Sensory Dispensary

For as long as I’ve been blogging, here and at the now defunct My Thermos, I have always written a lot about music. I’ve long wanted to be able to share the music that I write about with you but never really found a proper legal and easy way to do it. Ripping MP3s and hosting can lead to DMCA Violations and Take Down requests as well as bandwidth issues to serve them up as they get hotlinked and downloaded. YouTube is an ok alternative but content frequently disappears and for things like whole albums or custom playlists that I make, that complicates things further. I’ve looked at multiple options over the years and never really found anything that I liked.

With streaming services getting more popular this has been getting easier to do but I’ve still resisted this option as it typically requires you, the listener, to create an account or be limited to previews. The result is that I’m not sharing which isn’t really a solution that I want to continue with, especially as I start to highlight my choices for my 99 Albums list.

Therefore, I have decided to go ahead and start posting things via the Rdio Music Service. I really like Rdio, they offer a free account which will work well for those who just want to follow my links and listen to items that I share. It is ad supported but if you’re not listening regularly they shouldn’t be intrusive. If you like the service, it’s pretty reasonably priced at $4.99 / month for unlimited web / desktop listening. The cool thing about an on-demand service like this is that you can listen to something before you buy it, if you save yourself from buying a few loser discs it pays for itself.

I’ve tried all the services and Rdio is the one I keep coming back to. The music selection is great, the app is gorgeous and easy to use, and as I look to sharing, they make it stupidly easy. You can also add favorites to your collection and create custom stations based on songs you love.

So I recommend heading over and creating a free account. It’s really easy and you get a 14 day trial of the full ad-free service before it reverts to the free version. This way you’ll be able to enjoy all the cool stuff I’ve got lined up. It’s pretty social too, so once you join be sure to follow me and you can see what I listen to, and vice versa.

If you don’t feel like creating an account, that’s cool, you can listen to previews or find the songs via your own methods. I figure you’re no worse off if I wasn’t sharing things anyway.

Please note that I don’t work for Rdio or get any compensation from them and I am not part of any affiliate program. I just like the service a lot and think that I can make my own site more enjoyable by utilizing the tools they offer to make sharing music easy and painless. I hope you enjoy all the cool stuff I’ll be able to share moving forward.