online music

To save ourselves from listening to our mom's record collection on repeat during this weekend's family gathering, we're taking on DJ duties. Forget flipping discs on a boombox; hook some powerful speakers up to a laptop and sign into these online music services to keep the party moving with new and unexpected tunes.

• Pandora — A classic, Pandora keeps us going through the work day with our curated stations. Due to copyright licensing, listening to songs by the same artist is limited, but the service does allow you to skip over song fails.
• Turntable.fm — We're taken with discovering new music through this new online digital music service. Hop into a crowd-friendly room; the "I <3 the 80s" room is a good choice.
• 8tracks — Mixtapes make a comeback on 8tracks, which lets users listen to mixtapes created by the community. Listen to playlists based on artist or genre and follow users whose mixes you love.
• Spotify — Check out what your friends are listening to and discover new tunes with this free music service. You can pay for upgraded and premium services to get wireless streaming on your iPhone too, which makes it easy to plug and play to whatever iPod dock your parents have lying around.

Click through for three more online music resources.

I miss all the quirky tricks of creating a perfect mixtape: timing the perfect pause between songs, watching the tape spin in the player, and deciding which songs are more of an "A Side" fit. Granted, this can still be re-created if I try, but with the new iPhone AirCassette app ($2) I get the look of a cassette with all the re-imagined fun of the digital age.

Choose your favorite familiar blank cassette tape look, then pick songs from your device's library to include in the mix. Skip to the next song or listen to a previous track by tapping on one of the tape's turning spindles. Move on to a different mixtape by swiping through your cassette collection. AirCassette even supports Apple's AirPlay to listen to music via wireless speakers, which is way more than I remember my mixtapes doing.

While YouTube may be your go-to destination for funny cat videos, it's also a top spot to hear music. And since music is so popular on the video-streaming site, it's now launched YouTube Music, an online destination for trending music and videos with recommended and artist-curated playlists and lists of upcoming live shows in your area. You can also find the current YouTube 100 list, which shows you which artists are the most popular on the site right now. The Red Hot Chili Peppers kicked things off with its quintessential rock-and-roll playlist — check out its recommendations in the video.

Music recommendation services are blowing up all over the Internet right now. Learn about a few more online destinations to get music recommendations and curated playlists below!

• Spotify — Spotify is new to US users, but music lovers in the UK have been enjoying the music streaming and discovery platform for a while. Spotify allows you to find and stream your favorite tunes online, connect with other friends via Facebook to see what they're listening to, and discover new music through curated playlists from icons like Pitchfork.
• Digster — This playlist service comes from the music aficionados at Universal Music Group and works alongside Spotify to bring you playlists and mixes for long road trips, bad moods, or impromptu dance parties. It's free and even pairs up with your free Spotify subscription.
• 8tracks — Taking the radio online, 8tracks users spend painstaking hours crafting mixes for your listening pleasure. You can also legally share your own mixes of eight handpicked songs for others to enjoy.
• Rdio — Rdio is like a mashup of Amazon's cloud storage and Spotify: you can store your music online and discover new tunes from friends who are also using the service.
• Pandora — The O.G. music streaming and discovery service, Pandora, lets you choose a song to kick things off. It then pumps your speakers full of similar songs you know and love or even ones you've never heard of.
• Magnifier — Though not a streaming service, Google has launched a Google Music Beta blog called Magnifier to help you discover new music by giving free tracks to download into your storage locker.

The latest addition to the online music, Spotify, launched in the US last week and it's had the Internet buzzing. We've been using the service once the invites came through and are, admittedly, hooked on the sleek desktop application.

The cloud-based music streaming service offers free limited access to users on the desktop app. While, $5 per month gains desktop users full access to the Spotify music library, and $10 allows unlimited access, syncing with mobile devices, and off-line listening. We've compiled what we love and don't really dig about the service – do you agree?

• Hear what you want to hear, when you want to hear it. Want to play Blondie at your '80s dance party? Search "Heart of Glass" and listen to the song in full. Sure there are some artists that Spotify doesn't have rights to, but with over 15 million tracks available, the amount of accessible songs is impressive.
• Collaborative playlists make the music world go round. Users can allow friends to add to a playlist by right clicking on the playlist's name in the left menu sidebar and selecting the collaborative playlist option.
• We've all seen the dreaded "Buffering . . ." label on streaming media service, but we've yet to run into this problem with Spotify's speedy service.

Click through for a few qualms about Spotify.

Generally, Valentine's Day can go one of two ways: good, or bad. For those who aren't counting the minutes until the most romantic day of the year, Pandora has created its own "Love Stinks" station featuring popular breakup tracks and songs that are anything but lovey-dovey.

The station is part of the timely Valentine's Day genre, which also includes V-Day-friendly stations like "80s Love Songs," "Alternative Indie Love Songs," and "Pop Love Songs."

If you're one of the many who are avoiding Valentine's Day this year for one reason or another, this station is worth a listen.