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Has P2P Influenced Your Music Tastes?
Whatistehmatrix asks: "About 5 years ago, when I first found out about KaZaA, it was somewhat 'underground' and had less than 1 million people. I soon discovered there was an unbelievable amount of music open to me. Instead of getting the music I always heard on the radio, I always sought out the music that was previously unavailable to me [Japanese pop & rock, overseas techno, etc]. Well, fast forward to today, and I actively buy CDs from groups I fell in love with from the songs I found on P2P. I was wondering, if any of the Slashdot community used to/still uses P2P programs to try out music that isn't heard on the radio, to expand your tastes in music from different countries & cultures?"
I find music streams to be much more useful for discovering new music (here's one from a couple of weeks ago that I immediately went out and bought). As a push medium, it's much better for bringing things to your attention that you didn't know about. P2P mostly assumes that you already know what you're looking for, which allows you to hear music you've read about without making you buy it but doesn't encourage discovery by itself.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
No.
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
I've never used Kazaa or similar P2P programs as they where ripe with security problems. I'm old fashioned enough to quite simply go to a music store and listen for my self, and buy it if I like it.
Way back in 2003, I searched for *.ogg with giftd and downloaded 3500 of em in one night. It took about a year before I had listened to them all and now I have an incredibly different perspective on music.
I'll Sig you!
Acctualy, a lot of music I hear in clubs, that I couldn't find in stores here in the US. Or what you can hear on your radio station sometimes past midnight on the weekends, when they're broadcasting @ a club (at least it seams to be the trend on here in the area on the pop stations). I was able to find on P2P networks, and I also found a lot of new artists producing electronic music, that I never heared of. And polish music (let the jokes come), Kazik, etc..., (for those in the know), stuff I wasn't able to listern to since I moved here.
I still pull a song or two here and now from P2P to check out a band a friend may have mentioned. It opened me up to alot of things I may/may not have bought before without hearing it.
Typically if I hear about a new band I do this:
1. find that band's website and see if they offer any downloads...
2. if none.. then I'll swing over to google for a quick search...
3. if none I'll jump on a P2P network and grab a file or two... listen and decide.
Then it's either off to purchase the CD or off to iTunes (typically both..as iTunes is typically lacking in my tastes). Besides I love having the original CD/Case.
"why don't you just slip into something more comfortable...like a coma!"
I've found networks such as Fasttrack and Gnutella lack a sense of community. There isn't much chatting going on. I've personally been influenced to listen to/buy new artists through the soulseek network. Through its use of chatrooms and using "user lists" as a method of browsing, soulseek has opened my eyes to many new artists (most being on non-evil labels).
I've discovered I like music much more when I don't have to pay for it.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
P2P cannot change my taste of music, because I remember music by MUSIC (what a suprise) and not by the people playing/singing, name of band, etc.
It might start affecting it when someone developes a search sistem where i humm a certain melody and it comes up with similiar tunes.
Also (though I'll get flack for it I'm sure), the original Russian version of the Tatu disk (remember, the two Russian "lesbians" who sung "All the things she said"). Anyway, the Russian version of their album is 10x better then the English (and I don't speak a lick of Russian - pun kinda intended >=).
Course the RIAA hasn't seen any revenues from this "exploitation" (ever try to find Punjabi Hip Hop or Russian releases in Tower Records?!)
"1984" was ment to be a warning, not a guidebook. You hear that Kim Jong-il!? BushCo?!
P2P is a great way to listen to music that wouldn't otherwise be available. I've been able to track down songs from every corner of the planet, as well as tracking down those hard-to-find classics. Say what you want about the legality, but how am I supposed to buy an album if I don't know the name of an artist/song/album?
But more importantly, if I heard a song I liked and didn't know what it was, I could find out on the 'net and download it. But whenever I did that I would try to get other things by the artist to find out if I liked them. I bought more than a few of my CDs after finding music this way.
