The music lovers guide to the net

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iLike
www.ilike.com

While it has its own separate site, this music-sharing program is best known as one of Facebook's most popular add-on applications, allowing social networkers to add their favourite songs to their profiles. Friends can then browse 30-second clips (or, in some cases, full songs) and link straight to iTunes to buy the ones they like. iLike also keeps users abreast of their favourite bands' tour dates.

Gracenote Map
www.gracenote.com/map

The world map at the digital media site Gracenote is worth a visit for the culturally curious. It keeps track of the most popular artists and albums in each country at any given time. Thus it can tell me that Russia and Kazakhstan share a fondness for Linkin Park, and that the most fashionable Western artists in Morocco are Metallica, Céline Dion and Dire Straits.

All Dig Down
www.alldigdown.com

All Dig Down won't be going live until January, but when it does its creators hope it will become one of the web's premier music resources for artists and fans. There's no user-generated content besides a Facebook-style profile, and only signed artists will be able to upload music and video content, but the networking elements are pure Web 2.0: for instance, expert " genre gurus" will be employed to broaden your browsing horizons with their tailored recommendations. Users will be able to meet and chat in the site's online "café", and those with similar music tastes will be directed to each other's profiles, which will act as " storefronts" for their favourite artists. If someone buys music via a link from your page, you'll earn a share of the profits.

Lyrics Directory
www.lyricsdir.com

The quickest way to find a song lyric is probably simply to Google it, but this site is at least clear, comprehensive and concisely designed. It makes searching for that elusive Springsteen second verse a doddle.

Buy

iTunes
www.apple.com/itunes/

Apple has made a good fist of cornering the market in all things MP3, and the iTunes Store is the capital of its empire. Sneakily, the only iTunes-compatible MP3 players are Apple's own ubiquitous iPods, and you can only burn each file a maximum of seven times. To use iTunes, PC users have to download the iTunes software, which is in any case a prettier program than Windows Media Player. There's no subscription necessary, unlike many other online music stores. The vast majority of tracks cost 79p; the vast majority of albums cost £7.99; and, of course, you can now buy music videos, podcasts, audiobooks and TV shows there, too.

Napster
www.napstersongs.co.uk

Napster made its name as the original illegal file-sharing hub, before Kazaa, BitTorrent or LimeWire, and its creators went legit after Metallica took the site to court in 2000. Nowadays, Napster is a subscription service giving users unlimited access to more than five million tracks for a monthly flat rate of £9.95. However, the tracks downloaded cannot be burnt directly to CDs, and aren't compatible with iPods.

Emusic
www.emusic.com

New York-based eMusic is a subscription service devoted to independent music, with about three million tracks available to its more than 250,000 subscribers. Its USP is its focus on offbeat artists and non-mainstream genres, and there are no restrictions on the MP3 files once they're downloaded – you can put them on any MP3 player, and burn them to your heart's content. The site offers a free trial of 25 tracks with no strings attached if you decide to unsubscribe.

Bleep
www.bleep.com

Bleep, the UK's answer to eMusic, is a download store devoted to independent British labels. It was created by Warp Records, so its credentials are rock solid. Albums are cheaper than iTunes, the sound quality is better than iTunes MP3s and, as with eMusic, there are no restrictions on the files once they are downloaded.

Rough Trade
www.roughtrade.com

When it comes to music online, the much-loved independent music retailer Rough Trade goes against the grain as always. While everyone else is sounding the death knell for the record shop, Rough Trade has opened a brand new megastore in London's East End. It has a decent online presence, too: the website offers downloads recommended by its expert muso staff and, with its online "walls" and "racks", tries wherever possible to recreate the record shop experience on your desktop.

AudioJelly
www.audiojelly.com

Audiojelly is a digital download store devoted to dance music, searchable by artist or by the sub-genres familiar to dance aficionados, like " psy-trance" and "tech house". It features both signed and unsigned acts, and the listening-post element is far less frustrating than iTunes, with lengthy clips and a playlist function allowing you to store a temporary list of tracks you want to sample even after you navigate away from their page.

Vodafone Musicstation
www.vodafone.co.uk/musicstation

Mobile phone companies have been making forays into the music download market to exploit the MP3 player capabilities of most new phone handsets. Vodafone Musicstation, for instance, offers unlimited downloads from a selection of one million tracks to customers who are willing to add an extra £1.99 per month to their bills.

MP3 Spark
www.mp3sparks.com

With many albums on sale for less than $2 (about £1), MP3 Spark is the cheapest place to buy music legally on the internet, thanks to the Russian courts, which decided that the controversial site (formerly known as allofmp3.com) could continue to operate online.

