A few music sites you've probably heard of, but may not have taken advantage of:

1. Last.fm

Last.fm is my most recently-discovered, and current favorite, social networking site. My last.fm profile can be found here. On my profile, you can see everything from my most-played artists of the past seven days, the Beatles and Pendulum, to my most-played artist of all time, Fall Out Boy. Friends can also connect on last.fm and see what each other are listening to and have listened to. You can connect to a friend's or other user's library and listen to their music, or browse through artists and genres and listen to songs that way. Last.fm is a great way to expose yourself to new artists and styles of music that you may like. It is also an interesting catalogue of your own and your friends' music-listening habits. For example, I learned that I need to lay off of Fall Out Boy for a while, because 3,000+ plays is far too many. And I learned that a few of my friends, Catie Vernon and Jordan Fish, have great taste in music and I should listen to their suggestions more often. [As I often find myself listening to their libraries when I am at a loss for a song to play.] Last.fm is a great site for discovering new music and connecting with friends who have similar tastes.

2. Blip.fm

Blip.fm is another site I had heard of for a while, but only just discovered and started using. My blip.fm profile is connected to my Twitter, and whenever I "blip" a new song, it posts as a tweet. To blip a song, you merely search the title and artist, add your own comments, and a link is posted to liste to the song. Blip.fm allows you to "be a DJ" and broadcast your favorite songs for all of your Twitter followers and Blip friends to hear. You can select one song, or create and entire stream of music for listeners to play. Friends can follow your blips, and you can give "props" when you like music that another person has played. I also have my blips set to update on my Facebook, so that my friends can see what I'm listening to and be exposed to new music.

3. Strike Gently

Strike Gently is a pop culture gossip, news, and downloading site that I have often heard about and just recently looked into. SG is famous for their internet drama, as the website often offends both generic pop-punk bands and other music news sites. It's raw, brutal, and occasionally X-rated, so some may take offense... but I prefer to just laugh. Movies and television shows can also be streamed from the Strike Gently site, and many SG posts include links to download songs, albums, movies, or music videos, of course with a disclaimer which explains that such downloads are for promotional purposes only and should be deleted within 24 hours. I've found everything from the newly-leaked Lady Gaga album to a stream of New Moon on this site. I've also discovered new bands such as Ghostland Observatory. It's an interesting website which really enforces the idea of "try before you buy."