PUBLIC MARKS with tags music & "music recommendations"

Lots of playlists that you can listen to in Spotify. Generate playlists for up to five artists.

"Forget the magazine editors & big label marketing budgets. This is the best music from 2009 chosen by the most passionate music fans alive: music bloggers."

"People's Music Store is a newly launched DIY online music store. It was created by the founder of MP3 reseller Bleep.com, Ged Day. People's Music Store styles itself as "the first music store entirely powered by music fans." Basically the service allows you to set up your own custom-designed record store, with music chosen from a catalogue of indie record labels (so far no major record label music). The idea is that you earn points, equivalent to 10% of the price of the single, EP or album that you sell. These points can only be used to buy other music items on the People's Music Store site. There are more than 650 stores currently, with over 250,000 songs in the catalogue - most appear to be available at $0.99 per song or $8.99 per album. The site claims to be "working with" 4,500 labels, including 4AD, XL, Rough Trade, Matador, Dominio, and Ged Day's own Warp. Other than the lack of major label music, there is another minor annoyance for those of us who don't live in the U.S. - international users will frequently run into a "we're sorry, but this release is not available in your country" message. However on the plus side, all the music available for download is DRM-free and at high quality 320Kbps." [reawriteweb]

50 best artists, albums and songs chosen by music bloggers. Listen to full albums.

The AMG editors select the best of the new releases from the past three months. Mac users (Safari): In order to play audio samples, you will need to install a free plug-in called Flip4Mac, available at www.telestream.net/telestream-products/desktop-products.htm.

Allmusic.com offers discographies and biographical information for both artists and composers, and gives ratings and reviews of recordings, past and current. Very useful for weeding. Also lists recently released CDs. [icpl.org] Mac users (Safari): In order to play audio samples, you will need to install a free plug-in called Flip4Mac, available at www.telestream.net/telestream-products/desktop-products.htm.

"Grooveshark is a web-based music application built for anyone on the internet to listen to music on-demand at no charge. Users have the ability to listen to single songs from the 7-million song catalog, save playlists, and embed both on other websites, blogs, and social media profiles via the Grooveshark Widget." [techcrunch]

"The LastFM Open Mind Index (OMI) is an interesting way to understand your taste in music. The index is a calculation based on your last.fm top artists of the last 12 months. The quantity of your played songs, as well as the artist-tags are reflected in the calculation. A high OMI is an indicator for a high musical bandwidth and your openness for different kind of music." Rocketsurgeon

"Audiobaba is a next generation music search engine that allows you to find songs by acoustic similarity." Only plays 30 second samples. Artists can upload music, so it might be a way to discover independent artists, if you don't mind sorting through the haystack. Shows album covers which is kind of cool.

Listen to full tracks of many albums. Share playlists. Local artist and concert info.

Seeqpod offers a fast way too search for mp3's, and videos for any artist. Add what you like from the results to a playlist that you play, save and share.

"Like Last.fm and Pandora, Jango immediately creates a personalized radio station with songs by similar artists...But unlike the case with many of these other services, it's super easy to tailor your station—if you don't want to hear a particular artist, click the trash can icon; if you hate a particular song, rate it with a sad face and it'll never play again; if you want to add another main artist around which the station will be built, click "edit station", then enter the name of the artist." [Digital Noise]

Similar to Last.fm and Pandora. Slacker will have its own portable device and satellite car dock allowing mobile access.

Type in a music artist or movie that you like and liveplasma creates a map that shows how recommended bands that are similar to the one you entered.

Similar to Last.fm and Pandora, you type in an artist's name and finetune will play full tracks from that artist. You can tag music and as well as create and share playlists.

Similar to Last.fm, Pandora lets you create custom radio stations by entering a song or artist that you like, and Pandora responds by playing songs it thinks are musically similar. You can guide Pandora by approving or disapproving of the songs it plays, and the system takes this into account for future selections.

Type in an artist you like and Last.fm creates a "station" that plays music similar to it that others have liked. Once you have played enough artists, Last.fm will let you know who your musical neighbors are. You can listen to their "stations" for free. If you sign up (for a small monthly fee) you can play your personal "radio" or your tagged items. Great for discovering new music, and also keep track of hard to find artists by tagging them.