While the iTunes price isn't bad, it still discourages expirmatentation the way Napster and Kazaa used to let you. I think the idea of 5 or 10 cent music (as in that article that I think was posted here a day or two ago) would fix that problem for me. I think that would be about ideal without actually being free. Plus it would force the services to try to compete on a level other than price (the difference between 9 and 10 cents isn't a very good reason to switch services, so to get new people they'd have to have a better catalog, less DRM, better quality, whatever).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I've found that, with the exception of some J-POP, my music taste hasn't changed dramatically only diversified a bit.
... though a US P.O. Box is tempting now...). Internet radio offers much more diversity in content.
I like maily rock, metal, blues, jazz and other misc types. I've found that using the Internet and P2P, I've been able to hear albums which are either really hard to find or that I would never have heard before. Simply using Amazon and looking at what other people have bought, I've found really helpful. When I used Kazaa, I browsed other's shared files, and often went and bought a few albums afterwards.
I've also found that using internet radio, has been really helpful. Canadian radio stations suck because of CRTC regulations (and I can't get Satellite radio
It allowed me to get my hands on some early 80s music that I would never have heard on the radio, or found in a shop - which I now can listen to more than I would have done otherwise.
no sig.
i found out about one of my favourite groups on kazaa, and i like that genre in general now.
I'm a white, upper middle class suburban 37 year old male and never would have listened to rap or dance mixes had it not been for P2P. Likewise Mel Torme, who has some incredible vocal talent that I was previously unaware of.
Since the cost of the music was near zero for the friend of mine that grabbed it online, I could see if I liked it. Testing it out and seeing if I like something is a valuable thing - used to be (I hear) that record stores would let you do that. They don't do that now, I believe (though I've not been into a record store in 10 years).
So, I did make aesthetic decisions about groups based on P2P experiences, some positive and some negative.
I should mention that I'm a lot more likely to vomit down a record exec's shirt than ever purchase a CD again. But, I only really listen to the radio anyway (and at that, NPR), so they haven't lost any money on me.
One thing I'm wondering about is something my friend mentioned - that he download the stuff directly from napster and that was over 6 years ago. The statute of limitations on theft in Illinois is less than that. So, he legitimately now owns all the songs he got then. I'm not sure if he's right, but it was a funny perspective.
Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
I do. Normally, someone with vastly superior music taste to myself will recomend to me a band, and I shall go and download a whole bunch of songs from them. Next, I woll procede to buy albums from them if I like it. Mostly bands that most people have never heard of in their lives, but still.
The most recent band to do that to me was The Weakerthans.
While working at Napster there was this crazy scottish dude who had a DJ setup in his cube, he played some cool stuff which I ended up buying.
Not what you meant I'd imagine right?
I never really listened to a whole lot of music before music piracy. I had one or two CDs, a couple tapes, and that was it.
;)
:)
A friend at school started passing a collection of mp3s on a CD around at school. I copied em' to my HDD, and gave em' a listen.
Without that CD, I might have not been introduced to Industrial, and might not have become a solo recording artist myself. I now have purchased hundreds of CDs, and occasionally purchase music from iTunes and Napster (not iTunes so much, though - I've only purchased about 10-15 songs online).
After getting that CD, I got a taste of NIN and KMFDM - And I was thirsty for more. I asked friends online if they would recommend me other artists. Once I got a recommendation, I usually hit Morpheus or whatever P2p client I was using at the time to check em' out if I couldn't find samples legally.
Now, thanks to p2p networks, I am a music fanatic. I listen to classical, industrial, 80s/early 90s metal, blues, jazz, funk, electronic rock, and more. I also am a huge fan of indie artists.
I'm all about doing things legit, so I don't keep the music I download. In fact, I don't download anymore - I can't. All P2P traffic is blocked by my college. We can't even use BitTorrent.
Oh well, it just helps me to stay legal while boycotting the RIAA. I buy used CDs nowadays, anyway. It's cheaper, and since I just rip them to my HDD, I don't need a CD that's going to last forever.
