Today we’re suggesting a better way to listen to music while cooking. Or exercising. Or throwing a dinner party. Or cleaning the house.

Because that’s how Songza works: Instead of building “stations” based on artists and algorithms, the site streams expert-made playlists based on your current mood and situation, all without commercial interruption.

Start by choosing the time of day and an activity (e.g. cooking dinner on a Wednesday evening) then your preferred genre. Songza will recommend three playlists, each with a brief description and song samples.

The genius here is that you may not know how fun it is to listen to ‘60’s soul while making dinner or what indie songs are good for working out — but you don’t need to because Songza does. And apps for Android, iPhone, and Kindle Fire ensure that the right playlist for the present situation can be cued up in just a few taps.

So you can focus on what you’re doing instead of what you’re listening to while doing it.

But has everyone else at this party?

If it has a computer and you have an iDevice or Android handy, you can start playing YouTube videos with the help of Clik. In quite possibly the best use of a QR code ever, you simply load the site, scan the screen with the app, and poof: Your phone becomes your remote.

Browse categories for new videos or queue up clips you’ve already favorited within your Clik app. “Trending” is easily the most accessable category, but there’s also stuff close to our heart like TeamCoco, Cyriak, and The Onion. If nothing else, there’s always the search button.

All the other controls appear on your phone, so favoriting, pausing, and adjusting the volume are all conveniently at your fingertips.

So the party can rage on, complete with screams of “Look Ma! No keyboard!”

More as in 14 million more.

That’s how many songs are on Raditaz, a service similar to Pandora in many ways save one: Its library has 13 million more songs.

Tuning in will be familiar for Pandora fans (though the depth of stations will not). Select a band as the station’s foundation, then like and dislike songs to hone future suggestions. Only six skips are allowed per hour per station.

Then there are apps for iDevices and Android. Enhanced features include the option to name each station you create (“work out,” “break up,” etc.) and browse stations in a Twitter-like trending section or laid out on a Google map.

Which is more than a few options to consider.

Now Tubalr plans to combine the two in an effort to resurrect both.

Like Pandora for music videos, the site generates lists comprised either entirely of your favorite band’s videos or a mish-mash of artists with the same musical qualities.

Last.fm’s infrastructure provides every group’s autobiographical information along with the ability to listen to entire genres in the hopes of stumbling onto a new favorite band.

But where the site really shines is live performances. For example, we created a playlist of our favorite videos from the genius site La Blogotheque, which films guerilla concerts from the likes of Arcade Fire (in an elevator) and Bon Iver (in an abandoned apartment).

There’s no sign up necessary to use Tubalr, but creating an account enables you to sock away favorites and share playlists of your own.

Music videos. What a novel idea.

Bonus certainty: that you’ve got a jam.

And now you can share it with This Is My Jam, a refreshingly simple site with a refreshingly simple purpose – to let everyone know what song you can’t get out of your head right now.

Log in using Facebook or Twitter then search for your tune. The site pulls content from HypeMachine and Youtube; you can also connect a SoundCloud account or upload your own files.

This is My Jam will add the cover art and post your jam to Facebook or Twitter. Your song will be available for everyone to enjoy for exactly one week; after that, send out your latest favorite to keep your friends’ headphones fresher than Georgia peach preserves in May.

Another jam we highly recommend.

Then, iTunes.

Everyone’s Mixtape takes us back to the glory days. Virtual mixes are restricted to 60, 90, or 120 minutes (fantastically old school), though you can add any song from YouTube, SoundCloud, and Vimeo with a simple drag and drop (decidedly new school).

Add songs to a tape until the site tells you it’s full, rearrange the play order for optimal impact (track #3 is most important, obviously), and then share it with the world via Facebook and Twitter, or with a single person via email.

Sure, it’s not as personal as handing it to them, but it’s a heck of a lot more convenient.

In order to properly sing the praises of our favorite bands who’ve won the fight, we use Superglued. Their website and their apps for iPhone and Android let you track all of your favorite concerts while planning for your next upcoming favorites.

