I have a love/hate relationship with Pandora.

On one hand, I like streaming free music and getting exposed to new artists and songs.

On the other, I hate not being able to select specific tracks, artists, fast forward, rewind, repeat or organize songs into playlists.

And then there’s the thing where you can only skip so many songs that you dislike… yeah.

I was driving to school the other day and hear a special on KCRW or maybe it was NPR… Anyway, I heard a radio program on the free online streaming site, created by Swedish startup Spotify AB.

It talked about the increasing problem of pirating music, with people using things like Pirate Bay and other illegal downloading services.

Spotify is a legal streaming service, created in October of 2008.  It’s free and unlike Pandora, you can select specific artists and tracks.  They have a surprisingly large selection of music and the search process is easy and intuitive.

You can link it to your Facebook account, and check out what your friends have been listening to.

I love sea shanties, and I found the most beautiful version of my favorite shanty, “Leaving of Liverpool,” by the High Kings.

Irish music in general is just fabulous.