The Musicovery streaming radio service is not new. They’ve been around a couple years, however I just received an email to check them out and for someone like me whose musical catalog revolves around basic musical tastes like U2, Hall & Oates and Lynyrd Skynyrd – it seems like a cool way to expand my horizons and discover new musical artists and songs. Let’s take a look.

Musicovery is similar to the popular Pandora online streaming radio.

Pandora works by asking you to supply them with an artist that you like. The service then builds a playlist around similar artists.

Instead of focussing on an artist, Musicovery starts by asking for a tempo ranging from calm to energetic. You also supply your mood – ranging from dark to positive – as well as the decade(s) you are most interested in .

Once Musicovery knows this information (your mood as well as the time period from which they should select music) their first song plays automatically and you’re presented with a linked list of similar artists/songs.

For more upbeat selections, you can also select the tempo that Musicovery seeks out. A slider at the bottom of the selection screen allows you to chose from the year(s) that the music was released. Unfortunately I had trouble moving this slider accurately on my Firefox browser.

When the music starts playing, you’re presented with a “chain” of similar music and artists. If you dislike one artist/song – you can very easily click on to the next song shown in the link. This is an almost perfect interface for those of us who are “dial changers” and used to changing stations on the radio whenever a less popular song is played.

Using this linked list you can jump from song to song. Album art is displayed and there are links to purchase the songs. Notice that there are also controls displayed for me to skip forward if I don’t like the song playing as well as rate the song (via the +/- “heart” icon).

When I click the iTunes icon – I’m brought into iTunes and have the option of purchasing several different variations of the song.

The Musicovery service is completely free. You don’t need an account to use it. Though, if you create an account the system will remember your favorite songs and let you ban ones that you don’t like. For $4/month you can enjoy a higher quality stream as well as directly access the songs that you like.

I had a few problems using Musicovery on my Firefox browser. Some of the screen pop ups were partially obscured and I wasn’t able to limit my music selections to a specific year. For a free service it operates pretty well especially if you are open to letting Musicovery select the music for you based on your mood.

What I Like:
- Free
- Easy way to discover new artists and songs
- Simple navigation

What Could Be Better:
- Add a way to select by artist
- Smooth the operation with Firefox browser

Link: Musicovery

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