The "What's new" section of Spotify isn't doing it for me. It offers very little considering how open I am to them, tracking my listening habits. I expect more by now.

Spotify's app environment is fantastic, but that's only because We Are Hunted is too basic, Pitchfork is slow to update content, and I've exhausted DFX Radio and Hypebot.

Looking for New

Ultimately, what I'm searching for are interesting albums (or tracks) that I might like. More importantly, I want to discover this music without having to do anything fancy †"like give away my Facebook friends to some system, then force them to interact with each other to "enhance the experience."

Internet Radio Rules

I guess there's one net benefit to Spotify not being perfect; I'm still willing to give non-interactive radio a try. For example, two of my all-time favorite websites are WFMU's Rock n' Soul Ichiban and Luxuria Music.

Ichiban goes through the effort of unearthing hard-to-find classic rock n' roll 45's and albums -that are so painfully difficult to find and distribute that they'd otherwise be left to warp on some forgotten basement shelf- and preset them in a 24-7 radio-type stream. Luxuria Music provides a similar offering, but their song selections include less surf rock and more space pop. If you love Stereolab, you will love this!

Both stations are brilliant at curating music and celebrating songs through the story, but I do have to wonder how hard it is to run a niche webcaster. I mean, I love Fred Karlin's score "Up the down staircase" but I wonder how many listeners do you need to make the webcast worthwhile.

To summarize, Spotify isn't perfect, yet. It's getting there, but in the meantime, thank you, Ichiban, Luxuria, for helping make this noisy journey a little bit more pleasant.

Other Sites Worth Visiting

Here are a few site's I've been using to discover music:

The Legal Side of Music

I love reading about music law and how policy impacts culture.