Things like attending a show and uploading a photo or a set list will earn you points sometimes good for prizes—or you can just use it as your personal concert calendar. It also syncs with just about every social network available so you can spread the love wherever you want to.

And as your love grows, your concert recommendations grow increasingly accurate. That way you never miss your shows or waste money on disappointing sets from poorly trained entertainers.

Whichever lip sync-free champions you choose to back though, be wary: entering the arena while yelling, “THIS! IS! SPARTA!” will only guarantee seats in security holding cells.

At least we can relive the Webby experience with the Webby Awards Pandora® Mixtape. Created to honor Webby Artist of the Year LCD Soundsystem, the station combines the irresistible urge to dance brought on by the Webby celebration with the double awesomeness of Pandora® internet radio and the Music Genome Project®.

If you’re anything like us, finding and listening to music on Pandora continues to be one of the few things we couldn’t live without.  It doesn’t matter if you’re more into Black Flag or Rebecca Black: their stockpile of music is always growing, so your personalized music experience stays fresh.

Besides, anyone that allows us to dance along to the Webby Awards year-round is a friend of ours.  It also doesn’t hurt that Pandora has helped us perfect our desk dancing moves.

Amazon Cloud Drive provides the Internet’s most reputable and reliable cloud storage. It provides 5GB of free backup storage, no physical hard drive necessary. If you have the Internet, you have your files.

The first 5 gigabytes come free, but if you find yourself running out of space yearly plans are also available. Options include $20 for 20GB, $50 for 50GB and so on up to a Terabyte (1000GB).

Awesome Deal Alert: purchase of an MP3 album on Amazon comes with 20GB of free storage on the Cloud Drive for a year. And Amazon’s Cloud Player for your desktop or Android phone lets you take your music with you wherever you go.

Be warned though, Cloud Drive is by no means the best way to get songs unstuck from your head.

We’re getting back in touch with our chilly roots with TuneIn. The free app livestreams radio stations from all corners of the globe right to your mobile device or web-enabled TV.

Over 50,000 stations of music, live talk, news and sports from around the world are streamed through the app. You can browse by location, type or for your favorite song. If it’s playing, you’ll be patched through to the station for instant listening.

Listening to live radio is still a great way to find new music to freshen up stale iPod playlists. And exploring TuneIn by location means tons of unexpected possibilities…FYI, Greenland knows how to rock really hard.

And if all goes to plan, soon you’ll be using the app to listen to our proposed morning show: Allow Me To Interrupt With Kanye West (working title).

Thankfully mSpot is here to help you get your music fix no matter where you are. The app streams your home music library to other devices, like your work computer and phone.

The mSpot Uploader copies music from your computer to the mSpot.com cloud. From there, you can listen to your early 90s Alt-Rock B-Sides from a browser or smartphone.

It’s easy to sync your music library with mSpot so you always have access to your latest tunes. And you can download songs from mSpot right to your mobile device, so you can continue to rock out in tunnels or down on the farm.

Users can upload 5 gigs of music (about 4,000 songs) for free. Serious music addicts can upgrade to 40GB for a measly $3.99/month.

So when the craving to hear “Linger” strikes, we’ll never be unprepared again.

And for cinema lovers, mSpot Movies allows you to rent brand new movies to stream over your mobile device or laptop. It makes missing the train home less “tragic” and more “the perfect opportunity to watch Harry Potter.”

Jog.fm is a great resource for some tunes to help you power through your next 5k training session. Songs are ordered by BPM to play when you need them most during your run.

They’ve also integrated with Google Maps so you can verify that your 5k strut is actually 5k. Even if you’re not much of a runner, Jog.fm is also responsible for Cycle by Jog.fm and Walk by Jog.fm, which have the same awesome functionality.

We’re going to copyright the name DJ Feel The Burn, so don’t even think about it.

TidySongs is your computer’s watchful librarian, crouching silently in the background, ready to pounce and fix every misaligned mp3. It rectifies album art, song duplicates, erroneous genres and misspelled bands or titles.

