Where Do You Find Your Foreign Music?

Midnight Thunder asks: "There issue of music downloads, and paying for your music, has been discussed many time before here on Slashdot. Generally when you head down to your local music store you are limited to a choice of music adapted to your local market. I tend to find that trying to get hold of non-English music, here in North America, from sources other than P2P file sharing is almost impossible. What do you do if you heard a track on a streaming internet music station, or from a friend with an MP3 version, that is not available in your country, what do you do to get a 'legitimate' copy of the track and reward the artist?"

Comments

Link to a list

[hackwrench]

here
List is oriented to getting Japanese stuff into the U.S. though

Other Music

[jcbphi]

For a smaller online seller, I find Other Music has an excellent selection of otherwise import-only CDs. And a great selection of older/obscure music in general.

Re:Order from Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

Try ordering from the regional Amazon.com - for example, when I went shopping for Kurosawa's Ikiru DVD, I went to Amazon.co.jp, rather than Amazon.com.
There are, I would imagine, cases where there isn't an Amazon.com for your region and there isn't a online/catalogue vendor from said region. In such a situation, an online music vendor would be a very handy thing to have.

Japanese Music

[OutRigged]

If you're into Japanese music/dvd's/anime, www.cdjapan.co.jp is a great place to shop.

Two places

[Apreche]

The Virgin Megastore is one. Even though it has the evil RIAA-ness and is the pinnacle of american consumerdom, the megastore lives up to its name. They have one of the largest foreign music sections I've seen.

Also, since most of the foreign music I listen to is Japanese I check out www.avexnet.or.jp. That is the site of Avex, the major recording label for the best j-pop music, like Ayumi Hamasaki. Also I head to www.cdjapan.co.jp. It is in english and it sells just about every japanese cd and dvd you can think of.

Also of course is WinMX, which many foreginers use. Especially Italian people it seems. Lots of german electronica available as well. www.cdbaby.com has some of that too.

And of course, you can fly to your country of choice and buy cds at a store.

Not a problem in Canada ....

[Bazouel]

I live in Québec and we don't have that problem. At one of the biggest shop (Archambault), we've got music from about 100 countries. While for some countries, the selection is mainly "best of" or otherwise limited, in general, it's quite good and affordable (20-25 CAD).

Example of CDs you can find :

Petru Guelfucci, Corsica (Corse)
Khevrisa (Hungary)
Chava Alberstein (Israel)
Vicente Pradal, La noche oscura (Spain)
Paul Kunigis, Jeszcze Raz (Poland/Québec)
Bïa, Carmin (Brasil)
Putumayo collection
etc., etc., etc.

And if I remember correctly, this holds true for Vancouver too, in British Columbia. As for Toronto, I don't know, but I would think it's the same there too.

Getting foreign music

[Sloppy]

Either find an importer, or find a foreign store that is willing to ship.

If by chance, you happen to be looking for Spanish stuff, I can point you at Discoweb in Barcelona; they are willing to ship across-the-pond. I have been getting most of my Spanish (and even some Basque!) metal there -- stuff that none of my usual importers would get for me.

BTW, you're doing the right thing to ask in an international forum. The best research is where someone tells you the answer. ;-) But you might wanna ask around in some forum specific to your desired genre, too.