Now, if I could just get my fans to distribute my music on p2p networks
A small note: A year ago IIRC, I was using Limewire to do genre searches. Rather effective way to find quick artists in a genre, assuming people rip their music and edit the id3 tags properly
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
If it wasn't for P2P, I never would have discovered Massive Attack. Now I own all of their albums on purchased CD's. What shit-for-brains in the RIAA thinks that P2P is bad for business?
music plasma saved my life! it shows a graphical map of artists and how they connect to other artists (in way of "genre"). Its some entirely arbitrary linkage and the breadth isnt that great, but its supposedly all based on user inputs.
i find audioscrobbler to be too over-run by the songs everyone has on their playlist. it doesnt really help you discern genre's, which is what is so great about musicplasma. its much more directly peer to peer, but somewhat less useful. you pretty much have to find well done groups, but even well done groups rarely play the music in the group.
Mood + genre awareness has a long ways to go.
-Myren
I recently found out a great way to pre-sort the good bands from the crappy ones. If the song you just downloaded is a 30 second loop or 3:15 of silence, then it typically means the band sucks and is in it just for the money (no talent or art). Thank you RIAA for helping us choose.
I found a lot of music via streaming servers that I really enjoyed. Of course they're all gone now.
P2P hasn't really changed my listening habbits as much as given me a way to avoid things that I don't like. I hate buying a CD and find out it's crap. P2P guarantees that I get my money's worth. Unfortunately the RIAA has benefited from this new endevor as well.
I had never really purchased that much music before. But here's the funny part: between 1999-2002 when I was really into Napster/Kazaa and other P2P networks I actually bought more music than ever before. Why? Because the stuff I really like to listen to I have to have in a CD. A downloaded MP3 just doesn't cut it for me in most cases. So I went out and bought the whole CD for those one or two songs I wanted. In some cases I found even better stuff, and in others the rest of the CD was crap, as is mostly the case. But them's the dregs.
I'm not going to try and make the point that music sharing promotes CD sales, because I don't think it's true regardless of my personal experience, but there's definitely something to say about a worldwide, diverse network of people who share their music. Back in the day you woudl find the most incredible stuff on Napster. Today (on the other networks) it's difficult to find anything beyond the top 40 crap, which is ironic considering that's precisely what the *AA people are trying to get off the networks.
I am a fan of trance, eurodance, dance, techno, etc. I got to hear more from around the world. I actually like foreign songs (non-English) even though I have no idea what the lyrics say.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Unless I have to, then it is only in a virtual machine set to undoable. Most of the time it is good old NNTP for me even better now that September is finally over
That's the funniest thing I've read on Slashdot this month!
I will not give much credit to any p2p, especially since such networks like emule
or torrent dont allow you to find other files that a given user has, but I will
say that generally Internet did help me grown my taste and appreciation to world
music.
1) online friends, after many years on irc and icq and other chat networks you
get to know lots of people from various places around the world. They often send me
lists of whats popular in their country. I recently heard of Via Gra, a russian pop
band (which is also known under the name Nu Virgos), whos music videos stand true
to the bands name (get their Biologia if you can).
2) AudioScrobbler, there is no other great tool that I know of. You enjoy some artist
that you just heard (ie: Shpongle) then head to AudioScrobbler.com and see what are
similiar artists. That way you can expand on what you though was a single song to a
whole genre of music !!
My current top pics for music:
- Planet Funk - The new British dancish band, their Chase The Sun is a euro hit but
personally I love the song 'who said' (I am slave on a minimum wage)
- Shpongle - and certain tracks from Infected Mushroom (like dancing with Kadafi),
the merge of Goa (psychodelic techno) with New Age
- Andreas Vollenweider - beatifull Harp music
- Ravi Shankhar - no one does Sithar better
- Transe Atlantic Air Waves - from the maker of Enigma come best instrumental remixes
of 80s ambient techno tracks (AxelF, Jan Hammer, Vangelis, etc)
- Aphordite - no one does jungle/DnB better (just listen to the 'takeover bid' album)
- BT - aka Brain Transeau , mellodic techno (get IMA and ESCM albums now !!)
