July 2012 Media Thread

RobertLumley

This is the monthly thread for posting media of various types that you've found that you enjoy. I find that exposure to LW ideas makes me less likely to enjoy some entertainment media that is otherwise quite popular, and finding media recommended by LWers is a good way to mitigate this. Post what you're reading, listening to, watching, and your opinion of it. Post recommendations to blogs. Post whatever media you feel like discussing! To see previous recommendations, check out the older threads.

Rules:

Please avoid downvoting recommendations just because you don't personally like the recommended material; remember that liking is a two-place word. If you can point out a specific flaw in a person's recommendation, consider posting a comment to that effect.
If you want to post something that (you know) has been recommended before, but have another recommendation to add, please link to the original, so that the reader has both recommendations.
Please use the comment trees for genres, which I was apparently too dumb to do.
If you have a thread to add, such as a video game thread or an Anime thread, please post it to the Other Media thread for now, and add a poll to the Meta thread asking if it should be a thread every month.

Rules:

Please avoid downvoting recommendations just because you don't personally like the recommended material; remember that liking is a two-place word. If you can point out a specific flaw in a person's recommendation, consider posting a comment to that effect.
If you want to post something that (you know) has been recommended before, but have another recommendation to add, please link to the original, so that the reader has both recommendations.
Please use the comment trees for genres, which I was apparently too dumb to do.
If you have a thread to add, such as a video game thread or an Anime thread, please post it to the Other Media thread for now, and add a poll to the Meta thread asking if it should be a thread every month.

For optimal music appreciation, I recommend the website RadioTuna. It features a list of free online streaming radio stations, arranged by genre. You can also search by station, or by currently playing artists.

They file under genre according to their own analysis of what the station plays, not according to how the station markets itself. Though there are other online services to stream music online, the benefits of RadioTuna are that it is

available worldwide (as far as I can tell) and features radio stations from all over; unlike Pandora which is unavailable in many countries (including where I live)
the way it's organised into genres and sub-genres mean you can start listening to a style of music you want to know more about without knowing any of the artists or terminology.

For example, a little over a year ago I decided I wanted to know more about Jamaican Ska - I found an appropriate station on RadioTuna, specifically playing first-wave jamaican ska, not the other derived genres, and left it on in the background while doing other stuff on my computer. Any time I heard a song I liked, I could just click into my DJ and see who it was by (without having to wait around for announcers to name the song and artist, or risk missing the announcement or mishearing it) - I now have a modest but working knowledge of Jamaican Ska music.

available worldwide (as far as I can tell) and features radio stations from all over; unlike Pandora which is unavailable in many countries (including where I live)

FWIW, I use Pandora and it is very similar. This is an obvious advantage, but if you have access to Pandora, I'm not sure which is better.

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