Bloggerhythms

AccuRadio is one of the best music Internet streaming services. It offers well over 1,000 stations. It's very easy to use and you can customize stations to suit your listening habits by rating every song you hear. Unusually, the site also offers an unlimited number of song skips as long as you sign up for a FREE account. You can also ban songs and artists forever. AccuRadio pays the bills with ads on their website and with commercials on their stations but all account holders will receive the benefit of a reduced number of commercial breaks. The Chicago based outfit has stations featuring everything from classical, opera, beautiful music, Broadway, jazz, blues, many rock and country music stations, folk, singer-songwriters, hip-hop and Christmas music. There are hits stations for every decade from the 1950s through the 2000s and ones that offer Christian music and comedy. Examples of the unique channels AccuRadio fans can enjoy are Ladies Sing the Blues , so titled becaus...

Logo used by permission  Sirius XM has taken their very best music station off the satellites forever. Apparently The Loft didn't pull in enough listeners to satisfy the suits who run the company so their free form, DJ programmed, alternative radio station is now only available online. Most of the station's talented jocks are gone too and it appears to be programmed by robots rather than real people. As you may have guessed, devoted Loft listeners, like me, are not happy. It's enough to make me reconsider my Sirius XM subscription when renewal time rolls around. Fans of this formerly excellent, radio throwback to the late 1960s and early 70s have been commiserating with each other online and happily, because of The Loft's demolition, people have shared some great new radio listening discoveries. So today, Bloggerhythms begins a new series where we'll be writing about some great broadcast and Internet alternatives to the alternative. The painting above i...

Have you ever wondered why a singer's voice matches the kind of music they perform? For instance, does Michael Bublé sing pop and jazz because that is what he excels at or is it because it's the music he loves? The first question crossed my mind immediately when I heard Steady Your Aim , the new, sophomore album from Andrew Sheppard. There are singers with better voices than the one this countrified roots-rocker possesses but there are few singers whose vocals fit the the kind of songs they sing as well as his does. Upon graduation the young Sheppard moved to Los Angeles from Idaho to fulfill his skateboarding dreams but he tore up his knee. Fortunately, he also loved music so he renewed his interest in the art form after having played in several bands while in high school. Let's sincerely hope that Sheppard's knee has healed properly but the loss of his original career choice was our gain because he became an extremely talented singer-songwriter. Sheppard starte...