- DAAU - Belgain group that does experimental symphonic music fusion with other
music genres.. Think classical merged with other genres, amazing stuff, although
highly experimental
- Aphex Twin - there is hardy anyone more on the fringe techno than aphex twin
Really, take these artists, plug them into audioscrobbler to find out their best
tracks, download these tracks, listen. if you like, get whole albums, or checkout
audioscrobblers 'similiar artist' feature, or alternatively, use audioscrobblers
listener group.
ofcourse, there is always the legal music you can get. Head to the remix.kwed.org
and download anything that has red raving smiley face, these tracks are just
amazing. Then head to vgmix.com and get 'stuff of legends'. And finally, there is
also ocremix.org.
Enjoy, may you find good music out there.
--
/apz, Old age is always fifteen years older than I am. -- B. Baruch
...but iRate has certainly changed my taste in music, and without any paranoia about opening services to the 'net.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Ok this is both embarrasing and slightly offtopic, so i'll post anonymous cowardously...
One way i find a lot of new bands is by listening to Shoutcast (or whatever stream you want) - you can find a lot of new bands there that you might not of heard of, BUT....
The big way I find cool bands is on HotorNot. Yeah, I am highly retarded but listen. You can enter keywords to see if you 'have something in common' with someone. So I put in the names of bands that I like and 9 times out of 10, it will bring up a person who seems to be as into music as I am. We already have one band in common and they have likely put in other bands they like as keywords. If I haven't heard of the band (you can just tell by the keyword if it's a band or not), I do a search on limewire or one of the many torrent sites and d/l a song/album. I have found some crappy bands this way, but also I have found some bands that really rock and end up adding them to my 'list'. The hotornot method sounds dumb, but try it, it works!
Without a doubt.
Countless times I've read of a band that sounds interesting and I get it off eMule or BitTorren. If it's interesting, I'll buy it or download it from a pay-service. (I just bought a bunch of Boris [.ja sludge/doom/rock from emusic.com in fact])
That all said, I'm sure the majority don't buy what they really enjoy but P2P has without a doubt expanded my musical horizons and helped my buying decisions.
Trolling is a art,
I don't listen to commercial radio, either. No explanation for that should be needed, beyond the fact that the music is soullessly pre-programmed and the non-music parts (commercials, jock patter, etc.) are apparently aimed at people with half my IQ. {shrug}
I get introduced to new music these days by listening to community radio. Real people, playing music they like, without regard for genre. I used to think I had eclectic taste in music, but it turns out everything I was listening to was just another kind of rock. Now I listen to and enjoy everything from jazz to folk to world beat to blues to a whole geology of rock and even a little country. And all over that new-fangled wireless broadcasting network invented by Marconi.
If you live in a city, there's probably a small, probably-struggling community broadcaster in your area. If you care about music and open access, try tossing some cash their way. And instead of illegally "sharing" music you like to a broadband-only audience via P2P, why not take a few hours a week to legally share it over the airwaves where anyone in your community with a radio can hear it?
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
This is slightly off-topic, but for broadening your musical knowledge I recommend you start listening to your local college radio station. Assuming you are in the US, and not too far from an urban area, you've probably got at least a couple stations with hugely varied programming available to you on your dial. A couple of my favorites: WRUW of Cleveland, and WFMU, a non-college indie station in New Jersey. Share eand enjoy.
It has huge.
Previously I was way to lazy to search for new music. I loved they early days of napster when you could browse peoples collection and people would browse yours. If they had some stuff you liked, you could download stuff you never heard of, hoping tastes were the same.
I guess I just trust that method why more then some website saying, "people who bought this also bought..."
i dont like euro a lot... too awkward for me :/. What inspired me to write this article was i was listening to Ayumi hamasaki's new album [no link necessary] and thought it'd be a good topic and curious who's into since i went from rock to such diversified tastes, thought it was this "hidden source" [i have yet to find any real broadcasting radio company to play techno/trance or anything non mainstream besides jazz]
:(
my friend du0 just drove cross country a while back, looking for a good trance station, and ended up listening to his cds, and being very disappointed... maybe it's just his bad luck, but i was quite shocked with what he said
P.S. p2p also told me actual artists for songs that people can hum, but not know the name, enabling me to buy their album [sandstorm, by darude, for a very good example]
visitor from www.slashdot.jp
My tastes haven't been influenced much by p2p, allofmp3, streamed audio, whatever.
