Websites dedicated to music have skyrocketed in recent years, allowing a person to listen to their favorite bands without the need to buy a CD or purchase a download. Because of this type of service, it has also cut down on the amount of piracy when it comes to illegal music downloads – such as the case with Napster in the early 2000s.

Since then, similar music sites have opened their online doors and have allowed people to listen to their favorite music anytime they want without the need to download it to their computer. While this does not enable the listener to carry their music with them, they can listen to the stations on-the-go through a web-enabled mobile device.

Online Radio

There are many online radio stations available through various music players, such as Winamp, Windows Media Player and iTunes. Each player allows a person to connect to a host of live streams that act in a similar manner as the radio in your car; the only difference is this radio is using digital audio in the form of MP3s at various bitrates.

This medium provides listeners with radio stations much like they’d experience from their car radio, complete with on-air commentary and commercials. Unlike traditional radio with limited choices, online radio stations are dedicated to a specific genre; also, most stations have premium membership programs that remove commercials for a set fee.

Music Websites

There are quite a few music websites that give listeners the ability to search for their favorite song, upload their own music, create playlists and even share those playlists with people on the internet.

Grooveshark

This website offers themes and the ability to upload your favorite tracks to their server, which can then be searched and played by anyone on the web. You can setup your own playlists and favorite them according to your liking. The music player has shuffle, repeat, forward and reverse functions, and you can subscribe to get even more features. Grooveshark has also implemented an online radio that offers free streaming music.

Pandora

This site is similar to Grooveshark but with one major exception: if you search for a song, it will play it for you; however, it will then setup a playlist based on artists within that genre. For example, if you’re searching for your favorite hip-hop artist, it will play them, but then it will provide a continuous playlist of artists similar to the one you’ve searched for. You can also rate the track; this will either play the song again in the future or not at all.

Last.FM

This is a radio website that lets you search for your favorite song or artist, and then provides a video player where you can hear the music and watch a variety of wallpaper based on that artist. If you search for Enigma, it will play songs from the artist, plus other artists similar to that genre.

There are many more ways to listen to music online, especially through Youtube and Dailymotion; these are usually in the form of music videos. Some sites will even give you free music downloads for signing up, such as Rhapsody. If you’re a music lover, then there really is no end to finding great music online for free. All you have to do is be willing to plug in your headphones and press play.