I'm a big fan of Hip-Hop music -- underground rap in particular. For me, SoundCloud is a great way to discover new  artists (all music genres are represented though). However, it is also a great way to connect with musicians that I am already a fan of. Unfortunately, as great as the service is, sharing music from SoundCloud was never a great experience -- this is a shame, as music is meant to be communal. Today things are changing. SoundCloud announces that it has enabled Google+ music sharing.

"We're always excited to develop new ways to make it easy for you to share and hear sounds everywhere. So we're happy to announce today that we're working together with Google to make it easier than ever to reach your audience by sharing sounds to Google+", says SoundCloud.

As the Microsoft mobile ecosystem grows, more popular apps are finding their way into the Windows Phone store. The platform now boasts top-notch games like Angry Birds and Temple Run, as well as video services like Hulu. While customers can get their music fix from apps such as Nokia Music (if you have a Nokia phone), competition and options are good.

Now Spotify makes its official debut in the Windows Phone world. Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president and manager for Windows Phone Program Management, tweeted "Hey music lovers... today #Spotify for #WP8 is out of beta! A big update: more languages, offline playlist improvements, track scrubbing".

Winamp 5.64 and its more fully functional, paid-for sibling, Winamp Pro 5.64 have been released, with a couple of new features joined by a myriad of improvements and bug fixes.

The latest minor update to Nullsoft’s popular lightweight music player for Windows opens with a new option for simplifying the task of restarting Winamp in Safe mode for troubleshooting purposes: users will find this option under Options > Preferences > Plug-ins. The option was already present via the command line (use the /SAFE=1 command switch).

What is your favorite flavor? Pandora? Spotify? iTunes? Perhaps Google Music All Access? Rdio is also a competitor in this ongoing battle and does not want to be outdone. With that in mind, the music service is expanding its horizons -- quite literally -- by pushing out into new markets around the world.

Most of the popular music apps serve slightly different purposes, though the new Google Music All Access seeks to bring an end to that particular dilemma. Rdio, which is in direct competition with Spotify, today announces a move into new worldwide markets.

At WWDC, Apple's big annual show, the company finally announces iTunes Radio, a service rumored and bandied about around the internet for some time. Apple, as it is known to do, builds this up to be the be-all and end-all of everything that came before. Is it?

To answer that we must first delve into what iTunes Radio is. According to Apple, customers "have access to Featured Stations, stations inspired by the music you already listen to, and more than 200 genre-focused stations — including everything from Hard Rock to Doo Wop. Your stations evolve based on the music you play and download".

Pandora, which has long been my music app of choice, is part of many set-top boxes and smart TV's -- it is even built into my DVR. Today the music service introduces an all new big screen experience, launching its official TV service -- another step towards making the radio app available virtually everywhere.

TV.Pandora.com hits the market aiming at Xbox 360, smart TVs, set-top boxes and more. According to Tom Conrad from Pandora, "The next generation of Pandora for the living room is an entirely new experience designed from the ground up for your television and remote control. This new initiative is standards-based and embraces next generation TV, game console, and set top box architectures that support open web standard".

On Monday, Finnish maker Nokia rolls out an update for its Music Windows Phone 8 app which now allows users to pay for the optional premium service using the mobile operator bill. The feature is currently offered for a select number of carriers.

The company says that mobile operator billing is available only when the "service provider and the content publisher support this payment method". This implies that, at least for now, users in certain regions might be stuck with the traditional purchasing option -- either a credit or debit card which must be added to their Nokia account.

On Thursday, music discovery service Shazam released an update for its Windows Phone app which introduces support for the latest version of the tiled operating system. In addition to finally playing well with Windows Phone 8, the app also comes with a refreshed user interface and a couple of new features and improvements.

"We are incredibly excited about this launch as it brings so many of Shazam's key features to Windows Phone 8 fans", says Shazam's Daniel Danker. "Windows Phone 8 users now have access to a great smartphone experience, from faster tagging and a new interactive map, where users can discover the music people are listening to around them. This is more than just the music that's already popular; these are often songs people are discovering for the first time".

