and other MP3 users), the Ruckus catalog is considerably smaller than other rivals such as iTunes and file names are inconsistently named, some are in all caps others use underscores for spaces. If you are in college and who mainly listens to music on their computer, Ruckus is the way to go. Ruckus fails to make the cut because it does not focus on networking which would be a great idea since so many college kids use it and because it is only available for windows users.

28 Comments

  1. Kristen

    I like Last.fm. It is a great place for music and socializing and those are two of my favorite things in this world.

    Kristens last blog post..Music Is So Very Social

  2. Dan

    last.fm is great, but it seems to be without clear control. I started listening to imeem and I can play what I want, when I want, and lots of users have created custom playlists that have even taken precedence over my itunes playlists.

    Just thought I’d give imeem a mention

    Dans last blog post..Movie Review: The Happening

  3. Jeff F.

    I love Pandora! I use it practically daily, and I have discovered new music as a result of what Pandora plays for me…

    I just wish I knew of a place that would let me download those songs to enjoy on my own time. (Besides iTunes, cuz who pays for music these days?)

  4. Ben

    I just wanted to let you know that Music Connection Magazine has launched their own social network for musicians. It’s called AMP (Artists, Musicians, Players). Inside you’ll find a number of valuable resources for any musician trying to fill a spot in their lineup, find a studio, make connections, and more! check it out @ Music Connection – AMP. Thanks!

    Bens last blog post..1

  5. Dj FeinX

    You missed one really good one Fuzz.com but all of the above are great for music and musicians alike.

    Dj FeinXs last blog post..1

  6. Brian Wallace

    @Kristen, @Dan – last.fm is a lot of fun, a true social community, and Imeem is also a good choice.

    @Jeff F. – Pandora is cool in that you discover things, agreed. Downloading is another thing, though you could always get the latest NIN album free of charge.

  7. Chris Bartow

    Check out FineTune.com. It’s similar to Pandora but lets you build a list of specific songs.

  8. Melanie Nathan

    I participate in a lot of social networks and music sites seem to be a big topic lately. This therefore comes in really handy because now I’ll know what everyone is talking about lol. I’ll totally be using this list as a reference. Thanks Brian!

    Been hearing really good things about last.fm on plurk btw 😉

  9. ChaCha Fance

    I BEG TO DIFFER!! Imeem should be on this list!!!

  10. Brendan Cooper

    I loved Pandora but, by virtue of living outside the US, cannot use it anymore. It just worked. Last FM is my current port of call for high-quality streaming but you should also check out Musicovery.com – lovely interface, very good algorithm. But I’d take Pandora back any day.

    Brendan Coopers last blog post..Forward to Fleishman Hillard

  11. jon

    Check out nuTsie.com!!!

    I found it last week and am hooked. Especially the “grab bag” feature – all you can eat song grabbing – for later listening.

  12. Simon Slade

    I pretty much agree with this list. A lot of people rave about Pandora, but I think that the selection of music and the community is nowhere nearly as good as Last.fm!

  13. Rob

    I like last.fm, and I just checked out nuTsie from jon’s request, and it looks interesting too!

    Has anyone heard about JamBuzzer yet? It’s not out yet but I read about it recently and it’s supposed to come out soon. https://www.jambuzzer.com
    Just curious.

  14. Jimmy

    Last.FM and Pandora are always fun… haven’t spent much time on Ruckus yet. Thanks for the post. I’ve been messing around with Maestro.FM and Hype Machine which are both intriguing for those not satisfied with current options…

  15. Jacob

    I think they all suck. Bring back the old MP3.com!

    One of the best features of the old Mp3.com and Myspace music layout was the regional music searches that has been deleted. Being from MA, I want to know who is #1 in my City of Lowell, Boston and the entire state in the respective genre I’m searching for long before I care who is #1 in the nation… The local aspect of all the major social music sites has been thrown out the window and it sucks.

    If you know of any good sites that have the feature I’m reffering to please let me know.

  16. dbwest (dbwest)

    Twitter Comment


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  17. YATBot (Y.A.T. Bot)

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  18. AaronBeats (AaronBeats)

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    one day, we’ll be among the top 6 music sites 🙂 [link to post]

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  19. rick

    pandora

  20. Christopher Cahill

    I would suggest Myspace as the best, they often update their profile with newer more user friendly items and apps for musicians to use

    I find it very easy to use, and the expansion of fans is amazing, word spreads like rapid wildfire

    around myspace, what you are doing. I have about 410 friends and it is so awesome to see what is being done, and the amount of promotion.

  21. Marvin

    Myspace would be an excellent choice for up and coming artist as they are able to reach a network of online audience. They are able to integrate many online tools into their page such as those from Topsinmedia.com which is geared towards artist seeking the self distribution model.

  22. MattG

    You should check out this really cool site for Bands & Fans that is launching at this year’s SXSW! It is called Bandromeda.com and it looks like it is really taking off. The big draw with them over other sites like ReverbNation is that they not only allow you to build your own presence but they will actually customize your own website using the same content (videos, photos, music, merch, etc) that you create on their site! If you look at their Band Solutions page you can see examples. And they have this really cool service where they will take some of your still photos and one of your songs and create a sick video from them. Bandromeda looks to me like MySpace on steroids!

  23. Christopher

    The relatively new way of promoting music is the participation in the specialized social networking sites. These sites are the virtual communities for musicians and producers. That’s the platform where they can easily meet each other while in the real life that takes a lot of effort. The most popular social networking sites dedicated to music are TalentWatch (https://www.talentwatch.net/index), SoundCloud (https://soundcloud.com/tour) and SoundSwift (https://www.soundswift.com/).
    TalentWatch (https://www.talentwatch.net/index) is a perfect social networking site for musicians and music lovers. It requires registration to allow full access to all the functions, but it’s worth the time. The musicians here get the ability to upload their audio and video works. Every one of them gets the profile where personal and contact details are specified and where the links to all uploads are located. The music lovers also get personal profiles. They act as the audience and the jury on this site. They have the ability to rate and comment the uploaded media. All the site ratings are based on users’ votes. Thus everyone can play the role in the rise to fame of the favored artist.
    The SoundCloud (https://soundcloud.com/tour) social networking site for music is more technically advanced than the previous one. The functionality of the site contains the unique music player that serves as the communication and commenting device at the same time. After the music or song was uploaded other users get the ability to comment it directly in the player by setting time stamps in the places that have drawn their attention. The site also has advanced privacy settings and the great amount of discussion groups for every genre and music direction.
    The last but not the least in the review of the social networking sites for music lovers goes the site SoundSwift (https://www.soundswift.com/). This site focuses on the promotion of young artists and claims to be professional and respected. It gives them the ability to reach their audience and to get noticed by influential people from music industry. It also promotes the investment initiatives into the development of beginner artists.

  24. Unsigned Artist

    Mint Music Social Network. Be there or be quiet!

  25. Steeve Ave

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    information.,

    Social Media Music Site