However, I HAVE discovered a LOT of new artists that I hadn't heard of before.
I've also been able to "try out" a lot of artists that were a "maybe" thing.
- A friend can hear a song somewhere in the US, can tell me about it on the phone, and I can download it, even if the record store or radio stations here never heard of it.
- Looking for something, you always find something else you weren't looking for
- I LOVE the various versions of the same song, that you'd never hear or. Plus remixes.
- If you get a shard of lyric of a new2U song, you can find the title from google and d/l it to hear the whole thing, including determining who the artist is.
Downside of P2P:-
"All this machinery making modern music can still be open-hearted" (Name that album
As i said before, p2p isnt only good for finding different genres of music, it's also godly for identifing music you've already heard, but cant place. It's hard sometimes, other than doing extensive searches on the web for every group [techno is espically like this... too much "what's this song called?"] A lot of things are to blame, like for one radios dont say the song name for every song. Over where i live thou, there's a new station that says every song name, and advertises like that. And guess what? people listen to it just so they arent bothered with the "what's that song" mindset. on another note, is there any techno/trance radio stations out there? the closest i've ever heard was a "dance" station, and all the others are pretty much mainstream rock/pop :(
visitor from www.slashdot.jp
Napster started to catch on in late '99, which was right after I had moved away to school. I was living in the dorms, and had access to a fast connection.
When I went into college, all I listened to was metal (Corrosion of Conformity, Prong, Pantera, White Zombie) and the sort of crap you heard on the radio all the time.
These days, based largely on P2P access (and more recently, iTunes), not only do I buy more music, but I listen to a lot of lesser-known bands. My tastes range everywhere from Ryoskopp, Jem, and Styrofoam to Steel Train and Guster to My Chemical Romance, Unwritten Law, and Senses Fail to Down to Earth Approach, Number One Fan, and Sense Field.
That's what was always my big draw to P2P - not so much the free music, but the way to be exposed to new indie music I enjoyed without spending hours listening to hours of trendwhore, hipster, it's-cool-because-it's-obscure bullshit like most indie radio stations play.
I don't use P2P apps much these days, but it really, really transformed my musical tastes.
Originally, back on my 1.5gig Seagate harddrive 90Mhz Pentium computer, when Napster came out, I used it to get Jamiroquai songs. Living in the American South, you can imagine how hard it was to find their singles any other way. After about 1 year of finding their tracks online, I started using my summer earnings to buy their albums (this was around the time that Synkronized came out), all of which I now own. When I moved on to my 900Mhz Athlon HP machine, I used AudioGalaxy (back when it was free) to find music by the likes of The Grateful Dead and Bob Dylan, mostly live. From there, I moved on to building my own machine and buying my own albums off iTunes and trading online. Truely, bittorrent has allowed me to find more artists I would have never been able to find in my area than would have been possible. Animal Liberation Orchestra owes 2 CD purchases to bittorrent, Ben Harper owes all his, as does Jack Johnson. The Grateful Dead, to whom I am eternally grateful, owe a lifelong fan to it's power. I've come to listen to and purchase more music through P2P than I would have ever been introduced to had I not found Napster back in 6/7/8th grades.
-|BlackErtai|-
Ironically enough, I never would have gotten into Metallica if it hadn't been for the ability to get a taste of a lot of their music using WinMX. Now I own three albums and I've seen them live once. This isn't even up for discussion: Bands that don't get much radioplay get even better publicity on P2P networks. Most of the people that go WAY underground for their downloads are smart, savvy people. They are a very good fanbase to start out with.
And now, for a sig that's a complete copout.
I've found musciplasma.com to be very usefull. you can find artists related to artists you like. and an artist most simialar to an artist you like, might actually be more simialar to another artist and so on. the site is at least worth checking out
I live in a small town in the midwest. Let's just say the music we get from our local radio stations and television is quite a bit less than diverse. Sure, we have MTV and VH1, but corporate crap music isn't too appealing.
