Consuming Music Just Got 100x Easier for Me
One of my favorite ways to find new music is to follow way too many music blogs. My Google Reader music folder currently has 1000+ posts from a few dozen music blogs that I wish I actually had the time to read. Obviously, I don’t, so I’ve been dreaming for a year about a feed reader made specifically for music blogs. I couldn’t find anything until a few weeks ago when I was complaining about this problem and someone told me it had already been solved. I nearly jumped out of my shoes in excitement and couldn’t wait to get home to try it. Of course, I completely forgot about it by the time I managed to get in front of a computer, but today, I found the note in my bag about it. I immediately checked it out.
The answer to all my problems is Peel, and it is better than what I had dreamed about. Peel is very simple, you add a blog, and it finds all the MP3s in the RSS stream. When a new song is added, it pops up under that blog in Peel. Peel doesn’t force you to download the song before listening. Instead, you stream the song straight from the blog. Peel keeps track of which songs you have already listened to. If you like the song, one click (or a keyboard combo) allows you to download it, add it to your iTunes library and even add it to a playlist for that blog if you’re so inclined.
Unfortunately, for many of you, Peel is Mac only right now. It has a 25 day trial and costs $14.95. I’m already 100% positive that I will purchase it at the end of the trial period. Peel is an amazing example of a beautifully simple app built to accomplish one thing. What used to be a task that would take hours for me to do has been reduced to a simple background task that I can do all day long. Peel is going to make music discovery a much more enjoyable experience for me.
By the way, normally, I wouldn’t endorse software on my blog, but this is just too cool and I know many others would benefit from know about Peel.