The Dewey Decimal system of iTunes Libraries also boasts a simulation mode, making it easy to test relabeling consequence-free. The trial version will reshelve 50 of your songs for free and the full version guarantees a spotless iTunes library.

Finally, the serenity and order offered by libraries world-round is available right in your very computer.

Special Discount for Netted Subscribers:

Take 25% off your purchase of TidySongs by entering the discount code “WEBBYAWARDS” at checkout.

iConcertCal makes missing a concert (Bieber or otherwise) almost impossible by monitoring your iTunes library and alerting you when the artists you listen to schedule shows in your town.

Not only is personal convenience at an all-time high, but your newly minted schedule of musical excellence can also be exported to your personal iCal or to your friends’. The newest version even tracks album releases, so sharing hot new tracks is almost too easy.

Apps are available for your iPhone or Android device to keep you up-to-date when you’re on the go.

Though J.Biebs only has two albums out right now, the chances that he could either drop his next “Baby” or perform nearby are rapidly increasing. We’ve got a fever, and the only cure is more Bieber.

Discovr for the iPad eliminates the junk by creating a web of artists related through similar styles, band members or collaborations, based on things you already like. TuneGlue offers a similar web-based experience by using Last.Fm play counts and Amazon purchases to suggest new bands or artists.

Exploring harkens back to the days when we first discovered IMDB or Wikipedia, except now information is displayed as an ever-growing spider web of new music. The hours slip away while we simply sit and click.

Discovr’s design is slick and intuitive, quickly bringing up biographies, blogs and videos for quick listening. TuneGlue can easily fill you in on news and artist discographies, and makes it easy to buy albums on Amazon.

With the help of Discovr, music discovery is more “Sample Sale” and less “Yard Sale.”

To avoid being caught tuneless, we suggest Mougg, a service that allows you to access your music from anywhere through the power of cloud computing.

Uploading your music to Mougg allows you to access it from any computer anywhere in the world. The first gigabyte of space is free (about 250 songs), or you can pay to upgrade to a monthly plan for more data space.

We love Mougg for its lightning fast upload and streaming speeds, the ability to make playlists and for its mobile capabilities (Android phones are supported for now, with an iPhone app coming soon).

We’re just happy that we’ll never be without our daily Van Halen pump up session ever again.

To add a soundtrack to your life, check out Playlist.com, a free and easy way to build (and save) playlists of your favorite songs, allowing you to access them anywhere, anytime.

You can start using the service right away by searching for songs and adding them to a list.

However, we recommend creating an account so you’ll be able to save your playlists and take advantage of the site’s features (like collaborating with friends).

Proud of your work? You can easily share your playlists on Facebook and Twitter, making your music accessible from anywhere.

If you don’t feel like searching and building, or if you just need some inspiration, you can listen to popular playlists created by other users. You can also alter existing playlists, making them your own.

Finally, a healthy outlet for your list-making compulsion.

Enter Tinysong, a service that allows users to search the Grooveshark streaming music database and share songs through Twitter via a shortened URL.

The site doesn’t require any sort of account registration or download.

Simply type in a song you’d like to share, and Tinysong will present a list of results, organized by song and artist.

Once you’ve found the song you’re looking for, click the “share” button and Tinysong will convert the track into a Tweetable URL that will direct your friends to Grooveshark.

You could always try humming your favorite songs to your friends as well, but that’s so 2005.

To keep your musical street cred, we suggest Track In The Box, a daily email that brings a song recommendation to your inbox every morning.

Signing up for the email will help you discover (and sometimes rediscover) great bands. Each day, you’ll be sent a recommended song to listen to (which sometimes includes a free download)

Each song is hand picked by respected musicians and music journalists. All genres are represented, and old music is as prevalent as new (as they put it, “anything goes”).

You’ll thank us when you don’t play that Taylor Swift album at your next dinner party.

For a last second save, try Playlistnow.fm, a free music streaming service that plays tunes based on what you’re doing.

