Posted on 13 February 2012

CBC just launched a new music portal. If you’ve used CBC Radio 3, it’s like that, only bigger. If you haven’t used CBC Radio 3 before, it’s basically a whole bunch of streaming music stations of different genres, plus on-demand tracks by independent Canadian artists, alongside on-demand concerts and interviews from all over the musical map. It’s really cool. You should check it out.
But before you do let me give you one piece of advice. You’re probably going to want to make a profile. This lets you share whatever your listening to on Facebook or Twitter, but more importantly it lets you save tracks you hear on the site that you’d like to hear again. It does this in the form of letting you add said songs to a playlist.
While it’s tempting to make a whole bunch of stuff like “house-cleaning jams” and “rainy Sunday afternoons”, let me tell you, as someone who’s been there, there are exactly TWO playlists you should make first.

1. “Songs I’ve Liked.”
2. “Songs To Listen To.”

That’s it. You can make others, but you probably won’t use them nearly as often as you use these two. They’re simple to understand– either songs you’ve heard and want to hear again, or songs you’d like to hear, but can’t right now.
And the reason you should make them first is you can’t re-order your playlists. So if the first one you make is “90s Montreal experimental,” then then that’s going to be what pops up first every time you hit that “add to playlist” button. So make “Songs I’ve Liked” your first choice. Because once you start exploring all the music on the site, you’re going to be using it. A lot.
If you need more details, I suggest heading over to the site itself. Or, if you prefer, I wrote about using CBC Radio 3 (the predecessor to this larger site) about a year ago, and you can find that post here. The visuals have changed with this new launch, but the mechanics haven’t.
And if you’d like, you can find me and my playlists right here. Aside from the two aforementioned functional playlists, you can check out some artists from right here in Prince George.

Filed under: CBC, music