One of the most annoying things about the current state of the Internet is its lack of elegance. When Mark Zuckerberg wiped the floor with the cluttery, vile thing MySpace had become, his mantra was “make a product that is useful and doesn't suck” (Facebook has struggled, with different degrees of success to retain that mantra through all the changes and the growth).

That's why we get particularly happy when someone comes up with a simple concept that works. It's not that common.

Some enterprising soul San Francisco's Eric Eberhardt has created a genius ambient music project online that consists of only three variables: a photo of a city, a randomized selection of very good, chill ambient music, and the feed from the police radio scanner for that city. They call it “You Are Listening To…”

“You Are Listening to New York” is typically gritty, “You Are Listening to Montreal” is fascinatingly French, but our favorite (of course) is “You Are Listening to Los Angeles”:

Click here. Play it as background music. We dare you to turn it off.

Caps off to Eric (also, listen to a fascinating interview with him by radiothom's Emily Delmont here).

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