Jeeves, I’d Like Some Mood Music

March 22, 2011 10:45 AM

There are days that your MP3 player has died, searching YouTube for music feels like too much work, and you just want some sounds to mask the world. A few options:
8Tracks has playlists to suit your mood (having a one-person dance party, gaming, sad, and many more); if you want something a little more ambient, SimplyNoise provides white, pink and brown noise; RainyMood, the sounds of an endless rainy day.

Sites require Flash; SimplyNoise and 8-tracks previously. Also of note: StereoMood.

posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul (16 comments total)

If we're going to talk about RainyMood we really have to link to this
posted by JARED!!! at 10:51 AM on March 22, 2011 [5 favorites]

It was OK until the brown(ian) noise became a brown note.
posted by GuyZero at 10:54 AM on March 22, 2011

There's an Android app called "Relax and Sleep" that produces a whole bunch of background noises, that can be mixed together. Not brilliant samples, can't add your own, and doesn't have pink noise. Does an OK job, though.
posted by Leon at 11:03 AM on March 22, 2011

As mentioned previously, the LA mix on http://youarelistening.to/losangeles is excellent for mood enhancement. I quite like it for blocking out the rest of the office while at work.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 11:06 AM on March 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

grooveshark
posted by surewouldoutlaw at 11:17 AM on March 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

Since Pandora's untimely demise in Canada, I've been a big fan of Musicovery and Stereomood for this sort of thing. Musicovery, in particular, seems to have a bit more musical diversity than 8tracks (which is great but appears limited to mostly indie and a smattering of electronica). For less mainstream (but much more hit and miss) listening, thesixtyone can also be fun once in a while.
posted by monkeys with typewriters at 11:31 AM on March 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

8tracks (which is great but appears limited to mostly indie and a smattering of electronica).

The Nick Cave playlist, which has more than eight tracks, is being just the thing to get me over my housecleaning procrastination.
posted by StickyCarpet at 11:35 AM on March 22, 2011

Thanks - good stuff! Also, an oldie-but-a-goodie: SomaFM. I particular enjoy having Suburbs of Goa playing in the background at work.
posted by TheShadowKnows at 11:55 AM on March 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

If you're more a genre person as opposed to a mood, you could always try http://shuffler.fm/

They're like internet radio as powered by The Hype Machine. Or some other such metaphor.
posted by mostlymuppet at 12:22 PM on March 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

Thanks - I'm really enjoying RainyMood. Great background noise for reading.
posted by blakslaks at 12:35 PM on March 22, 2011

Oh, man, SimplyNoise brings back memories of my third-year experimental psych research project at university. I was doing some work on audiovisual interactions with attention, which meant that I had to control the hearing and vision of my participants as much as possible. So the solution I went with was having them do the experiment behind a black curtain, wearing wireless headphones tuned to a dead channel to produce atmospheric static.

Given that I didn't want to put my participants through any experience that I wouldn't do myself, the first evening I had everything set up I triggered the experiment to run, sat myself down behind the curtain, and put on the headphones. Unfortunately, I hadn't realised quite how long the experiment would run.

Fifty minutes later, I emerged from behind the curtain, wild-eyed and verging on madness. The hissing. Nothing left but the hissing, and the clicks, and the lights. The world was gone, nothing left, but forever the hiss.

It was at roughly that point that I decided it might be a good idea to split the experiment into five ten-minute sessions...
posted by ZsigE at 1:01 PM on March 22, 2011 [4 favorites]

Low Light Mixes has some good stuff, if you don't mind big-ass downloads.
posted by Old'n'Busted at 2:13 PM on March 22, 2011

I've been using RainyMood.com for sleeping for awhile now, and it's great.. drowns out the street noise and my roommate when she is up late with friends over.
posted by mbatch at 2:35 PM on March 22, 2011

The SixtyOne ("Where new artists make music and listeners decide what's good") has a "Moods" menu, which is surprisingly helpful.

I also like Future Perfect Radio. It's not customizable by mood, but it's underground indie stuff that you can filter by location (among other things), e.g. Portland and Seattle, so you pretty much know what you're getting.
posted by Comic Sans-Culotte at 3:32 PM on March 22, 2011

There's several iPod apps that do this. I downloaded Ambiance after seeing it recommended on MeFi. Has a good selection of rain noises.
posted by arcticseal at 6:51 PM on March 22, 2011

I lost my long-cultivated, hours-long, mood-focused playlists the other week, and started listening to SomaFM as a temporary substitute. It's been years since I listened to radio, and it's been great to sit back and listen to tunes chosen by someone else with similar tastes. It's as though I'd become so consumed with curating my own tracklists that I'd forgotten how great real radio can be. Not an unusual syndrome, I'm sure. Sometimes too much control is just unhealthy.

Great (and timely!) post... I'll be listening later.
posted by Acey at 5:57 AM on March 23, 2011