Have a look at my essays. Many of them are about recurrent Slashdot topics, so chances are you'll find them interesting. Both positive and negative feedback are appreciated (you can post comments below the essays if you register to the forum, or use the contact form to send me email.

Today I decided I wanted to listen to some hard rock music that also had some nice melodic/classical parts in it; the type that Cradle of Filth makes. I would like to support independent artists (now that we have the Internet, it's perfectly possible to get your music distributed without the help of the traditional distributors). However, I don't know which artists make the songs that I like, and I don't want to spend all day trying songs from different bands more or less randomly until I find what I like.

Years ago, one of the large online music sites (I forget which one) had a service where they would recommend bands based on which ones you liked. I also vaguely recall a site recommending independent artists, based on a list of mainstream artists that you selected. I am looking for such a site.

Can any of you recommend a site where I can enter or select some mainstream band and/or song names, and then get recommendations for songs to try? Preferably, the songs should be available in Ogg Vorbis format, but any format that XMMS can play is fine, really. I don't mind paying (a little) for songs, but I must be able to listen to the full song first, and I refuse to pay any subscription fee.

If a site that does this doesn't exist yet, or there aren't any good sites that provide these services, would any of you be willing to help me set up one? I have the skills to build such a site, but I lack time and the money to pay for bandwidth.