Bloggranddaughter SarahP of Because We Have Thumbs says radio sucks and explains why

The truth is that radio stations don't do anything without pissing away hundreds of thousands of dollars on at least 3 surveys and hiring some guy to spend weeks pouring over the results of those surveys.

So they have every reason to think that you should love what they are doing. That is what the surveys and experts told them.

They were told to 1. play the same songs over and over again. 2. Sound as much like everyone else as they can. 3. play bands you hate instead of bands you love.

Now ask yourself: when is the last time you took the time to respond to a survey?

What to do about it, she doesn't say.

That's ok, because *I* will.

Thanks to _Jon of We Swear, I found out that Yahoo's LaunchCast fixes the problem.

Click the freakin' link already.

Scroll down to where it says "Create my station". Click that, get all signed in, and now you can start making your radio station the way YOU want it.

It plays complete songs. For free. You get to rate them on a 4 star scale as to how much you like them, and YOU CAN ALSO CHOOSE "NEVER PLAY AGAIN!".

It starts off fairly randomly, but as you rate more songs, it starts getting a feel for what you like, and selecting stuff you like better.

But even when it sends you a clunker, YOU CAN CLICK THE SKIP BUTTON and move on to something else.

The catch? Boring, annoying commercials. About 1 minute's worth every 10-15 minutes. Which is still a LOT less annoying than commercial radio.

However - as they never tire of reminding you - you can ditch the commercials for a year for $36 (or do it monthly for $3.99). I did the year thing after about 24 hours, and I'm in music-junkie heaven right now.

Did I mention you can pause the songs, too? Not indefinitely, but for a few minutes at least if you need to go feed the dogs or something.

Also, you rate (and possibly ban) separately on the basis of song, artist, or album. Also, you can click on the song title to find similar songs. You can click on the artist and find similar artists (there's also an "albums" link there where you can find the band's entire discography and rate that - hint: rate something a 4, and they'll play something from it pretty soon). Click on the album link and you can rate every song on that album, as well as find similar albums.

Doesn't matter what kind of music you like. They have it, and you can train your personal radio station to play it.

Just check it out.

Meanwhile, one of you Ubergeeks can explain how I can capture these songs. Figure if they're coming out of my speakers, there's gotta be a way to catch 'em.

Posted by: Harvey at 10:43 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
Post contains 513 words, total size 3 kb.

1 Welcome to Launch Harvey, Im a Launch ratings addict over 5000 songs rated. another cool thing is you can create multiple stations and Moods ie a work out mood or a sunday am station. Launch is also a good way for us older folks to hear some new music. and for someone with such a large blog family you can also listen to other peoples stations Welcome aboard GBfan

Posted by: gbfan001 at March 14, 2005 06:20 AM (oSAou)

2 Wow, welcome to Launch Harvey! I've had my station running since...well...since my PI days. Stop on over at Ramblings and click on the station shortcut to take a listen! My Marines would throw the station on a PC and stream it at 3:00AM while we were making hundreds of stupid fiber patch cables! Heck, remember the good ol' days when it was still Broadcast.com?! You could find any radio station anywhere and listen to it online. Stupid FCC and their stupid "unfair advertising" ruling. Feh!

Posted by: Silent Warrior at March 14, 2005 08:22 AM (f8kXi)

3 Virgin also has a free radio station and I like it alot more than yahoolaunch. You can also buy the upgraded version from Virgin also. Launch has to many restrictions for free use, limited songs, commericals (virgin doesn't have commericals), limited number of times you can skip per month, it will still play "never play again" songs. blech I heart Virgin

Posted by: Machelle at March 14, 2005 08:53 AM (ZAyoW)

4 I use Launch every once in a while, but it never works with Mozilla for me. I always have to run IE to get it to work.

Posted by: GEBIV at March 14, 2005 05:08 PM (S0N3t)

5 And to catch the songs, you need an oven mitt, a goalie mask, one of those Umpire chest protectors, and a tape-recorder. Set the tape-recorder next to your computer speakers and press 'record'. Then put on all of the other stuff, so when you are arrested for piracy, you can use the 'insanity' plea.

Posted by: GEBIV at March 14, 2005 05:27 PM (S0N3t)

6 Lovin' the Launch - since about 2 or 3 years ago actually. I just upgraded to Launchcast plus today and I only did it because I had reached my limit of use of my free customized station. Bah.

Posted by: songstress7 at March 14, 2005 06:02 PM (jEGU/)

7 Machelle - what's this Virgin thing? Maybe you should post about it...

Posted by: Harvey at March 14, 2005 06:42 PM (ubhj8)

8 ... ...I ...uh... well, ok. But it's not the same as having a real live DJ to be your portable friend. I feel so unwanted now.

Posted by: Sarah the penguin at March 15, 2005 03:38 PM (UFED1)

9 I'd rather have a portable DJ. Especially if she has a nice, grabbable ass ;-)

Posted by: Harvey at March 16, 2005 07:39 PM (ubhj8)

10 been on a few years myself... 4,300 ratings or so... almost at fanatic lol I just upgraded to plus a few weeks ago myself, curious if any others who upgraded to plus after many songs noticed that before upgrading it played alot less of the stone age radio songs, and now plays alot more "money" songs? I like that it was like this actually, its amazing at how much this will widen your musical tastes, and find some of you favorite songs you never knew existed! and to the dj who posted.. dont worry... as long as launchcast doesnt go to the sirius and other sattelite radio extreme(all of which bite ass in my opinion) dj's will still have their wages paid by the blaring of many annoying ads into my "refuse to be trendy and buy something because the radio tells me to" ears. but wait.. oh yeah.. I would buy that in an instant! lol good programs like this are helping to curb the music piracy issue, since I have found launchcast there is no way I would waste my time or stick my neck out, for a measley couple of bucks a month its well worth it! (and no.. I dont work for yahoo... just ehjoy humping this programs leg lol)

Posted by: NanooX2 at June 08, 2005 10:20 PM (IK5Cc)

11 I've been on Launchcast for over 5 years. It's a great service. A couple of tips: (1) You can pause a song for up to a couple of hours if you want to/need to. (2) You can rate on a 1-100 scale instead of on the 4-star scale. This lets you fine tune your ratings. It's an option in your profile settings. Otherwise, 1-star equates to 30 points, 2-stars = 50 points, 3-stars = 70 points, and 4-stars = 90 points. (3) The current algorithm won't play anything under 40 points, so if you rate something 1-star, that's essentially the same as X.

Posted by: Richard at September 13, 2005 12:23 AM (03ZSD)

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