Thanks for creating this! Works for me just great.

Ah, never mind. NoNameJiver misspoke about not needing additional software: blip.fm does require Flash to work and it deals with not having Flash available by just returning "Unavailable". I use FlashBlock with Firefox and only enable Flash as needed; Whitelisting blip.fm fixed it.

Racetrack attempting to school me of all people about the Internet, now that's just comedy.

I probably should have posted this earlier from the FAQ section of the blip.fm site. It's different from what Zenin was experiencing but some of you Firefox users may have encountered it.

I can’t play songs in Firefox. It works in Safari/Internet Explorer but it’s a no go in Firefox, what’s up? It turns out that some Firefox add-ons don’t play very nice. Try disabling your add-ons and see if things magically start working again. If that fixes it, start enabling add-ons until you find the culprit. Some of the add-ons known to cause problems with Blip.fm: Skype, Adblock, Stop Autoplay, Linkification, Classic Compact Options, NoScript V. 1.8.7.6.

Removed because no longer relevant

With St. Patrick's day right around the corner, I'm sure many of you will be observing this important day quietly at home with friends and family. This post is for the rest of you. Being 1/4 Irish and currently obsessed with creating playlists, I figured it was appropriate for me to create one to honor the most fun saint of all. Titled A Thirst for Swing Music, it contains 47 songs the theme of which I'm sure you can figure out. But just a bunch of songs about drinking would only be of mild interest so I've tried to string all of the song titles together to tell a story - a not-so-serendipitous arrangement if you will. So when you access the playlist, read down the song title column first and be sure to place your cursor on a few of the titles to view the complete text or it won't make sense in a lot of cases. But wait - that's not all! For those of you who will over imbibe, you will of course need to repent, so I've included a bonus playlist titled Swingin' Gospel Tunes. In the immortal words of one of these songs: "when the spirit(s) move you, you'll shout Hallelujah!"

Proceed lushes, teetotalers and sinners one and all by clicking here

EDITED: I've noticed that grooveshark sometimes mysteriously drops songs in my playlists so I've decided to list the song sequence:

Hey Bartender
Bring Another Drink
Hey Bartender, Give That Man a Drink
Atomic Cocktail
Last Call for Alcohol
Bottle of Whiskey
Bad Bad Whiskey
Drink Whiskey and Shut Up
Quiet Whiskey
Who Threw the Whiskey in the Well
No More Alcohol
Milk and Water
Lemonade
Tea for Two
I'd Rather Drink Muddy Water
Cocktails for Two
Rum and Coca Cola
Scotch and Soda

What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?
Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee
Hittin' the Bottle
Me and My Gin
Scotchin' with Soda
Riffin' the Scotch
Rock and Rye
Egg Nog
Groove Juice Special
Gin and Juice
Gin Mill Blues
Tequila
Pink Champagne
Blue Champagne
One Mint Julep
Vodka Vounty
Whiskey, Gin and Wine
One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer

Drink Drank Drunk
Take Your Drunken Ass Home
I Ain't Drunk
Show Me the Way To Go Home
Drunk Daddy
And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine
Hangover Blues
Milkman, Keep Those Bottles Quiet
Parade of the Milk Bottle Caps
Coffee Time
Black Coffee
Java Jive
Let's Have Another Cup of Coffee
Forty Cups of Coffee
Coffee and Reefer
Tea and Thorazine
What's the Use of Getting Sober (When You Gonna Get Drunk Again)

Wow! Thanks so much for this. What a great resource!!

This is great; some of the songs being actual videos from youtube is an added bonus.

I've created 3 more large playlists, 2 at grooveshark.com and 1 at blip.fm:

(1) Swingin' Yuletide Tunes - I know what you're thinking: I don't even like to listen to these songs in December - why would I in the middle of June? Well I've compiled a whopping 170 tunes including some of which even the most seasoned DJ probably will not be familiar. The songs span many sub-genres: classic big band, hot jazz, vintage vocals, groove, jump blues, and neoswing. There's stuff from both vintage and modern artists. Listen to songs by such contemporary artists as Kermit Ruffins, Jim Cullum, Ron Sunshine, Holly Cole and more. So now, are you in the Christmas spirit?

