Help me automagically assemble ~1 hour of new music per day, to listen to on my commute.

March 20, 2008 3:57 AM

Help me automagically assemble ~1 hour of new music per day, to listen to on my commute.

I've recently been cursed with a 30-minute commute to and from work each day, and I want to turn it into a blessing in disguise by using it to listen to some of the wonderful music that's available freely on the world wide web. Ideally what I'd like is some sort of mp3 aggregator that would take a list of sites that I specify, and each day download 1 hour's worth of music onto my mp3 player. Searching for "mp3 aggregator" brings up a few likely sites, but before I dive in and start exploring them I'd be interested to know if you have any suggestions. I'd like to include music from sites like music.mefi (of course!) as well as individual artist pages and sharity sites like those mentioned here.

I'd also be interested in any kind of software that might help me do this. I'm running Linux, and am quite happy to fiddle around with bash/perl/java if it will get me closer to a solution.

posted by primer_dimer to computers & internet (9 comments total)

Not exactly what you're looking for, but you might want to investigate thelastripper.
posted by the dief at 4:42 AM on March 20, 2008

Check out the Magnatune podcasts. They generally each update about once a week.
posted by dondiego87 at 5:23 AM on March 20, 2008

I'm after something like this as well. While I haven't found an all-encompassing source or solution, looking at the Songbird app might give you some ideas. It is a fully media player that is cross platform (based on Firefox), with all sorts of music sources, and supports plugins, like iPod support. Link to Songbird site

I was using it a while back, and really thought it showed some potential.
posted by bxg at 6:02 AM on March 20, 2008

I'm a huge fan of KEXP (Seattle's 90.3 FM) and their podcasting. I've found a tremendous amount of new and unique music there (everything from alternative, hip-hop, electronica, punk, indie, etc.) They have a weekly podcast as well as a song of the day podcast. Hopefully this helps to at least cover some of your commute. It's not an aggregator, but it is a source of good music. Good luck!
posted by galimatias at 7:00 AM on March 20, 2008

I second the podcast suggestion. Finding an hour of new, innovative music every day might be a Herculean task. If you don't mind the talking (and the associated educational content), there are many worthy talking podcasts to listen to. The Canadian Broadcasting Company makes podcast versions of many of their feature shows. I particularly enjoy Quirks & Quarks, their science news show.

Oh how I miss Penn Jillette's podcast. Hour-long show, four days a week, celebrity speakers like magician Criss Angel, professional skeptic "Amazing" Randi, stand-up comics telling road stories, and ringside seats at a yelling match between an astronomer and a moon-landing denier. I'll miss the call-in stories about humourous disasters involving monkeys. He made Howard Stern look like a potty-mouthed piker.
posted by Mozai at 7:51 AM on March 20, 2008

CBC Radio3 has a couple podcasts with New Canadian Music (mostly of the indie rock persuasion, although some rap and hip hop as well). http://radio3.cbc.ca/ I love listening to them at work. I've also used Songbird. It's all right. I could never quite do what you want to do. It seemed to require too much effort to load everything on to my old ipod. However, you might have a more advanced mp3 player setup that's more automatic and faster.
posted by bluefly at 8:23 AM on March 20, 2008

Much like KEXP, Minnesota Public Radio's station The Current has some great music-based podcasts. "Musicheads" in particular has exposed me to a ton of great new stuff. You might also like "Facemelter" if you're a fan of sweet guitar solos.
posted by vytae at 8:36 AM on March 20, 2008

If you want to use some stuff from your own library, i like The Filter
posted by craven_morhead at 8:36 AM on March 20, 2008

Try KCRW's Today's Top Tune and Morning Becomes Eclectic podcasts.
With the songs from KEXP, CBC3, and MPR, you'll have lots of new music in no time.
posted by jimbotex at 7:00 PM on March 20, 2008