by Jennifer Claerr

Created on: February 17, 2009   Last Updated: September 10, 2009

Yahoo! Music offers a free service called LAUNCHcast Radio. You can create your own personalized station, which will allow you to listen to hours of free, streaming music which includes your favorite selections. But you can do this only if you know how to configure the service properly.

The first thing you need to do to configure Yahoo! Music's LAUNCHcast Radio is to set up your radio station. While you're listening, you can create your own personalized radio station in Yahoo! Music Jukebox, on the Yahoo! website, or in Yahoo! Messenger by rating artists, songs and albums. You can tell the software which songs you want to listen to by rating songs, artists and albums on a scale of one to four. Also, you can click the red circle with a cross through it in order to ban tracks, artists or albums from playing ever again in LAUNCHcast Radio.

It takes time to customize and personalize your station in Yahoo! Music's LAUNCHcast Radio, but your efforts will pay off in the end. First, search in the search bar for the artists, songs or albums you like. Then, click on the 30-second preview of your favorite songs and rate them a 4. You may also click on Yahoo! LAUNCHcast Radio and select Edit Music Tastes to select preferences for your personalized station. Selecting not to hear explicit lyrics may cut you off from hearing some of the newer music which has been produced in the last ten years.

The most effective way to search for general keywords in Yahoo! Music's LAUNCHcast Radio is by searching on Album or Song. That way, especially if your search is somewhat obscure, you will get the most search results. This is the best way to search for a general genre which isn't listed in Yahoo! LAUNCHcast Radio genres. If you know the precise name of the artist or song or album you wish to listen to, then be sure to select the right search type in the drop-down box beside the search field in order to get the best results.

After this, Yahoo! Music will begin to make suggestions based on your genre preferences. This will probably include some newer music when you first get started, even if all your favorites are oldies. Be sure to rate this music promptly to properly personalize your station. If you don't like a song, you can click all three red circle icons to ban it forever. One quirk about Yahoo! Music's LAUNCHcast Radio is that you must ban the track, artist and album never to listen to a song again. If you ban a single track or album, but rate the artist a 4, Yahoo! LAUNCHcast

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