7Digital
www.7digital.com

If you want the cheapest legitimate download site that operates under UK law as well as Russian, 7Digital is the place, offering albums for £5 and some individual tracks for as little as 50p, with none of iTunes' restrictions on the downloaded files.

Watch

The Take-away Shows
www.takeawayshows.com

The French music blog La Blogotheque convinces bands to stage impromptu gigs in public spaces, and films the results. Each show is accompanied by a lengthy blog entry explaining the story behind the film. Highlights include Herman Dune in a launderette and The Hidden Cameras on the banks of the Seine. Perhaps the most spectacular of all is Arcade Fire's contribution, which begins with the populous Canadian band squeezed into a freight elevator before they emerge into the midst of an adoring Parisian crowd, singing the magnificent "Wake Up".

Black Cab Sessions
www.blackcabsessions.com

The Take-Away Shows' London cousin is Black Cab Sessions, brainchild of the film-makers Just So and promoters Hidden Fruit. Each session features an established or up-and-coming act performing a stripped-down version of one of their songs in the back of a (moving) London cab. In spite of the cramped surroundings, the sound quality is surprisingly good. Artists who've taken part so far include The National, Daniel Johnston and Cold War Kids.

The Directors' Bureau
www.thedirectorsbureau.com

The Directors' Bureau is online home to a number of the hippest music video directors around, including Roman and Sofia Coppola and the master animators Shynola, who produced many of Radiohead's more recent videos. The site carries regular updates on the projects of its directors, from music videos to commercials, and a full archive of their past work. Shynola's Sin City-esque video for "Go With the Flow" by Queens of the Stone Age is especially brilliant.

Mark Romanek
www.markromanek.com

Mark Romanek is one of the foremost music video directors in the US, and his website is suitably slick. There's a full, fast-streaming archive of his commercials – among them some iconic iPod spots – and music promos, including classics for Coldplay, Jay-Z, Nine Inch Nails and Johnny Cash, and Michael and Janet Jackson's "Scream", allegedly the most expensive music video ever made.

Hype Williams
www.hypewilliams.com

Hype Williams is the go-to guy for hip-hop and R&B artists in search of a spectacularly overblown promo for their latest single. Kanye West, R Kelly, Pharrell Williams and Missy Elliott are all on his client list, and his website includes a vibrant video archive as well as some of his photo portraits of many of the artists he's worked with.

Music.com
www.music.com

Music.com keeps track of all the biggest new music promos, with daily featured videos and a vast archive of past videos from all genres. It also, more uncommonly, features extensive clips of live performances by major artists.

Promo News
www.promonews.tv

The Promo News blog keeps track of all sorts of developments in the music video world, and features a rather more eclectic selection of artists and videos than Music.com, aiming for the most interesting, innovative work. The site doesn't stream videos itself, but has comprehensive links to QuickTime videos elsewhere on the web.

Liveroom
www.liveroom.tv

London-based Liveroom calls itself the first online venue. Very slick it is, too, with a fast-growing selection of online performances by both unsigned and established artists, from Emmy the Great to Siobhan Donaghy or Kula Shaker. There's a forum to chat about the shows with fellow fans, and you can sign up to the mailout to keep track of who's gigging soon.

Africa Express
www.africaexpress.co.uk

Damon Albarn's Africa Express project has seen the former Blur front-man taking artists to Africa and playing at Glastonbury this year. Promoting African performers has been a pet project of Albarn's ever since his 2002 album Mali Music. The website has a video archive of fantastic performances by artists such as Bassekou Kouyate, Ba Cissoko, Jamie T, Kano and Albarn himself.

Discuss

Sasha Frere-Jones
www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sashafrerejones

Frere-Jones is the music writer for The New Yorker, so his blog for the magazine is authoritative and in flawless taste. It covers a broad range of genres, and while his commentary on established acts is always worth reading, Frere-Jones is also a great source of advice on new music. It is necessarily New York-centric, but he has a tight grasp on the British music scene, too. Frere-Jones also has a personal blog at www.sashafrerejones.com, which is a little more loose and whimsical but well worth a visit.

Nialler 9
www.nialler9.com

This music blog by Niall Byrne of Dublin is little known outside Ireland, but Byrne's reach is long. The blog is a great source of MP3s for often overlooked tracks by artists from a range of genres, as well as links to other music sites. Byrne and the radio DJ Aoife Mc started a monthly Nialler9 podcast this year, which you can download via iTunes.

Stereogum
www.stereogum.com

Stereogum is a well-staffed American blog, with a great archive of legal streamed MP3s, videos and US concert reviews. It sources a lot of remixes and rarities from elsewhere on the web and plays an extensive, consistently updated mix of the staff's current favourite tunes on the Gum Mix at their homepage – you can even embed an ad-free version of the mix on your own page.