To start, simply type in what you’re doing in site’s search bar (you’re prompted with an “I am…” line). Playlistnow.fm returns a list of playlists created by other users to suit the situation.

Whether you’re looking for quite background music for paying bills or something to start your Saturday night, Playlistnow.fm has you covered.

Click on any list to see what songs it contains and to preview, share, or add individual tunes, to create your own playlist. (The site even lets you add songs to other users playlists to improve them).

Like other streaming sites, Playlistnow.fm also allows users to search for tunes by artist, song, or looking at other user’s song lists.

Consider it a chance to give new life to the lost are of making a mix tape.

To help change up your inner-playlist, there’s Unhear it, a website that aims to dislodge any song that may be stuck on replay in your head.

Simply visit the site and click play. An extremely catchy tune will begin playing in the hopes of finally getting that other less good song out of your head.

At first blush, you may question the site’s effectiveness. But when you’ve got Def Leppard stuck in your head and you pit “Pour Some Sugar On Me” against “Spanish Flea,” the latter will usually win.

Consider it a spa break for your head.

To expand your musical horizons without the hassle, there’s Thesixtyone, a website that promotes lesser-known and unsigned artists by offering streaming music and cheap downloads.

To get the most out of the service, create an account and begin “liking” the tracks that suit your tastes (this allows for tailored recommendations based on what you’re into).

You can also let site DJ for you, picking songs at random. Or you can opt for playlists of songs sorted by most popular, the hottest tracks, by mood, or based on recommendations derived from the songs you’ve “liked.”

Thesixtyone allows musicians to make some money by offering direct downloads of many of the songs without label middleman (some are even free).

Consider it your daily dose of sticking it to the Man.

Thankfully there’s Rdio, a social music service that allows you discover and share music through your friends wherever you are, including your desktop or smartphone.

Start by downloading the Rdio desktop application and clicking “match collection.” After analysis, whatever songs from your library are available on the service will appear in your Rdio collection.

If you own single tracks from artists, you can even add the rest of the tracks from their respective albums. You can also browse to add music to your library or grab songs from friends.

We like the browser interface, which is clean and easy to use.  But to get the full potential download the free mobile app (Android, iPhone and BlackBerry are supported).  It allows you to stream your entire Rdio library to wherever you happen to be.

After a 3-day free trial, Rdio Unlimited costs $9.99/month, and supports both web and mobile use.  Rdio Web costs $4.99/month.  Both plans allow you to play as many songs as you want, anytime.

Think of it as an all you can eat music buffet that’s always open.

Enter Soundcloud, a service that allows you to send, receive and store original music files in one easy location.

Start by creating a free account. From there, you can easily search the site for music and either set tracks as a favorite, download them or share them with others.

If a friend or artist creates a track that they think you should hear, they can easily forward it to your “dropbox.” You can even create a link button for your Facebook page so friends can always add music.

Soundcloud is incredibly fast and there are no limits to file sizes (all formats accepted). You also have control over who gets to listen to your music (stats are compiled on who has listened and downloaded your tracks).

For bands or artists who want unlimited sharing, better stats and full support, there’s the premium service (they start at around $36 per year).

Your mixtape days are about to start again.

Playing music on your computer is great.  But sometimes you want to play it in other places throughout the house.

Luckily, there’s Airfoil, a downloadable program that allows you to stream audio simultaneously to almost any media device in your house without the use of an extra router.

Simply download and install the software (it costs $25 and both Macs and Windows-based PCs are supported).

Airfoil syncs audio on all of the supported devices on your network, which includes laptops, PCs, iPhones, iPod Touches, and Apple TVs, turning your gadgets into a wireless speaker system.

From there, just let the music play (from the internet or your mp3 collection). The software lets you select various devices throughout your house, and they play the music as well.

You are now free to air guitar throughout your house.

Enter Blip.fm, a new service that allows you to play DJ by creating (and listening to) custom playlists, song by song.

First, choose your DJ name and list a few of your favorite musical acts (a wide range of choices works best).

