When I’m not listening to heavy metal…
…I give my ear drums some down time by tuning into to Soma.fm. I tend to alternate back and forth between the Space Station and Groove Salad channels. They provide a nice backdrop of mood music to drown out the clutter in my head when I’m working on something and I need to concentrate. Simply sublime.
I had all but abandoned the concept of radio since the mid-90s - inane babble from DJs interrupting the flow of music, grating ads and worst of all, hearing the same half-dozen songs played every day for weeks on end made me feel like I was losing the will to live whenever I was subjected to it (mostly at work). But in the last few years, Internet radio has restored my faith. Having a large MP3 collection allows me to take control and be my own DJ, but sometimes it’s nice to let someone else take control and be surprised.
Internet radio is particularly good for niche music. The kinds of stations I tend to gravitate most to are the Gothic variety.
If an Internet radio station is particularly good, I’ll save some content using Streamripper for listening afterwards.