Elbows
elbo.ws

Elbows collects music blog posts from around the web and posts the best of them on its own, magpie-like homepage. It's a fantastic first-stop for newcomers to the world of blog-reading, helping you to decide which of the myriad self-appointed online experts you feel the greatest affinity with.

The Hype Machine
hypem.com

The Hype Machine is a slightly more hi-tech version of Elbows, collecting the most explosive music discussions and popular blog posts from around the web. They stream MP3s from said blogs, and host chatrooms for surfers to discuss the day's listening. There's a "Spy" function that allows you to listen in on what other site users are enjoying at any given moment.

David Byrne Journal
journal.davidbyrne.com

It will come as no surprise to his fans that David Byrne, the former Talking Heads front-man, has plenty of thoughts to share – quite enough to fill his website, at any rate. It houses a full discography of his music, as well as a catalogue of his work in the fields of art, film and theatre. The journal's running commentary is part-musical, part-political, part-social, and all incredibly readable.

Said The Gramophone
www.saidthegramophone.com

Said the Gramophone was one of the first MP3 blogs, a daily sampler of " really good songs". The writing team have transatlantic tastes, being two parts Canadian to one part Scottish, and they encourage readers to buy the music they post.

Gorilla vs Bear
www.gorillavsbear.blogspot.com

Gorilla vs Bear is another highly regarded music blog written by a trio of Texans. Their end-of-year round-up of top albums, songs and live performances (complete with videos and MP3 samples) makes an eclectic alternative to those you'll find in the magazine racks at the newsagent. And flicking through their gallery of Polaroids, featuring musicians, friends and fellow partygoers, is strangely addictive.

Popjustice
www.popjustice.com

A hybrid of Smash Hits! and Popbitch, Popjustice is the work of the music journalist Peter Robinson, an unashamed fan of pure pop, who waves the banner for such acts as Kylie Minogue, Girls Aloud (below) and McFly. Funny and unpretentious blog posts, downloads and an online shop with T-shirts including the classic "McFly are quite good" design.

DIY

MySpace
www.myspace.com

MySpace may have been usurped by Facebook in the social networking stakes, but as a forum for finding or promoting new bands, it remains unsurpassed. Any artist, signed or unsigned, can have an easily searchable webpage up and running in a matter of minutes, including songs, photos, video and a blog. Acts that have made their names with the help of MySpace include Lily Allen, Arctic Monkeys and Kate Nash.

Sellaband
www.sellaband.com

Sellaband was set up last year by a former record company executive, Johan Vosmeijer, to give artists the opportunity to generate both a fanbase and, eventually, enough money to cut a record, based on merit rather than chance. Bands set up a profile as they might on MySpace, then sell shares, or " parts" to fans who discover them on the site for $10 each. When they manage to shift 5,000 of those parts, Sellaband furnish the band with a producer, a studio and a marketing budget to promote their album. Fans who contributed to the band's budget get a limited-edition version of the record and a share of any subsequent profits. So far, three artists have released an album with Sellaband, and six more acts are currently in the recording studio.

Slice The Pie
www.slicethepie.com

Slice the Pie provides artists with a similar service to the Sellaband site, but it gives fans an even greater role in promoting or advising their favourite acts. Users can act as scouts, looking out for new talent and getting paid if they spot a future star. Or they can be reviewers – the more they are read, the greater their influence becomes and the more cash they make.

Earwig TV
uk.myspace.com/earwigtv

MySpace has just launched this video site as a way for new and recently signed bands to gain exposure. A selection process overseen by MySpace will see hotly tipped acts given a profile featuring live footage and interviews, a chance for them to introduce themselves more comprehensively than in their MySpace profiles. The first 11 bands to be given profiles include Palladium, Milburn and The Duke Spirit.

Read

NME
www.nme.com

Though the print version of NME is, by popular consent, past its best, the weekly music bible still provides the UK's best online source of music news. Always first to report on the previous night's gigs and the day's industry developments, NME.com is bookmarked by arts journalists and newspaper diarists alike.

Q
www.q4music.com

The UK's biggest monthly music mag has a decent enough website. Its saving graces are the T-shirt of the week and streamed samples of the magazine's 50 essential tracks of the month to download.

Pitchfork
www.pitchforkmedia.com

One of the oldest and most respected of the online music magazines, Chicago-based Pitchfork Media was set up way back in 1995. It retains a fairly straightforward magazine format, featuring news, reviews and interviews, mostly with indie rock acts.

