Wednesday, August 5, 2009

5 Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Music Collection

5 Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Music Collection: "
earbudsIf you’re like most people these days, you’ve probably got a lot of music on your computer — whether from your own CD library, or downloaded from Amazon, iTunes, or (ahem) elsewhere. But if the only thing you’re doing with your music collection is listening to it, you’re missing out. There are a large number of web applications devoted to helping you get more from the music you already have.

With the five web sites and applications below, you can learn more about your music playing habits, clean up your collection, see your favorite artists live, and have more fun with your music. What other web sites or applications do you use to get the most out of the music you own? Let us know in the comments.



1. Last.fm





lastfm



Last.fm is one of the most popular music social networks on the web. The site has on-demand listening, social networking features, and a great iPhone app. But where Last.fm really shines is their tried and true Scrobbler software that pays attention to what you’ve been playing in iTunes, Windows Media Player, Winamp, or on your iPod and adds the music you’ve played to your profile. From there you can see which artists, albums, and tracks you play the most, and get recommendations for similar music you might like based on the songs you’re listening to.

Other good options in the music recommendation category include MyStrands and the iLike music player addons.



2. TidySongs





tidysongs



An amazingly useful new Adobe AIR app that just launched in July, TidySongs automatically scans your iTunes library for duplicates, missing cover art, and poorly formatted, misspelled, or otherwise wrong track and artist information. The application can automatically fix song info, or can just point out errors so you can fix them manually.

TidySongs works really well and was able to identify and fix with surprising accuracy a large number of the songs in my music library that weren’t properly labeled. In addition to fixing song details, TidySongs can organize genres, fix duplicates, and find missing or incorrect album art.

Another option to help clean up your library metadata is TuneUp.



3. Livekick





livekick



Once you’ve uploaded your iTunes library to Livekick, the site automatically populates a calendar of upcoming concerts in your area from the artists you listen to. The site can also import music from Last.fm, Rhapsody, Pandora, iLike, Zune.net, imeem, MySpace, and Blip.fm. Once you’ve imported your music, Livekick can deliver concert updates by email or RSS. The site also offers a downloadable desktop widget that keeps track of the music you listen to in Windows Media Player, Winamp, or iTunes and suggests concerts you might be interested in based on your listening habits.



4. TuneWiki





tunewiki



Lyrics site TuneWiki offers a unique, free iPhone app (iTunes) that allows you to automatically augment the music you play on your iPhone or iPod Touch with song lyrics while listening. The app displays lyrics synced to the song you’re listening to, karaoke style, translated into over 40 different languages. It also has a nice “music maps” feature that shows you what music other people in your geographic area are listening to.



5. JamLegend





jamlegend



JamLegend is a Guitar Hero-like game built for the web. Instead of using a guitar-shaped controller to keep in time with the beat, however, you instead press keys on the keyboard that correspond to falling notes as the song plays. But what really sets JamLegend apart is that you can upload your own songs. You get 5 free MP3 uploads, after which you’ll have to pay for the privilege of rocking out to your favorite music from your own collection.

Still, the fact that you can go beyond the site’s 500 or so built-in songs by using your own music collection is a great feature. The game is somehow a lot more fun when you can use music from your own MP3 library that you’re guaranteed to like.



More music resources from Mashable




- 10 Ways to Share Music on Twitter

- 16 Great Music Add-Ons for Firefox

- 18 of the Best Music Tumblelogs

- Social Music: Top 5 Sites to Build a Playlist

- Social Music: 5 Ways to Find Concerts Near You

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Dizzy


Reviews: BLIP, Ilike, Last.fm, MySpace, Pandora, adobe AIR, iStockphoto, iTunes
Tags: air, jamlegend, Last.FM, livekick, music, tidysongs, tunewiki


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