*blip blip*

Blind Melon! K's Choice! Bananarama! Coolio! Just some of the artists I've found I want to listen to, but definitely don't, and won't ever, own their album. I don't download them either. I blip them.

If you haven't used Blip.fm before, it can be a little confusing at first, but it's really quite simple - it's a database of just about every song in the world (even SA's own Zebra & Giraffe) at your fingertips to listen to at your whim. Great for those days at work when you suddenly think "how did that Female of the Species song go again?".

Blip.fm allows you to be your own "DJ", and for you to gather "listeners" as you build your playlist of weird and wonderful tunes and one-hit-wonders. If you've used Twitter before, it's like tweeting each song you listen to, and gathering "followers". Twitter with music. And it's fun. The only other time I'm likely to stumble across America's "Horse with No Name" is at a rugby braai at my parent's. Here though, the list of what you're listening to - if you're not actively searching yourself - it determined by what those DJs that you're following choose - and it could be *anything*.

While searching for Placebo this morning, I find myself listening to TV on the Radio thanks to AlyG, closely followed by Heisai Yasokawa's Empty Orchestra thanks to Matriax - something I'm never likely to have heard otherwise.

Blip.fm is great for finding those one-hit-wonders you remember jiving to at your school disco, as well as discovering new music from people with similar tastes to yourself, with very little effort.

Come find me on Blip!