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Tuesday is definitely my favorite day of the week. It's when all the new music comes out, and the audiophile in me gets to have his fill of great new stuff - and terrible new stuff.

Other than my Tuesday fix, though, I try to not spend too much time tracking bands and albums all over the place - talk about a time drain!

Thankfully, I've set up a pretty loophole-free system to make sure everything I need to know - album releases, concert dates, and the like - gets in front of me when it's supposed to.

Here are the three apps I use:

BandsinTown

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BandsinTown has a couple of great features that make it a useful one-stop spot for finding all your favorite bands. The site works almost completely by search, in one of two ways: either by band, or by location. Location's a great one: Bandsintown automatically figures out where you are by your IP address, and then lets you search based on your spot. You can choose how far away you're willing to go, how much you're willing to pay, and whether you want major artists or indie acts - Bandsintown weeds it all down for you to show you only what you really want to see.

Searching by bands is great too - a quick search for, say, "Coldplay" brings up all kinds of useful information. You can see bios, your dates, discographies, and tons of other information that might be of interest.

If you create an account with Bandsintown, you can set a few artists as your favorites, and be notified any time one of your favorites is coming to do a show near you. Personally, I get a weekly digest, in my email, of all the bands I like and might like who are going to be nearby. It's a great way to stay on top of the game, particularly if you're a die-hard fan of a particular band.

AlbumReminder

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It's sad how excited I get about new albums coming from my favorite bands. I pre-order, sit and wait, and then go nuts when the download finally starts into my iTunes. Only problem is, I'm always worried I'm going to forget, and not be the first to hear the new albums! We can't have that now, can we?

With AlbumReminder, my worries are gone. By signing up with AlbumReminder and then adding a few of your favorite artists into your account, you can get notifications of new albums from your favorites by email or by RSS. AlbumReminder features over 140,000 artists - just about anyone you can think of will be there.

You can get notified either on the release date, or set it to a time before the date. AlbumReminder's also great about not sending you notifications of each and every version of an album (unless you want it, that is), so you'll only get the notifications you actually want. AlbumReminder's a simple way to make sure you know who's making waves, and whose new album you need to get all giggly and excited about.

Oodle BandTracker

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This one's a lot like Bandsintown, but with fewer features - and that's a good thing, if you're just looking to stay on top of the concerts in your area. Oodle's BandTracker lets you search 752,634 bands playing 258,370 shows, to make sure you get to see the ones you want. You can track your favorite bands across the country and always be notified when they play near you.

Once a week, you'll get an email from BandTracker letting you know who's coming, who's cancelling, and what's going on near you. That's all there is to it - which is great.

How do you stay on top of the music world? Are you a music lover or audiophile? Let us how you keep track of your favourite artists, in the comments.

Photo: Jeremy G.