A friend told me about Music India online. He was listening to some devotionals and I casually asked him what site was he listening from. He gives me the Url and next thing I know I was hooked to this site. I had a vast range to choose from, regional languages, hindustani and carnatic. This was the site I needed to satiate my music hungry soul. Lo, there it was , like my prayers answered. I dont have the time to go through a music store. Much of my work is at the box ( some call it compooooter). Hindustani classical and Carnatic is my main temptation. I cant resist the tabla and sitar combination. I cant let a day go without listening to Kishore Kumar, Mukesh or Rafi.
The Look and the interface
The look, The color combination and the logo everything spells Indian music. On the main page you are treated to entertainment news, the Latest albums from different Genres, The latest releases from regional movies , A search utility and a logon box. The look is very pleasing , just type in the url for the site and you are treated to a variety of useful clicks as per your needs. MIO has its own rating system based on the user selections and popularity charts, and has its own countdown list.
MIO
You can save your selections in your favorites section. All you need to do is register yourself there, its free. Due to non expiring cookies ( the systems cookies ) you are still logged in MIO , even after you decide to close the window and decide to come back at a later time. You can create your own Album/ folder and group your selection and have a complete on line library of your own. you need to be signed in for retrieving and saving your selections.
The variety of music is categorized, Hindustani , vocal and classical, Carnatic vocal and classical, Jugalbandhi, Light music which has devotional, indipop, ghazals, Qawwali and patriotic and the regional section which has movie songs from regional movies.
Search is an additional provision given here, where you can search from any of these categories. You can do a search , album wise, movie wise, or artist ( singer) wise. Let us assume we go to the Hindi section. the home page of that section gives you the latest Hindi movies and album releases, movie reviews, and the album details. some songs are provided with https://lyrics.
Technical Details
The MIO has no such facility to allow you to download music. The music is heard on the Multimedia Audio stream. You need to have Real player or the latest of Windows media player to hear music. You can change the music players alternatively. The entire audio stream would be buffered to your machines memory space and then the music is played. The flip side is when you are playing an song that is more than 10 minutes , you can expect some interruptions in between. but over all this depends on the bandwidth you get from your ISP. the availability of music is on line and there is not provision for off line listening. The regular sound card on your machine is just about enough and you dont need to have anything more than what you already have.
And for Desserts..
MusicIndiaOnline.com is the best (only) music portal I have seen. although I have found some songs which are incomplete , which on being reported was corrected immediately. So if you have the time or not, It wont harm you much to just log on to MIO and listen to your selections, even while you are working. so far, I havent seen a downtime of the site. Even as I am type this review, I am listening to Pandit Jasraj’s Raagas. I hope you will find this site useful for you too.
Till the next review, Have a wonderful , fabulous on line musical Weekend.
Comment are most welcome (or else)
Davieboy.