I started listening to online radio stations. I started at Launch. It was awesome. I could find new music, rate what I wanted to hear, and find new and exciting bands and artists I would have never of experienced. Launch only had a select few songs and videos by each artist. I bought several CDs by the artists I found.
File sharing also had a part in broadening my musical taste. For a while, I used Soulseek. I'd search for artists that I liked, then browsed the directories of people who had those artists to find more songs I'd like. I found some great stuff with that method. Again, I often bought more CDs. MP3 are nice for a while, but a CD is something I can show off. Burnt CDs have crap audio and just look and feel tacky.
As I said, the musical diversity around here is not wide. To get CDs by these new artists I found, I had to also look online. Amazon delivers with a huge selection and low prices. They've also got a feature to recommend more music based on ratings. I've found several more CDs this way.
Like others here, I haven't found new music by using p2p, but used it to try to find samples of artists I heard of elsewhere like streaming radio, blogs, DJ set lists, college and public radio playlists, etc.
I did, however, discover the pleasant effect of browsing people's online music libraries way back in the heady pre-napster days of Hotline. Browsing various hotline servers devoted to MP3s was like going down a street with 500 record stores, some disorganized and broad, others tightly focused and tidy. Like someone mentioned before, I discovered whole new GENRES this way. P2P apps used to work this way, at least my version of Limewire used to, I haven't used it in a couple of years. Once you found a file, you could browse that user's library, without that P2P searches are like being in a vacuum. The connections can be really facinating. A jazz-fusion fan might get into hip-hop because he found an US3 track on someone's share amongst the Miles and Brubeck files. That guy got the track because he heard it had a Herbie Hancock sample on it. P2P is limited for me because I can't look on the "shelf" next to the stuff I like.
"I forgot my mantra."
Gnutella is pretty handy for finding songs that someone's specifically mentioned to me, but it doesn't give recommendations. For those, I'll look things up on the iTunes store, to see what else was purchased by people who bought it.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
Course, this won't work on instrumentals ;) Hope this helps a bit! It's only failed me once or twice in five years.
"1984" was ment to be a warning, not a guidebook. You hear that Kim Jong-il!? BushCo?!
Before I started using the ed2k network last April I had six gigabytes of music, mostly ripped from CDs I had bought as a teenager, of which I estimate that I listened to three gigabytes of it regularly. After using ed2k for ten months, I now have 84 gigabytes of music. I estimate that I listen to something like 20 to 30 gigabytes of it regularly, and I try to listen to at least one new artist, album, or work per week. (Since I work from home more often than not, I am fortunate to have plenty of time to familiarize myself with new music.)
The collection has gotten so large, in fact, that I've had to converted all ape and flac files to high-bitrate ogg-vorbis files using gstreamer to avoid running of disk space (recently I broke down and bought a larger drive and a DVD burner). If Debian ever packages the new mpc plugin (or if I find motivation to build the plugin myself), I'll save even more space. (The ogg files use a little less than half the space of the lossless codecs.)
The crux of the biscuit: yes, I've discovered all sorts of new musical interests by browsing the ed2k network.
Though I've had an off-handed interest in early and classical music for as long as I can remember, only thanks to ed2k have I been able to amass such a variety from which I can pick and choose, with which refine my taste. Neither streaming radio nor satellite radio can compare. Mix this rich digital library with Wikipedia and free web-based courses on introductory music theory and one has an interesting and educational way to spend one's evenings for a few months.
I've also acquired a taste for indigenous music from the so-called far reaches of the world. The gamelan music of Indonesia has been a particularly delightful discovery, as has the ancient music of China and Japan. I found a corpus of Islamic music from Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Yemen, and more. While I'm not interested so much in the subject matter, the music is fantastic.
It may sound silly, but a suite of nature soundtracks I found (consisting of waves crashing, thunderstorms and rain, insects chirping, etc.) turned out to be quite soothing while falling asleep.
I also found a few movie soundtracks that I now consider indispensable, such as those for Waking Life, Akira, and Donnie Darko.
