If you’re like me, you have particular artists that you like to listen to. The problem lies with finding new artists that you like. I’m picky. In steps last.fm. Basically, start a free account and download the software. It will do two things: figure out from what you’ve listened to what you like, and then make new suggestions. Myself, I like just playing music from the last.fm software by typing in an artist or genre that I like and then it’ll play similar things. You can then rate songs by “love” or “ban” and it’ll figure things out further from there.  It also keeps log of what you’ve listened to, what you like, and what you don’t like.  You can also embed what you’ve listened to into your blog/tumblr/twitter/myspace etc.

I rate it as “essential.” Click the picture for their site.