(2) Boogie Woogie: Then and Now - Contains over 200 songs with only two instances where a title is repeated. That's enough boogie woogie to last a lifetime! Modern artists appear toward the end. Trivia question: no boogie woogie song ever made it to #1 on the charts but one tune made it to #2. Can you guess which one? No, it's not that one!

(3) Modern Swing - Created at blip.fm, this playlist contains songs of about 250 artists organized into these sections: traditional band, boogie woogie, group vocals, individual vocals, neoswing, jump blues, gypsy jazz, hot jazz, western swing, groove & blues, and various. I selected the artists by consulting these primary sources: dj playlists, swingdjs.com, Jesse podcasts, yehoodi thread titled "active swing bands", band lists from competitions/exchanges. I've tried to select live performances by the artists wherever possible.

The links are Yuletide and Boogie Woogie and Modern Swing

NOTES/RESOURCES:

• I've added a few more resources to post #9 of this thread. For example, there is a link to a site which shows the top songs by year.
• You can find the year/placement of the boogie woogie songs which made the top 30 by clicking here
• You can find a long list of contemporary bands with links to their websites by clicking here

I've created 5 more playlists at grooveshark.com bringing the total of all my playlists at grooveshark and blip.fm to 20.

(1) Groove & Funk - The term "groove" often means different things to people. In this playlist, I present about 120 tunes from 70 artists which fall mostly, but not exclusively, into a sub-genre called "soul jazz" and have a bluesy feel to them. You will notice that some of them are too long for dancing so they would have to be edited or faded for this purpose.

(2) Da Blues: Then and Now - Contains over 150 songs from both the pioneers of this genre as well as modern artists close to our community. There are very few really slow blues songs here so most should be danceable.

(3) R&B, Soul, and Motown - Contains about 150 tunes from around 75 artists. My favorite genre of any kind of music to listen to is 1970s R&B/Soul. Alas, little of that music is really conducive to lindy hopping; however, this playlist's songs mostly from the 50s and 60s are danceable.

(4) Hot Jazz: Then and Now - Happy upbeat brassy music from New Orleans, Chicago, and Holland (huh?). There are about 140 distinct titles meaning that pretty much all of the popular hot jazz tunes can be found here. The songs are performed by roughly 85 leading artists, past and present.

(5) The Cycle of Love - You may remember in my earlier playlist titled A Thirst for Swing Music I tried to sequence the song titles to tell a story (btw, check out post #12 in this thread and re-read title sequence, i've added 15 new drinkin' songs). I've decided to try this again with a different theme which you will discern as you read through the 40 song titles. And since grooveshark will drop songs without notice from one's playlist, I present them below hopefully for your amusement and also as a way to discover some new songs and different versions of familiar ones:

I Ain't Got Nobody
Another Saturday Night (and I ain't got nobody)
Saturday Night is the Loneliest Night of the Week
Loungin' at the Waldorf
My Heart Stood Still
It's Crazy (but I'm in love)
At Long Last Love
Makin' Whoopee
I've Got the World on a String
Golden Earrings
You're Getting to be a Habit with Me
Love and Marriage
Undecided
Hesitation Blues
Put That Ring on my Finger
My Baby Said Yes
Wild Party
The Stripper
Get Me to the Church on Time
Don't Falter at the Altar
The Wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Swing
Let's Party
Dance Me to the End of Love
April in Paris
The Honeymoon's Over
Unemployment Stomp
Money's Gettin Cheaper
Hittin' the Bottle
Mean to Me
Hound Dog
You're Cheatin' Yourself
Mother-in-law
Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean
Things Ain't What They Used To Be
Let's Call the Whole Thing Off
I'm Walkin'
Be My Guest
Money Honey
Alimony Blues
Datin' with No Dough
They Can't Take That Away From Me
I Ain't Got Nobody

As always the link to all of my grooveshark playlists is http://grooveshark.com/#/lindyhopper/playlists

NOTES/RESOURCES

• Nice article titled Groove and Blues in Jazz and a couple of articles on soul jazz, one by Scott Yanow and the other by Michael Erlewine.

