Ok ... I'm the first to admit ... I tend to be ... what's the word ? ... phrase ? ... musically unaware? ... no ... if music is on, I hate it or love it ... well whatever it is ... it's definitely not "musically addicted." I have a collection that amounts to about maybe 20 CD's stored in my itunes player. And probably at least 40% of these I've adopted. They came to me because my husband shares his 20 CD's that he purchased mostly before we got married.

But ... gradually ... I'm trying to become more music aware. It is very gradual. Very very very gradual for many reasons ... like I can't concentrate on anything else if the music is too loud, too soft, or has words. Seriously. We'll chalk that up to my ADD.

So anyway having some desire to have more music in my life has made me somewhat aware of my music options on the Internet. Sometimes I play Accuradio. Sometimes I poke at the stations attached to itunes or Windows Media Player. A great deal of my music still comes from Dallas. Occasionally I listen to KPLX (my country fix at 99.5 - the Wolf! Sunday nights offer me an excellent opportunity to stay in touch with my Texan accent with The Front Porch Show with Texas Native Justin Frazell - 6p to 9p). Every now and then I remember that Dallas has a pretty good classical station, WRR. (But I avoid the City Council meetings like the plague.)

At Christmas I check in on KCBI (Christian). (I raised my kids and kept my sanity in those days by listening to KCBI when I was stuck in the kitchen FOR HOURS.) When I want to feel a little bit in touch with a trend slightly more current, I listen to Positive Hits Alternative, yRadio, while Billy listens to zRadio. They are sister stations in Florida.

Yesterday I was glancing at my Google Reader and it brought me this by way of my subscription to Google Operating System: Unofficial news and tips about Google™:

Musicovery is fun! Limited selection. True. But a fairly good time machine all the same. Now, when you read the post at Google Operating System, you will see that he and his readers have some other ideas, also. One mention is Last.fm.

A word of warning: Do not load up the Last.fm site with the young and impressionable nearby. The users can have some very raunchy avitars. That said ... WOW! I love it.

The link I'm providing takes you to the "Listen" page. It's true ... if you type in one artist, you will get a very close-knit group of songs that weave in and near this artist's genre. For example ... I entered "Jars of Clay" and so far I've listened to "Newsboys" "Delerious?" "Audio Adrenalin" "Third Eye Blind" "Petra" and "Building 429."

When I want quiet, I enter "Enya" or "George Winston." (Unfortunately none of his music is available but it usually results in instrumentals with no words.) Then I get more music like theirs.

Last.fm also learns what music to play for you and it's fairly easy to teach it ("heart" or "stamp out" symbols). With some discernment, you can also figure out how to create a play list. There's also a downloadable program to help you with your library that is stashed on your computer. Yeah. No. I haven't felt the need to organize my 20 cds.

Well, alright, so, give me some artists to expand my horizons with and ya'll go have fun, now. Ya hear?