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Unfortunately for us Europeans (and all the other non-US) based people, services like Pandora aren't available.

So is there a good alternative to Pandora, where you can listen to streaming music?

Preferably free and not restricted to certain countries. Spotify for instance would be awesome, but it is only available in a couple of countries. Last.fm isn't free and YouTube has to take the music from certain videos or doesn't even show them.

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IMHO this should be Community Wiki. – Fczbkk Jul 7 '10 at 10:16
what is missing for you from the free version of Last.fm? – Shevek Jul 7 '10 at 11:25
I admit I haven't tried Last.fm lately, but way back it wasn't useful for listening to any popular artists. – Ivo Flipse Jul 7 '10 at 11:31
Someone should edit the title to read "Are there any good Pandora alternatives with general availability outside the US?" Or something to that affect. – GollyJer Jul 8 '10 at 1:42
You might try to access Pandora using these recently posted tips for Hulu: lifehacker.com/5583515/… (DOES NOT REQUIRE PROXY) – drye Jul 9 '10 at 20:32

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25 Answers

up vote 58 down vote accepted

Have you tried Grooveshark ? although you have to have a browser window open, it's still pretty good

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It's not pretty good, it's awesome! – Slavo Jul 7 '10 at 11:13
I've had issues with Grooveshark running out of songs to play then just stopping. Maybe that's pebcak – Joe Philllips Jul 7 '10 at 15:03
Wow. +1 for pointing me to Grooveshark. – Stefan Lasiewski Jul 7 '10 at 19:58
It's awesome, except for the fact that the Grooveshark iPhone client has been repeatedly rejected by Apple (they made it available through Cydia after a few months of review purgatory, I'm not sure that's improving their chances). – Sidnicious Jul 8 '10 at 1:27
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Probably wont ever be approved for iPhone, Grooveshark is way too music piracy friendly, which Apple probably feels hurts their iTunes store. – davr Jul 8 '10 at 20:52
up vote 14 down vote

http://last.fm

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its also massively popular, like pandora. – CrazyJugglerDrummer Aug 3 '10 at 22:29
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I live in Brazil and I used to listen to last.fm until they started charging a monthly fee for users outside of the US and Canada. Just went back today and it seems to be working fine, but the FAQ still mentions that users outside the USA/Canada will have to pay last.fm/help/faq?category=98#333 Strange.... – user3941 Aug 13 '10 at 15:29
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Replying to my previous post. Apparently last.fm was running in trial mode (30 tracks for free) and now I have to pay to subscribe and keep listening. Guess somehow my old account reverted back to a free trial. – user3941 Aug 13 '10 at 17:26
last.fm lets me listen to "Mix Radio" (combination of music I've previously scrobbled plus recommended stuff) without subscribing - possible I've also reverted to a free trial account but there's no obvious indications of that. – Peter Boughton Oct 5 '11 at 0:51
However, one thing that bugs me about last.fm is the crappy volume - for most tracks I have both last.fm and system volume both at 100% and it's still too quiet. But occasionally a track will come along and I'll have to drop to 70% because it's artificially loud. (It's always tracks by the same artists, so I guess it means they're not volume normalised.) – Peter Boughton Oct 5 '11 at 0:54
up vote 9 down vote

I kind of like The 61. It's a website targeted at people who want to discover new music. I found some pretty cool stuff there, but there's also lots of crappy songs.

From what I know, it works without geographical limitations. I listen to it in Czech Republic without a problem.

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yup - thesixtyone.com is the best music site I've found (I listen to it more than Pandora) and love the quests it gives each user to accomplish to earn more hearts. – Book 'em Danno Jul 17 '10 at 17:30
up vote 6 down vote

I'd like to second the Grooveshark recommendation, though I either don't have enough points to comment on the original reply (or just don't know how).

In any case, a key advantage to Grooveshark over Pandora is that you can play any song you want at any time, and can even replay it. Sometimes I get a song stuck in my head and I just want to hear it right now, Grooveshark let's me do that. On Pandora, I can type in the songs name and just hope I hear it sometime in the first 10-15 songs.

Grooveshark also has a mobile client for Android and iPhone, I'm an Android user myself and have found it works well on that platform.

Grooveshark doesn't have quite the same recommendation engine as Pandora/Last.fm. I find myself using it more as a personal on-line library of favorite songs or play lists I build myself and want to hear vs. a radio station interface that picks songs for me.

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up vote 3 down vote

In the wake of Lala.com's demise, I was in a similar situation. Currently evaluating Rdio as a potential replacement. The selection isn't exceptional, but the web streaming works great, as does the iPhone app.

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check back in .. catalog situation is improving. – unhillbilly Apr 13 '11 at 1:27
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Rdio is only available in US & Canada, not for Europeans. – Peter Boughton Oct 5 '11 at 0:48
up vote 2 down vote

There's we7 which streams music free, I don't believe there are any country/region restrictions

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i can get only 30s snippets... – akira Jul 7 '10 at 11:07
up vote 2 down vote

I like slacker radio. Pretty sure you can use it anywhere, I'm in Canada and it works for me!