• If you are interested in exploring lesser known hot jazz songs and artists, then the site red hot jazz is for you. A good overview of New Orleans music can be found here and I recommend jazz.com for a history of music and artists out of New Orleans. And finally, here is a comprehensive list of popular hot jazz tunes

• Speaking of hot jazz, do you generally find it more difficult to dance to than classic big band? Part of that is due to the typically higher tempos, but another part is the difference between two-beat and four-beat rhythms. Why then does a "hot jazz" band like the Boilermakers seem so much more danceable than other bands in this genre? You'll find the answer and more in this interview with the bandleader. Also, are you interested in understanding more about the rhythmic differences of swing music sub-genres including hot jazz, Swing Era big band, boogie woogie, jump blues, and groove? If so, then check out this very informative interview with Jonathan Stout complete with actual musical examples on episode 17 of the Hey Mister Jesse podcasts. Also check out Glenn Crytzer's blog about what makes music swing and his blog on the differences between the types of hot jazz

• I've added some more song lists at the bottom of post #9 in this thread; the last 7 are new entries. Many thanks!! to the DJs who publish at least some of their playlists; going that extra mile provides a valuable service to our community and does not go unnoticed, and hopefully consolidating links to these lists in one spot will help ensure that they will be noticed even more!

• I continue to expand my previous playlists. For example, in the last 2 weeks or so, I've added 40 songs to Smooth Swing Standards, 10 to Popular Fast Tunes, 5 to Popular Slow Tunes, 15 to A Thirst for Swing Music, 5 to Swingin' Gospel Tunes, and 10 to Risque Suggestive Songs. If you're curious, in the next couple of months I plan on posting 8 more live playlists, 7 at grooveshark and 1 at blip.fm - and then I'm done.

I've saved the best for last but not by design! My original blip.fm playlist had a mix of publicly hosted mp3s and youtube videos. Recently blip.fm effectively disabled its interface to publicly hosted mp3s so many songs on my original playlist no longer played, just the youtube ones. However, all of my grooveshark playlists really performed the same function of those mp3s. Accordingly, I decided to redo the blip.fm playlist removing the mp3 links and significantly expanding the number of youtube videos. Here are the details:

• There are well over 400 videos of mostly live performances where you can view the artists in concerts, on TV shows, etc. Other types of videos include brief biographies, snippets of documentaries, interviews, complete concerts, and a few wild cards. So while the focus in grooveshark is popular songs by artist and sub-genre, the focus of this playlist is watching the artists in action and learning a bit about them through interviews and documentaries.
• The playlist is organized into the following sections: (1) Classic Swing Bands/Musicians (2) Vocal Groups (3) Vocal Duets (4) Hot Jazz (5) Individual Vocals (6) All Kinds of Blues (7) Soul Jazz and Smooth Jazz (8) Gospel/Rock/Pop/Motown/Soul (9) Extended Compilations. Section headers are embedded in the playlist for improved readability. Also you can use your browser's "find" function to go directly to a particular section.
• Some of the bio clips span multiple videos. In these instances, I provide only the first video, figuring if you like the beginning you can readily find the rest on the youtube sidebar.
• After clicking "Play", the best way to enlarge the video is to click on "youtube" in the lower right corner of the embedded, pop-up youtube video; this will open a new window or tab. If, on the other hand, you click on youtube on the song line item, it will take you to the same place but will reload the entire playlist and you will lose your spot in the playlist.
• There are a few videos which do not play from the playlist but will play on youtube directly. They will show up as "unavailable". Copy/paste the title into the youtube.com search field and go from there.
• If you are using Firefox, Chrome or Safari, the playlist should load in about 5 seconds. If using Explorer, it may take a while; once loaded, however, most songs typically start playing in under 5 seconds.