From there, Blip will compare your taste in music with data from other users. When you find users you like, you add them to your DJ homepage, which uses a Twitter-like streaming format to show updates (or “Blips”) each time a fellow DJ plays a new song.

Click on a song to play it.  As it plays, you’ll also see the music video (if one is available).  If you like the song, you can add it to your profile.

When you get tired of listening to the work of other DJ’s, begin selecting songs to add to your own custom playlist. You can even add messages to each blip, so others know why you’ve chosen it when it shows up on their stream.

(The sharing isn’t just limited to other Blip users, either. You can broadcast your picks on a variety of social networks, including Twitter and Tumblr.)

All the music is available for free, making Blip.fm an incredible source for listening to your old favorites and learning about new ones.

Your listeners are waiting…

But consider the fact that it means you can get podcasts, live music bootlegs and endless hours of other forms of entertainment, all for free.

This is the logic behind Dirpy, a tool that allows you to convert your favorite YouTube videos into high quality mp3s, all in real time.

To start, enter a search term on their homepage and you’ll see a list of video results. Click on the one you want and you’re taken to what they call the “transcoder” page.

Here you’ll be able to name the clip, pick the quality of the audio and even customize the start and end time for the file (in case you only want part of the clip).

You can also edit the ID3 tag information, to make sure the newly created file dovetails neatly with your online music player’s existing collection.

Finally, a way to add that rare version of Susan Boyle singing “I Dreamed A Dream” to your iTunes party mix.

That’s the notion behind Amie Street, a music site that offers a unique progressive pricing structure that lets you save money for selecting music before it gets popular.

When a new song or album is added to the site it’s available for free or very cheap (the site doesn’t specify a maximum starting price).

The price only goes up as demand for a song increases (in terms of total downloads).  The more attuned you are the cheaper your music prices will be.

And even if you’re late to an artist, the highest price a song can reach is 98 cents (one cent below the starting price for songs on an unnamed service started by a guy who favors mock turtlenecks).

The site also rewards users for recommending new music. If you recommend a song that happens to get popular, Amie Street will credit your account as more users download the track (the amount of credit you receive increases as the song gets more popular).

And, in a nod to its open-source philosophy, Amie Street encourages artists to upload their own music.

In other words, you can finally distribute that demo you’ve had in your desk drawer for years.

Try Grooveshark, a simple-to-use music streaming service and search engine that allows you to listen to streaming audio from tens of thousands of artists. For free.

(In other words, almost anything you’d want to hear, though they were just sued by Universal, but let’s not dwell on that).

Using their drop-dead simple interface you search for an artist, song or genre and Grooveshark will provide matches.

You can listen to a track immediately or add it to a custom playlist to enjoy later.  You can also export it to your desktop and play it via their downloadable widget.

To take advantage of the site’s social networking abilities sign up for a free account (a “VIP” account costs $3/month and makes it ad-free). From there, you can browse the playlists of other users and share your songs with friends.

Grooveshark also functions as an Internet radio service (akin to Pandora). Just enable the radio option while playing any song and the app will record your preferences and provide a steady flow of songs based on your tastes.

So go ahead and let the music play.

To recapture some of that programming magic, try 8tracks, a free service that allows you to create and share the digital equivalent of online mix tapes.

To make a mix you simply pick any 8 songs (about 30 minutes of music) using the site’s drag and drop functionality.  8tracks allows you to search their network of previously uploaded tracks by song, artist or genre. You can also upload music from your own library.

When you’re done you can add artwork and short descriptor to your masterpiece.

Publishing a mix tape allows you to share it with the 8 Tracks community and with your friends (or, if you want, just one special friend), via Twitter and Facebook

You can also listen to any of the 65,000 mixes already on the site (we found some great ones and discovered a ton of new music along the way).

As for that old Nakamichi tape deck you still own?  Leave it in the closet to collect dust.

Luckily there’s Livekick, a concert ticket search engine that provides concert recommendations (based on your musical tastes and locale) and then helps you buy tickets at the cheapest available prices.

