And The Bands Played On

I used to think I was a mornings person. Pretty good at getting up at the crack of dawn, getting into work bang on 7 O'clock. But that was when I was getting up at 0600. After 3 days of getting up at 0520, I've decided that I'm not a mornings person and please can I have my lie-ins back?

Thankfully the internet is a wonderful distraction, and the 11 hours a day I'm currently spending at work are effortlessly floated on a cloud of music.

I spend a lot of time on The Sixtyone. This is a music website, with a sort of game element to it. You login, and you are given a number of hearts. You then listen to music on the site, and if you like the track, you give it a heart. The more hearts the song gets, the higher the profile, until it hits the home page. In return, you get reputation points, which amass and get you further hearts.

Now, admittedly, like any free music webpage, there is an awful lot of dross on thesixtyone. And because you only get so many hearts each day, you are encouraged to listen to these tracks in return for more hearts.

So I'm currently listening to Atmosphere. I don't like it. But I feel compelled to listen so I can show some love to tracks that I do like.

This is in stark contrast to last.fm, where everything is far more commercial, far more marketed, and as such far duller.

The sixtyone is like walking into an independent record store and being able to listen to anything you like. And I can't turn it off.