So now, take a stroll through this garden of greatness stopping along the way to inhale the sights and sounds, be they the rapturous voices of Ella and Sassy, the showmanship of Cab and Fats, the classic sound of Benny and Basie, or the smooth jazz of Ray and Ramsey. I think there will be something for everyone here. Which one will be your favorite? Perhaps it will be the poignant clip of Pops playing with his very first teacher. Or maybe it will the one from an obscure French film in which Rex Stewart plays in a club frequented by lindy hoppers. Or maybe it will be the video of the first integrated all-women swing band. My favorite is surprisingly easy to choose: it's the 1979 clip of Ella, Sarah, and Pearly Mae reeling off high energy standards - singin, scattin' and reminiscin' all the way. Whatever your preference, if you enjoy these videos 1/10th as much as I did in researching/compiling them, you're in for a real treat!

http://blip.fm/profile/lindyhopper/playlist

NOTES/RESOURCES

• As enjoyable as live performance videos can be, imo they don't really match the power of images captured by professional photographers. Here is a slideshow of photographs of musicians from the well-known Gottlieb collection.
• At this time of year, don't forget my 155 song Swingin' Yuletide Tunes playlist. Also I continue to expand my other grooveshark playlists. The Swingin' Gospel Tunes has more than doubled in size and Popular Slow Tunes has been increased by 50%. Also the total number of distinct titles in Smooth Swing by Top Vocalists is now up to 375 and Da Blues: Then and Now has been increased by 50%.
• So you've listened to the mp3s, you've watched the live performances, you've viewed the photographs - what's left? Here's one last video which will show you the way if you manage to come across a time machine that will transport you back to the first half of the 20th century:

I've created 2 new large playlists and significantly modified an existing one.

MODIFIED - I followed a different approach in creating the playlist titled Hot Jazz: Then and Now. Recently, when I reviewed that playlist for the first time since its creation, I was aghast at many of the songs I had included. Without going into detail, I've modified and expanded the playlist (about 225 tunes) to ensure that all of the songs are danceable (too many of them were too fast and 1920s charlestony). The artists are pretty much the same but many of the songs have been dropped and new ones added.

NEW! Instrumentals of Jazz Vocal Standards - This may be viewed as a companion to Smooth Swing by Top Vocalists which is comprised mostly of jazz vocal standards performed by top singers of today and yesteryear. A jazz vocal standard may be defined as one which has stood the test of time and continues to be covered by artists. They are songs which are popular outside of Lindy Hop dancing. So why a playlist with instrumental versions? While I and most dancers would probably prefer to dance to Ella and Sinatra, there may be a place also for instrumental versions of songs with proven melodies (e.g., stronger rhythm section). It's difficult to find instrumentals because most bands perform these songs with vocalists. And when you do find an instrumental version it often has long solos or sections which are not conducive for swing dancing. Still, I've managed to find about 250 of them from these genres: classic 30s,40s/soul jazz/smooth jazz. The most bountiful source is hot jazz; those versions, however, are not included here but you may find them in abundance in my Hot Jazz playlist discussed above.

NEW! Pop/Rock Stars Sing Swing - This playlist arose when I was researching the instrumentals playlist just described. I noticed there were quite a number of rock/pop artists singing these songs so I just dropped them in this playlist as I went along. There are a total of about 155 artists with one song per artist (couple of exceptions). You will find legendary names here including the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, James Brown, Bob Dylan, Temptations, Springsteen, Sting, Supremes, James Taylor, U2, Van Halen, and many more. There are no Christmas tunes or duets where the artist is paired with a jazz singer (vocal duets can be found in my playlist Swingin' Vocal Duets). Many of the songs are danceable while others have been included more as curiosities. Over 100 of the artists are singing songs which fall in the jazz genre but I did include some popular 50s RnR tunes since they have a swing rhythm and get played at lindy hop dances (e.g., Shake Rattle & Roll; Johnny B. Goode). In every case, they are performed by artists from the late 60s to the present.