Drowned in Sound
www.drownedinsound.com

UK-based but with freelance contributors from around the world, Drowned in Sound is Europe's leading online music mag. Most of the contributions are from unpaid writers, commenting on the site's news, reviews and interviews on the highly active message boards. Meanwhile, more than 30,000 subscribers download the weekly Drowned in Sound podcast.

The independent
arts.independent.co.uk/music

Read all the latest reviews, features, and interviews from Andy Gill, and our award-winning team of writers. Write your own gig reviews in our extensive reader forums. Discuss developments in online technology in our blogs. And much, much more.

Rock's Back Pages
www.rocksbackpages.com

A website for those who mourn the so-called golden age of music journalism, when Julie and Tony lorded it at the NME and rock stars were heroes rather than tabloid fodder, Rock's Back Pages is an archive of 12,000 pieces of music writing from the past six decades, searchable by author or artist. It's the pet project of Barney Hoskins, a music hack of the old school. The £25 annual subscription is a steal.

The Fader
www.thefader.com

The Fader is a music, culture and fashion (but mostly music) magazine published in New York, and now in Japan. It is a suitably chic source of hip-hop, reggae and rock news from across the Atlantic. Last year, its Summer Music issue became the first publication to be released on iTunes as a free PDF download.

Earplug
earplug.cc

This twice-monthly music mailout is an offshoot of Flavorpill, an online events listing operating out of New York, which has now moved on to other capital cities, including London. The Earplug mailout is a digest of all that's new and cool in electronic music, with reviews, MP3s and the odd feature. Other Flavorpill titles include ArtKrush (contemporary art) and Bold Type (literature).

Tourdates
www.tourdates.co.uk

Like it says on the tin, Tourdates provides a quick and easy guide to where and when your favourite acts are performing live. Their most interesting feature is the UK Unsigned Chart, a top 40 of MP3 downloads by unsigned acts, updated weekly – a great guide to new music. You can download the tracks direct from the Tourdates homepage.

Record Of The Day
www.recordoftheday.com

More of an industry insider's mailout than a fanzine, Record of the Day is a subscription service providing a bitesize daily digest of industry news and sound clips, and a more substantial weekly magazine. At £16.45 a month, it seems pretty steep. A two-week free trial is available.

Listen

Pandora
www.pandora.com

Pandora was born out of the "musical genome project", which began in 2000 as an attempt to decipher the "DNA" of music by breaking songs down into their component parts and matching them with similar characteristics to those in other works. When you log on to the website, you pick one of your favourite artists to begin with, and the site will then generate a playlist of similar tracks. With such a wealth of choice of music out there, this is an ideal way to discover acts that you'll enjoy without having to wade through all the intervening rubbish. And there are direct links to Amazon and iTunes if you decide to make an impulse buy.

LastFM
www.last.fm

Last.fm is a music recommendation site like Pandora, but using a different method to match listeners to music. You allow the site access to your computer's music playlists, and the site compares your tastes with those of your fellow listeners. Last.fm then suggests songs by artists that people with similar taste to you have in their libraries, but which you haven't yet acquired.

Musicovery
www.musicovery.com

Musicovery takes a rather more abstract approach to music recommendation than Pandora and Last.fm. When you reach the homepage, you mark a list of your preferred genres, pick a decade or a broader timeframe, then place yourself on a mood graph that runs from "energetic" to "calm" , and "positive" to "dark". The site then takes you to a song that fits your mood and taste, with a mind map leading to songs with a similar tone. Its library isn't yet fully comprehensive, but it's fun to see how tunes are categorised.

XFM
www.xfm.co.uk

XFM is one of London's most successful independent radio stations, devoted mostly to indie rock. Its website's main attraction is the online listening post, allowing you to listen to XFM's pick of the best new albums in full. The sound quality isn't the best, and there is a slightly convoluted sign-up process.

BBC 6 Music
www.bbc.co.uk/6music

For proper musos, 6 Music is the BBC's best contribution to musical life online. You can, of course, listen again to shows and podcasts by worthy DJs such as Stuart Maconie, Steve Lamacq and Tom Robinson. You can also hear some of the best bands around performing exclusive sessions in the 6 Music " hub".

KCRW: Morning Becomes Eclectic
www.kcrw.com

California's KCRW is one of America's biggest radio stations, and Nic Harcourt is one of its most influential DJs. He's presented the daily three-hour Morning Becomes Eclectic show since 1998. Look at Harcourt's top 10 albums of 2007 to get a sense of his wide-ranging tastes. Listening to his shows on demand at the KCRW site will keep you ahead of the pack when it comes to discovering new acts from across the pond.