Today, one of the best music streaming services (excuse the opinion) gets just a bit better. Pandora has been around since 2000, offering customers free and paid solutions for creating custom stations and discovering new music. Now the streaming service wishes to offer more to its customers.

Pandora founder Tim Westergram announces the debut of Pandora Premieres, a new station that brings unreleased music to customers a week in advance.

On Friday, Finnish handset maker Nokia announced that the Play To app for Windows Phone 8 made the grade from experimental to stable version and is now publicly available to download from the Store. Previously, the DLNA app could only be installed through Nokia' Beta Labs.

According to the company, Play To brings DLNA to all of Nokia's Windows Phone 8 handsets available today like Lumia 920, 720 and 520, among others. Compared to the experimental version that I detailed little over two weeks ago, the stable Play To app ships with a number of bug fixes but without any new features onboard.

Are you a music fan? If so, then you have no shortage of solutions for both computer and mobile device. Everywhere from Pandora to Spotify offers an alternative for your PC or mobile device. Plus there are even apps that can identify a track you hear on the radio in a matter of seconds. Shazam is one of the ones that fall in the latter category.

Shazam, like SoundHound, identifies songs, while Rdio plays them for you. The two entities are joining forces in more locations now. "Now anyone with the Shazam app for iOS or Android can listen to entire songs after tagging them by clicking the 'Listen Free on Rdio' link", the music discovery service tells us.

Spotify is the world’s most popular streaming music service with some 24 million active uses, around 6 million of those paying a subscription for premium services. I use Spotify all the time; it’s a great way of finding and sampling new music, and the company’s deals with major labels go a long way to legitimizing the streaming model.

Yesterday though, Spotify acted to change its website player after a Dutch developer released a Chrome extension that allowed MP3s to be downloaded from the site. Google removed the Downloadify plug-in from its site before Spotify applied the fix to the player, which now uses an encrypted format.

Oct. 10, 2007 is the day I threw off the chains locking my music. I purged the last DRM-protected file from my personal catalog -- and not by stealing. I purchased every track, and getting them Digital Rights Management-free wasn't easy six years ago. The base collection started from CDs. The problem: Songs purchased from iTunes, starting in April 2003. Later, Apple offered facility to remove copyright restrictions. Meanwhile, I repurchased some tunes, or just did without them.

But chains remain. Every video purchased or rented for download is DRM-protected. Far worse are ebooks. There, the unsung hero -- your advocate and champion -- is JK Rowling. In late April 2012, she released the entire Harry Potter series as ebooks, DRM-free, baby. Rowling is more than a hugely successful writer; she stands up for readers, too.

I used to think my iPod touch was the bee’s knees when it came to digital music players. Exposure to true audiophile-friendly models from the likes of Cowon and Colorfly, coupled with listening to FLAC tracks on my budget Sony Xperia phone taught me better, and for a while I was incredibly frustrated with the shortcomings of Apple’s supposedly market-leading player.

I’ve since discovered that most of that frustration can be targeted at the frankly rubbish Music app that ships with iOS. And now I’m ready to embrace decent sounding music on my iPod touch thanks to a fabulous app called Accudio Free 1.0.0.

A decade ago yesterday, Apple launched the iTunes Music Store and changed how we buy music. For those of you too young to remember or so old to have forgotten, Microsoft and Apple engaged in an epic struggle to dominate the fledgling legal digital music market -- all while trading in ripped files soared, despite Napster's closure. You remember it, right?

I was all too glad to pay for music, if only given the opportunity, as clearly were others. iTunes Music Store launched with 200,000 tracks -- a gigantic number at the time -- from five labels: BMG, EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal and Warner. Singles priced at 99 cents, albums at $9.99, hit the sweet spot for what consumers would pay, while undercutting physical media prices. Of course, the real competition was free, pirated stuff.