Forget real-time song scanning; ClickOnRadio shows you every song that played for the last 2 hours.
How many times have you whipped out your iPhone and fired up Shazam, only to have the song end too soon to get a reading?
There's a fallback app for that: ClickOnRadio Pro, which not only streams radio in real time, but also shows real-time playlists for over 2,600 stations.
In other words, if you know the name or frequency of the station, you can easily find the song you wanted to identify. For any given station, ClickOnRadio ($1.99) shows every song that played for the past 2 hours.
(Interestingly, it lists the ads as well, which could come in handy if you missed, say, the phone number for an interesting product or service.)
Tap any listed song and you can listen to a preview (just to make sure it's the one you heard), buy it from iTunes, view the lyrics, share it with a friend, and even look up and watch relevant YouTube videos.
The app also lets you search for songs, stations, locations, and ads. If you find something you like, a tap is all it takes to add a song or station to your Favorites lists.
To use ClickOnRadio, you need to set up an account with the eponymous Web service. It's free and easy, and you can do it from within the app.
Streaming didn't work for every station, and even with a strong Wi-Fi signal, I encountered occasional hiccups. (The app cleverly uses icons to show you if a given station supports Wi-Fi, 3G, and/or EDGE).
Even so, I'm delighted with ClickOnRadio, as it lets me listen to just about every local station--unlike my previous go-to radio app, AOL Radio, which offers only a select few. And if you just want the station playlists without the streaming, ClickOnRadio Lite offers that capability free of charge.
To get ready for the show, warm up to this year's top contenders in one free and continuous playlist featuring Coldplay, Katy Perry, Lil Wayne, The Jonas Brothers, Radiohead, Duffy, Brazilian Girls, and many more.
The 51st Annual Grammy Awards will air on Sunday February 8 at 8 p.m. on CBS. In the meantime, listen to this free playlist by clicking on the green button below, then visit Download Music to stream and download thousands more free songs.
Bloc Party gets intimate with their new album, Intimacy.
Now that Daylight Savings Time has ended, it's that odd time of the year when it gets dark while we're still at work (at least for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere with day jobs). Sun worshippers may be bummed, but night owls should be psyched about the extra hours of darkness. Either way, it's a good time for everyone to get out and embrace the nightlife!
Listen to our free playlist "Night Moves" featuring Bloc Party, New Order, Black Sheep, Metallica, Kid Cudi, Juliana Hatfield and more. To launch, click the green button below, and then visit Download Music to stream and download thousands more free songs.
There may be a chill in the air, but summer's not over yet! Two big music festivals remain this year: San Francisco's Treasure Island Music Festival (this weekend) and Austin City Limits (next weekend). There's an overlap of indie rockers at both events, such as The Raconteurs, CSS, and Jenny Lewis. But with an extra day and more stages to work with, ACL offers a wider array of acts such as Foo Fighters, Beck, Iron and Wine, and Robert Plant and Alison Krauss.
If you can't make the shows--or just want to get pumped for them--cue up our free playlist by clicking on the "stream now" button. Then visit Download Music to stream and download thousands more free songs.
Rihanna wants you to start your engine.
The oil crisis has been an easy target for the media, so now it's our turn to get in on the hype. No matter what your political views are (left, right, or center), the rising price of oil is a concern for everyone. Even the most patriotic gas-guzzlers out there are beginning to question their driving habits. Now, if you ask the R&B star Rihanna, she'll tell you to "shut up and drive," but we think (and hope) that she's making a sexual reference.
While we wait for gas prices to drop, let's fire up this free Tune Up playlist instead of our engines. Click the green button below to listen, then visit Download Music to stream and download thousands more free songs.
Jacob Dylan is a modern day dad rocker.
With Father's Day coming up, it's time to resurface one of our favorite genres: Dad Rock. It's a style that originated from the bearded soft rock era of the '70s, however, its legacy has lived on. Many of its signature artists are still recording, and some are even bigger than ever, including Neil Diamond and Van Morrison. Meanwhile, sons-of-dad-rockers, such as singer-songwriter Jakob Dylan, carry the touch.
Listen to our Dad Rock playlist by clicking the green button below. Then visit Download Music to stream and download thousands of more free songs.
The never-ending quest for extraterrestrial life goes on: the Phoenix Lander touched down last Sunday on a mission to explore the polar region of Mars. The $420 million spacecraft, which launched last August, is expected to find "ice-rich permafrost" underneath the Martian surface. Back on Earth, members of NASA, astrophysicists, and amateur star gazers worldwide (not to mention those of us at Download Music) will be tracking its every move.
What's a better way to celebrate this historical event than a space-theme playlist? Listen via the green button below and visit the artist pages to download or stream the free MP3s. Artists include Dangerdoom, Mouse On Mars, Justin Timberland and Madonna.
The Jealous Girlfriends are just one of many new artists from Brooklyn.
New York has always been a breeding ground for talented musicians, but not since East Coast hip-hop emerged in the '80s has there been enough of a scene there to call it a movement. Today, if you zoom in on the map, you'll find the trend-setting and musically productive borough of Brooklyn. It's definitely a mecca for indie rock hipsters, but not everyone there wears ironic thrift store t-shirts. Artists such as Nada Surf, Antibalas, and Beau Jennings have ubiquitous styles that could be from anywhere, really. And this diversity is the reason why we love New York.
Our Hello Brooklyn playlist celebrates local artists from Brooklyn. Listen via the green button below, and visit Download Music to hear more great music.
Flight of the Conchords
With spring in the air and Mother's Day just around the corner, we're getting in touch with our sensitive side here at Download Music. This week we're gonna slow it down a bit and send this one out to all the ladies. In the tradition of the Beastie Boys' 1989 song "To All The Girls," modern-day crooners (Justin Timberlake and Flight of the Conchords) are keeping the dedication-style love song alive, while iconic ladies men named "Kenny" (Kenny Rogers and Kenny G) remain tender-hearted. Listen to our free Dear Ladies playlist by clicking the green button below.
Death Cab For Cutie's new album Narrow Stairs drops May 13th.
This week, tens of thousands of alt-music junkies are fleeing to the desert to take part in the hottest event around: the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival. And when we say "hottest" we mean both temperature hot and, yes, sexy hot, as well. We're impressed with the headliners, such as Portishead , Death Cab For Cutie, Jack Johnson, but we're even more down with the bands in the small print, too, such as Little Brother, Jens Lekman, and Modeselektor.
We're not actually going to Coachella (bummer), but we will be celebrating virtually via the playlist below, which features Download Music's favorite artists on this year's bill. Join us by clicking the green button to launch the free playlist.