The site uses your zip code and your listening habits (you either enter your favorite artists manually or the site can glean the info from your iTunes library and other digital music services) to figure out when the bands you like will be in your area.  Livekick will also make concert recommendations based on those preferences.

When you find a show or an artist you want to see you click on it and the site takes you to a page that aggregates tickets with real-time pricing from the top ten online sellers, including Ticketmaster, StubHub and Tickets.com. The page also has venue information and arena maps (so you can see how good your seats will be).

Download their widget and it’ll scan your digital music libraries and recommend shows based on what it finds.

You will, however, have to bring your own lighter to the show.

Luckily for you, there’s Slacker, a customizable internet radio service that lets you enter a song or artist and comes back with a never ending stream of personalized song recommendations.

Slacker offers many of the features found on sites like Pandora and Last.fm, including the ability to skip songs (it’s limited to 5 an hour), mark favorites and access your stations across any platform, all for free.

(True buffs can upgrade to Radio Plus for $4.99/month, which removes all restrictions and ads.)

However, what differentiates Slacker is its customizability. As part of every stream, users can further control what will show up, from picking certain songs to highlighting a specific time period or genre.

You can also use it on the road, whether through their mobile apps for iPhone, Android and Blackberry (the app layout is actually better than their web interface) or via their branded player, which runs for $130 and resembles a slightly pudgy iPod.

So if you’re looking to broaden your musical horizons, or just want to put your collection on ice, Slacker will be there to hold your hand.

Musicovery aims to change this, offering a streaming web music service that randomly generates playlists based on your mood.

You click a point on the mood spectrum (essentially a matrix where “Energetic” and “Calm” are at the poles while “Dark” and “Positive” are to the left and right) and it creates a unique selection of songs, complete with funky graphical plotting of the playlist.

Unlike services where users are taken directly to a song or artist this method results in exposure to new music.  As with a really great radio show you never know what’ll come next but you’re certain it’ll be good.

Where else can one jump from Youssou N’Dour to Credence Clearwater Revival to Shabba Ranks based on the fact that one felt a bit mellow?

The service is free, though they do offer a premium upgrade for $4 per month that boasts improved sound quality and the ability to rate songs. (Like Pandora the Musicover system can “learn” about your tastes the more active you are at ranking songs).

Users have the option to limit the selection to a specific year or range of years and to deselect any genre.  You can also enter an artist by name and it’ll create a playlist of related artists.

Come across a tune you like?  You can buy it on iTunes or Amazon with one click.

One other plus: you’ll never have to worry about Musicovery melting because you left it on your car’s dashboard.

Lala.com is changing the game by allowing users to listen to any of the 8 million songs on the site for free, in their entirety, in an ad-free environment.

Granted, you can only listen once. But if you like the song you can buy a web version of it for a mere 10 cents.

It’s then saved in your personal library, accessible from any browser, including the one in your phone. Your music is on the “cloud” whenever you want to listen.

MP3 versions are available for an additional 79 cents (yes, that’s cheaper than those other guys who sell tunes). These are loaded straight into iTunes and, because they are DRM-free, can be played on any device you have.

Lala.com, one of the providing partners for the newly launched Google Music, has agreements with the four major record labels and more than 170,000 independent labels and distributors.

This means all the music is licensed (and legal). In other words, your days as a music pirate may be over.

Download TuneUp, an application that fills in the missing info–artist, song name, album, release year, cover art and genre–for any questionably sourced music in your digital library (not that you ever used Napster or uploaded a bootlegged CD).

TuneUp runs alongside iTunes. You drag your “dirty” tracks into the TuneUp box and it compares the songs to the Gracenote database, pulling in the missing data.

While TuneUp isn’t 100% reliable at identifying every song ever made it was accurate enough to straighten out our messy song library.

There’s also something called “Tuniverse”—interesting service, so-so name—that’s meant to enhance your music experience by providing related band suggestions, videos, bios and even alerts for upcoming concerts.

One thing it won’t do: Purge your system of all those Candlebox albums.