Launch - Free Music Site

I came across a really impressive website earlier this month that goes by the name 'Launch' and is the brain child of our friends at Yahoo ' it is odd that from nothing sprang a great website that lets you choose from several hundred music videos, MP3's and interviews with musicians both legally and without any charge whatsoever.

As I really don't know where to start with this site, we'll begin by looking at the music videos section which immediately presents you with a long list of artists or allows you to search and quickly find the artist you're looking for. Once you've found you're desired artist, the site will list all music videos that it has in its comprehensive database for you to view at your pleasure completely free of charge. To fully take advantage of this area of the site it would be advisable to have broadband installed as on such a connection each video takes around 4 seconds to load up then plays at high quality and completely stutter free to the end; something you wouldn't achieve with a 56k modem.

If however you don't have anything specific you want to watch and just have an urge to sit on your posterior and listen to some good music while you get on with the rest of your day why not take advantage of launch for some background music? LaunchCast in an online radio station that is another key feature of the site ' just choose the kind of music you want to listen to and Yahoo makes you a custom radio station that then lurks in the background playing your chosen style music while you carry on with your day.

By selecting the music that tickles your fancy, the Launch will do its best to ensure you won't have to listen to Alisha Dixon 3 times a day like some stations would subject you to. You know which ones I'm talking about.

In general, the tracks chosen are pretty new, diverse and the advert breaks are infrequent. In the time it has taken me to write this much of the article I have had the pleasure of listening to 3 songs that are completely new to me and I enjoyed them greatly ' if there is one thing I enjoy its finding new music. When an occasional track comes along that I can't cope with all that is required is a single click of 'next' and you have your next song. To prevent having to do this too often you can give your personal rating to every song so that the virtual station can some idea about what type of music floats your boat.

Also available on the website are musician profiles that have photos, interviews and news in addition to the facility of being able to download select tracks so you can listen to them at your leisure even when you're not online. Whilst Launch mostly features well known musicians it constantly supports emerging talent by choosing a lesser known artist to be showcased each month to show off their music videos, hear their singles and take a look at their career and their influences.

In conclusion, it is rare that I get so excited by a website and I would urge anyone reading this to head over to Launch now especially if you already have broadband. Even though parts of the website will be fine on a normal connection, waiting for things to buff fully can be rather time consuming. In a similar way to how that the superiority of Sky has persuaded the majority of consumers to get digital television, if quality content like this continues to be released online then I believe most people will be upgrading to Broadband to take advantage.