Beats in Space
www.beatsinspace.net

Beats in Space is a weekly New York radio show mixed live by DJ Tim Sweeney. The site's raison d'être is its library of fantastic playlists mixed by Sweeney or his guest DJs.

3voor12
3voor12.vpro.nl/luisterpaal

This Eindhoven-based website is a jukebox for new albums from around the world, with enviable sound quality and super-fast streaming. It's mainly devoted to dance music, but there's a few guitar bands, and the layout is clear enough that you don't need to read Dutch to use it.

Daytrotter
www.daytrotter.com

Daytrotter records sessions with established or little-known acts with the express intention of producing re-worked live versions of songs from those artists' records. Acts are persuaded to take a moment out of their US tours to head to the Daytrotter studio in Rock Island, Illinois and record a brief, exclusive session. The website now houses a collection of unique alternate versions of songs by bands such as The National, The Maccabees and The Magic Numbers. And best of all, you can download them for free.

Songza
songza.com

Created by 23-year-old Aza Raskin, son of the Apple Mac founder Jef Raskin, Songza is a minimalist online jukebox with simple, quick and free access to almost any song you care to search for. The songs are streamed rather than downloaded, and you can even download a Songza search bar to your Firefox browser.

Ishkur's Guide
techno.org/electronic-music-guide

Do discussions of drum'*'bass, breakbeat and jungle make your head spin? This guide to dance genres explains everything from microhouse to casiocore with the help of mind maps and samples. There's even a potted history of electronic music to give you some background.

The Sound of the World
www.soundoftheworld.com

Charlie Gillett is the go-to guy for world music fans, and the website that plugs his BBC World Service show is also a forum for epic messageboard discussions and playlists. It's a first stop for anyone looking to broaden their musical horizons beyond these shores.

Guillemots
www.guillemots.com

This site has an especially well-designed and atmospheric homepage, evoking the briny habitat familiar to the band's seabird namesakes. Every item in the windswept scene, from the cargo ship to the lighthouse to the bobbing rubber duck, reveals a link.

Top of the pops

Led Zeppelin
www.ledzeppelin.com

Led Zeppelin launched a new site to tie in with their comeback performance at the O2. Of particular interest to loyal older fans will be the Led Zep timeline, a history of the band's past gigs to which users can add their photos, memorabilia and personal recollections. The timeline is searchable by date or venue, depending on which sections of your memory you left behind in the Sixties and Seventies. Radiohead

Radiohead
www.radiohead.com

Radiohead were one of the first major bands to embrace the possibilities of the internet. It's no surprise, then, to find that they have one of the most rewarding artist websites. Not only is it the sole (legitimate) place where you can get your hands on a download of their latest album, In Rainbows, it's also filled with fantastic extra content – the band's rambling but impeccably maintained blog; a gallery (and shop) for artworks by their mysterious designer Stanley Donwood; and even links to old, half-finished or defunct Radiohead sites.

Arcade Fire
www.arcadefire.com

www.neonbible.com

The site for Arcade Fire's last album, Neon Bible, has some fun interactive features, such as the DIY video for the album's title track, which allows users magically to manipulate front-man Win Butler's performance.

OkGo
www.okgo.net

Chicago natives OkGo have a fairly straightforward site, but their video content is worth a look. In 2005, the band made a $10 video for single " A Million Ways" in their garden, featuring a dance choreographed by the lead singer's sister. They released it online as a viral without the knowledge of their record company, and it became the most downloaded music video ever, with nine million downloads. In July last year, they released a similar (even better) video of dancing on treadmills for "Here It Goes Again", which has notched up 25 million views on YouTube.

Kraftwerk
www.kraftwerk.com

The German synth-visionaries have an intriguing website featuring Bauhaus-inflected design and a wealth of flash-animated oddities. For instant gratification, try the Pocket Calculator or Boing Boom Tschak features. If you are looking for something a little more relaxing, however, the Autobahn animation is hypnotic and brilliant.

Kanye West
www.kanyeuniversecity.com

Kanye likes to think of himself as a renaissance man, and his interest in design is much in evidence on his blog. As well as new music videos and name-checks for his favourite fellow artists, he sings the praises of the Mexican architect Michel Rojkind and the new Maybach convertible. All his music, videos and merchandise are available from the spiffy UniverseCity main website.

Gorillaz
www.gorillaz.com

Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett's high-concept Gorillaz project has an equally sophisticated online presence – if you can find your way to the cute extra features from the dark and stormy homepage. Music and video content are strewn around the site, as are a number of flash games, including some disturbing digital taxidermy and the thoroughly addictive Gorillaz Mahjong.