by SHANE SINNOTT

When I was younger, I spent a lot of my free time trying to find out about new music. In those bygone days, when no one had home Internet access, if you wanted to listen to an entire album, you had to buy it—record executives, in those times, were known to light their cigars with $100 bills. If you were lucky enough to live in signal range, you could be exposed to new music through college radio, and CBC’s Brave New Waves was always a good bet. In short, it was nothing like today, when—thanks to the continuing disintegration of morals in our godless society—you can basically download whatever you want for free. And yet, I got into more music that I ended up liking back then, because I spent so much time talking to others about it.

With this in mind, I set out this week to try a couple of services that attempt to guide you to something new based on what you already like, and what people who like what you like like. Get it? The first is last.fm, which bills itself as “the social music revolution.” The idea is, you create an account and it builds a database of what you like, and then cross-references that with everyone else’s database to point you in new directions. A great thing about it is that whenever you want, you can type in a band name and the site will immediately “create” a continuously streaming radio station for you based on what it thinks you’ll like. This works surprisingly well, although it didn’t provide me with much stuff I wasn’t already familiar with.

Next was ilike.com. This is more of a social-networking site—you download an add-in for iTunes and create a profile, and the thing keeps track of everything you listen to, suggests new music, and then, ahem, attempts to hook you up with people. The site is new enough that its success is far from assured, though when you consider how many people become friends in real life based solely on music preferences, maybe it’ll work.

ssinnott@gmail.com