The link as always to these and all of my grooveshark playlists is http://grooveshark.com/#/lindyhopper/playlists

NOTES/RESOURCES

• Regarding the pop/rock artists playlist, DJ Nathan Malone has created a similar themed playlist (100 songs) in spotify but there is not much overlap with mine; only about 25 of the 150+ artists in my playlist also appear in his. So you will find many different artists in each of our playlists. Here is the link to check out Nathan's playlist.

• A chief benefit of my set of playlists is that they present an organized window into music suitable for Lindy Hop dancing. I am always on the lookout for themed playlists from others which do the same. My playlist Classic Swing by Vintage Bands presents 300+ lindy dance standards from bands of the 30s/40s. If you want to go even deeper, I recommend checking out the spotify playlists of Swedish DJ named Anton.

• My new playlists sort of revolve around the jazz vocal standards be they sung by pop/rock stars or instrumental versions thereof. Dave Jacoby, the house DJ at NYC's Frim Fram dance a few years ago, once wrote on Yehoodi that the DJ who always filled the floor and about whom he received the most positive feedback was Larry Kang. Larry's secret? He played a higher percentage of vocal standards than most other DJs. Here's a question: What type of song do you think would qualify as the least objectionable to the greatest number of dancers? (reread that) My opinion is that it is a jazz vocal standard, medium tempo, medium to high energy, 2-4 minutes, contains instrumental stretch. In reviewing on-line playlists of 50+ DJs, I rate the overall song choices very high but I was surprised by the relatively low percentage of songs which fit this profile. Note I am not talking about a song like Sinatra/Basie Fly Me to the Moon (too slow, smooth). A good example of what I mean is a standard I've never once heard played in 8 years of dancing and which did not appear on any of the on-line playlists: Ella's Almost Like Being in Love. If you are an aspiring DJ, I suggest you review the songs at jazzstandards.com (not just vocal) and my playlist Smooth Swing by Top Vocalists which contains mostly vocal standards. I believe there are many untapped songs out there waiting to be played. But, of course, I cannot be sure of this which brings me to my next comment and challenge.

• Youtube, grooveshark, spotify all provide free access to full-length songs. Wouldn't it be nice if someone built a simple application which would allow people to rate songs in terms of danceability and application would then summarize the results by song/sub-genre/bpm etc? Or, alternatively, two songs could be presented and people choose the one which they prefer for dancing. Format could be similar to Bug's QOTD in that a new song(s) could be teed up every 2 or 3 days or so. Grooveshark allows song embedding so users could just click on title in application to hear the song. The technology is there to to do this - any enterprising individual out there want to create it?

I've created a new playlist and expanded some existing ones over the last 3 months.

NEW! 250 Lindy Hop Faves - My playlists have been focused on organizing music with a swing rhythm into sub-genres and then drilling deep in a given sub-genre. Time to take a step back and create a mix of favorites across sub-genres. I had to establish some parameters at the outset or the selection process could have gotten out-of-hand in a hurry: (1) total capped at 250 songs (2) mix of vintage and modern artists (3) one song per artist (band may appear more than once if backing vocalist) (4) song title never repeated. This is intended as a good intro playlist for a newbie to put on shuffle. Once I had selected the 250 songs, I initially placed them in random order mixing sub-genres. I then wondered if i could arrange all of the song titles in a certain order to tell a story like a couple of my other playlists. I was surprised I was able to do this. It's the tale of a Lindy Hop addict named John who loves to dance, eat, and party. He takes time off to travel the world dancing along the way, leaving behind his beloved Sue who does not share his interest in Lindy Hop. Upon his return, he learns Sue has been unfaithful but she had learned that he, in turn, had been unfaithful with a gal named Caldonia at the Saturday night fish fry right before he left on his trip. Well, Sue and John split up and he becomes depressed, starts abusing drugs with a guy named Mack, and falls on the wrong side of the law to support his drug and Lindy habits. After a brief stint in jail, he rights his life and meets Georgia Brown with whom he happily lives out his days. Just read the song titles in order to fill in all the details. Trivia: though an artist is never repeated, the playlist contains 5 guys named Ray - can you think of all of them before viewing the playlist? (hint: one of them is not Sugar Ray's Flying Fortress)

