In the last couple of days I've discovered turntable.fm. It sells itself as the first member of the next generation of social music services, and I have to say it's pretty good. Basically in each 'room', which are normally guided towards a particular genre, there are 5 people who take it in turns to play songs for the others in the room. A very basic idea, but it manages to be remarkably addictive. You get 'DJ points' for playing popular things, and you can be skipped if you play stuff people don't like. The surprising thing about it is the high level of music taste in certain rooms - obviously there is a lot of crap, but when America wakes up there are normally a good few rooms playing the kind of thing I want to hear - the last 3 songs before I started to write this post were by the Vaselines, the Softies and Mazzy Star. At the moment it's only in the alpha stage, which means that it hasn't had a public release, but if you're Facebook friends with anyone who has access (such as me) you are allowed to use it.
I remember the Mazzy Star track, Blue Flower, from a Jools Holland DVD I got a few years ago of mid-90s American alt.rock. I need to dig it out and have a re-watch I think. Although they were short-lived, they made at one brilliant album (1993's 'So Tonight That I Might See') and a couple of classic singles. It's all very fuzzy and 90s, and it's the kind of thing that is ripe for a rediscovery by the indie rock community in the way shoegaze and slowcore have been in the last couple of years.
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