YouTube's Music Discovery Project

I was surprised to find out a little while back that lots of kids use YouTube as a free music service by making playlists of their favorite music videos (or in many cases, simply songs that have been uploaded as a video with a static image) and playing them in a background window or tab (after realizing this, I was able to VJ a recent Next New Networks / $99 Music Videos party with a playlist of classic ‘80’s MTV era videos and nothing more than a laptop and a Sprint MiFi router).

YouTube’s now officially embraced this behavior as a feature with their cool new Music Discovery Project - type in an artist’s name and go. Full-screen on a computer with some decent speakers, it’s hard to beat, except for the slightly annoying pop-up ads.

My recommendation: search for “Bat for Lashes” and hit full-screen play.

(via Gavin Purcell. For another cool, free browser-based music discovery experience, check out the recently launched thesixtyone.)