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Sadly, it doesn't work everywhere... – alex Jul 8 '10 at 6:43
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" We're Sorry Slacker Personal Radio is not available in your area. Unfortunately, Slacker Personal Radio is currently only available in the United States. " – Matias Jul 8 '10 at 12:17
up vote 2 down vote

www.spotify.com ?

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does not work in europe, as OP mentioned. – akira Jul 8 '10 at 5:41
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Erm, yes it does. I'm in the UK and use it perfectly well. – Unsliced Jul 15 '10 at 8:27
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@Unsliced Well if you consider only Finland, France, Norway, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom as Europe.. then yes.. it is working in Europe.... but for the rest of the World.. is not! – Lipis Dec 31 '10 at 10:12
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The commenter said that it did not work in Europe, which is an incorrect statement. I didn't say it worked in all of Europe, but the OP was not any more specific than that. It works in some of Europe, which means that the answer of Spotify is not wrong. – Unsliced Jan 2 '11 at 20:00
up vote 2 down vote

I like last.fm. They have a neat tool that well search through your music on your computer and create radio stations based on it.

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up vote 2 down vote

Mixest.com is in beta but looking good. Very simple, good selection.

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I like this service too, but it doesn't do all the cool custom station stuff that pandora / last.fm will. Its pretty much a dev side project for a couple of guys at the moment. news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1483006 – Bala Clark Jul 9 '10 at 11:56
up vote 2 down vote

It's not an equivalent to Pandora, which I too miss since it was limited to the US, but I'd recommend NPR's First Listen. They allow you to listen to albums that have not yet been released. Each album is available for a few weeks so only a few albums are available at any given time. However, they have a great taste, and it's well worth watching their list.

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up vote 2 down vote

I like Jango. not sure if it's available in the UK, but it is in Canada.

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Yeah, Jango works in the UK. Very limited in what songs it has for some artists though. – Peter Boughton Oct 5 '11 at 0:49
up vote 2 down vote

I love Grooveshark but I've been using various other sites as well depending on how I feel, most have been recommended already:

  • The Sixty One

    On thesixtyone, new artists make music and listeners decide what's good. We're nurturing a growing ecosystem where talented folks can sell songs and merchandise directly to their fans.

  • Uvumi

    Our mission is to empower artists, promote widespread creation and consumption of art, and add value to the artistic community.

  • I'd also like to recommend MeeMix - kind of like Grooveshark in that it recommends music to you but also have a feature from sixty one where you can tell the radio how adventurous you are about your music. Pretty cool I think.

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up vote 1 down vote

If you don't need to have access to all of popular music, try Uvumi.

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up vote 1 down vote

Future Perfect Radio is a nice service featuring indie music : Future Perfect Radio

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up vote 1 down vote

Another Vote for Groove Shark. It is great for your own collection as well as listening to others. If you want to upload one of your own and it is already in the system it doesn't actually upload your song again, it just adds it to your library. The RADIO function works like Pandora but doesn't seem to be as good at finding "Good" Songs. Making playlists and adding songs to Favorites is easy as pie and works great. Combine it with Groove Shark Mobile and it can't be beat.

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up vote 1 down vote

Free online music player based on HTML5 - http://prostopleer.com/?lang=en (currently available in Russian language)

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up vote 1 down vote

I listen to a stream in Pandora, and add the Good songs to my Grooveshark playlist. Then when I have enough good stuff, I put my grooveshark playlist on shuffle/repeat and kick back and enjoy!

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up vote 1 down vote

Try Musicovery.com

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up vote 1 down vote

http://lastvid.com - just like Pandora but with youtube videos.

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up vote 1 down vote

http://napster.com is an on-demand streaming service available in Germany, the UK, and Japan (in addition to the U.S.). They have a 7-day trial period.

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up vote 0 down vote

I definitely recommend we7 if you are in the UK or Ireland (you'll get 30 sec previews elsewhere).

For those recommending Grooveshark, be aware that there are some doubts over its legality, in that it doesn't pay the rightsholders of the songs it has - it's been sued by EMI and now Universal: "Grooveshark sued by another record company".

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up vote 0 down vote

http://www.slacker.com

From their about page:

Slacker was founded to deliver personalized radio to everyone. We combine the knowledge of the nation's leading music experts from every genre and your own personal tastes to create perfect radio stations for each and every listener.

We love music, and you'll hear the difference that it makes in every Slacker station. Slacker Radio is much more than a playlist creating computer that chooses songs that are similar to each other. Our expert DJs hand-pick songs based on their extensive knowledge combined with your personal preferences. Our music library is larger than our leading competitor's by millions of songs, so you'll hear all of your favorites and a ton of new music that we know you'll love!

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up vote 0 down vote

Try 8Tracks. It has user curated playlists, with (almost) unlimited listening and mobile apps for both iOS and Android in addition to a HTML5 mobile site.

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