If you're sick to death of the same old crap they play on radio (and even satellite radio is starting to suck, now, as program directors move from terrerstrial crapfests to XM and Sirius) but don't know where to turn for new music, the Internets may just be able to help.

In addition to streaming online stations, like those from Soma, there are an increasing number of music recommendation services out there, which keep track of what you like and don't like, and then use different methods to suggest things to you that you may like.

ExtremeTech has taken a look at eight of the most popular services, scoring them based on factors like the quality of the interface and quality and quantity of the library, in addition to the obvious "did the recommendations suck or not" metric. To make this a truly useful test, they really challenged the services.

The goal, remember, is to discover new music, either from nearly-mainstream artists that you may have missed, or completely undiscovered artists that you'll like, based upon your ratings. (For example, using Pandora, I discovered The Legends and Consonant, based upon my ratings of The Shins, the Rosebuds, and The Anniversary.)

Determining what music sucks and what music rules is a very personal issue, inspiring passionate arguments (try mentioning Coldplay or Linkin Park, if you'd like to see what I mean) and these services aren't going to tell you what's good and what isn't. But they will help you cut out the signal from the noise, and make it easier for you to discover new music that you may have missed.The eight services examined are:

It's a very comprehensive look at all of them, and at the end of each one page review, you get a concise list of pros, cons, and a 1-10 rating. Most of these services rate a seven or above, with the notable exception of Yahoo's LAUNCHcast Radio which gets a dismal five, while LastFM gets a 9, and earns the ExtremeTech Approved .gif of approval.

It's interesting to note that the service with the most money and branding behind it is also earns the lowest rating, relative to all the others; could this reflect a paradigm shift in music? Are we going to see a wave of artists opting out of big labels with huge promotion budgets in favor of smaller, more passionate outfits? Is that where the audience is headed, as well?

In the Heat of the Moment, I could say yes, but Only Time Will Tell.