Rock/Pop Stars Swing - I've added 90 rock/pop stars bringing the total to over 250 artists. Some of the 90 stars making their debut here are Adele, Tom Petty, Celine Dion, Chicago, Dusty Springfield, Dixie Chicks, Lauryn Hill and Britney Spears. I've placed the ballads (not danceable at all but included as curiosities) at the end of the playlist.

Swingin' Gospel Tunes - I've added about 35 new songs played by artists ranging from hard core gospel singers/groups like Dorothy Coates, Golden Gate Quartet, Vickie Winans to one-off tunes from pop stars Whitney Houston and LeAnn Rimes. Sadly, the playlist suffered a loss when Grooveshark purged all Lillian Boutte songs from the system. Hopefully many of you got a chance to listen to some of her songs but, if not, I highly recommend checking out her album Gospel Book on other sites. Also her On Revival Day (not on that album) is quite good, providing a faster tempo and higher energy compared with the very popular Lavern Baker version.

Swingin' Vocal Jazz - 125+bpm - Formerly Smooth Swing by Top Vocalists. The focus of this playlist remains presenting mostly standards sung by leading vintage and modern vocalists. Many new artists and song versions have been added to Grooveshark in the last year so I decided in this latest pass to undertake the ambitious task of identifying the best danceable version available in Grooveshark of the various standards. Primary evaluation criteria were: rhythmic clarity, energy, tempo, instrumental portion. If I deemed alternative versions of a song comparable, I included multiple versions but that only happened in about 10 instances out of roughly 480 distinct titles. Additionally, songs below 125bpm have been moved to my Slow Swing playlist to avoid overlap.

Slow Swing 125- bpm - Formerly Popular Slow Tunes 120- bpm. More than doubled the # of tunes which now stands at 285 (only about 10 of the new songs were transferred from Swingin' Vocal Jazz). Song choices at the tempo extremes can make or break a DJed set. This playlist should be an excellent resource for DJs looking for ideas for slower tunes. Note that really slow songs more typical of a Blues dance (e.g., Witherspoon's When the Lights Go Out) are not part of this playlist.

Swingin' Vocal Duets - I admit I'm a pushover for vocal duets and if you feel the same way you'll be happy to hear I've added 50 new tunes to bring the total to 230. I've always been kind of meh about Bing Crosby as a vocalist (very smooth but uninteresting voice). But that type of voice lends itself well to duets, able to fit with most other singers with more distinctive tones. I especially like his songs with Louis Armstrong which I've expanded and which appear near the top of the playlist.

Swing Grab Bag - Remember this playlist contains only one song per artist and artists who either did not appear in any other playlist or who only appeared in a very specialized one (e.g., yuletide tunes, boogie woogie). I've added over 200 artists bringing the total to 570. From here on I'll be adding artists to the end of the playlist to make it easier for those who want to follow it.

NOTES/RESOURCES

• If you are interested in pop/rock stars performing swing, I think you will enjoy these 3 youtube videos:
  Don't Get Around Much Anymore by Paul McCartney
  Down the Road a Piece by The Rolling Stones
  Moondance by Van Morrison,/Etta James,/Carlos Santana/George Benson/Dr. John/Tom Scott

• My 250 Lindy Hop Faves playlist had a certain orientation given its constraints. Here are some other mix playlists out there:
  Nathan Malone
  Jose Tello
  Henrik Eriksson