There are also entire discographies of modern popular and semi-popular artists, some of which I'd never heard and ended up loving, such as Simon & Garfunkel, Nick Drake, Frank Zappa, Nine Inch Nails, Tom Waits, and Leonard Cohen.
I <3 eMule. Perhaps soon it will work on Wine....
-Nick
I can also confirm that we have since bought a number of CDs that we would have never known of (mostly imports from Brazil).
Otherwise I would not know great Tom Lehrer's songs :)
I.D.M. Music, Other Abstract/Fusion music like Estradasphere, Secret Chiefs 3...
There just wasn't good music available to me before P2P...
...for about 50p a shot you can ring 2580 from your mobile, hold your phone near the speaker, wait 10 seconds and hang up. you'll get a text message back a minute later with full details of the tune. ok, it's expensive, but it's *cool*. see http:///www.shazam.com for details...
I've never really downloaded that much music using p2p networks, because I prefer to buy music I actually care about.
However, there's an increasing number of "netlabels" releasing high quality music for free. If you're interested, start by checking out archive.org.
When I find something I like, I also write about it here.
Netlabels have definitely changed my interest in music, since they dare to release stuff that's often too progressive or unique to really sell, and in my opinion that's the beauty of them.
Got me to listen to (and purchase) albums by The Braxton Brothers, Cara Dillon, and Ray Charles.
Religion is for people afraid of going to hell.
Before P2P, I would only purchase "sure thing" albums that I heard on the radio and thus already loved and wanted to hear over and over. The thing about P2P is when it's all free you are able to aquire an entire album that you aren't sure about yet (since there is no monetary risk involved), and listen to it therefore letting it grow on you. You get the opportunity to take a chance on several bands that you might not otherwise purchase the CD. One example is the band "The Mars Volta". Nobody, and I mean nobody, heard this band the first time and though "I love this!". I downloaded some tracks and it took me a few listens before I realized it's pure genius. Only then when I loved the album did I purchase the CD (and on the day their second album was released I was first in line, without having to hear any of it). The same is true with many hardcore or metal bands that get no radio airplay. My musical tastes have grown greatly because I have a chance to hear all kinds of artists that I otherwise would not take a chance on.
Theres a major flaw in the radio system. Whenever they play a string of songs in a certain order for that day, if their ratings go up just a little bit, they will play the same exact songs in that order the next day. This is how they attempt to get higher ratings, while also failing to introduce newer bands.
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
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The only time I've had a really good time at a big concert is when I have good seats close to the stage. Unfortunately, these cost big bucks, especially in my market (Los Angeles). Thus I only buy such tickets when I really like the band and when I can afford it. Every great once in a while, I'm able to get comped or backstage, but it's rare since there isn't all that much overlap between my gig and the concert gig.
Clubs are fun, even if the music is sometimes shitty. (In the latest L.A. Weekly, I read the following in an article about the local music scene: "Many of these bands spend more time on marketing and promotion than they do rehearsing.")
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
You got me all nostalgic, so I went to check for Sisters of Mercy. I found a surprising amount!
Assuming you're familiar with SoM, may I ask you a question? Do you know the name of the Rolling Stones tune they covered? My vinyl is in storage, so I can't check.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Wasn't sure myself, but a quick google turned up Gimme Shelter.
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
That's a forehead slapper! Of course! Thanks. And what is this google thing you speak off? =)
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Yeah, I'm in LA, too, but have also lived in Detroit and Boston (also have good club scenes). The biggest places I'll go for shows are theaters (like the Wiltern) -- they tend to have pretty good sound, and aren't overwhelmingly large. One of the best shows I ever saw was Nick Lowe in a ~3000 seat theater that had only about 50 people in it. He didn't care, and had a great time, and it rubbed off on the "crowd".
Sometimes the music is shitty (sometimes really bad) but if the promoter is any good and you like one of the bands, you'll probably like at least one other of the bands on the bill. And it's good to get exposed to all types of stuff. I have a similar deal where I sometimes am working with one of the bands and get in free. It gets me out more.
Despite not liking big shows, I'm actually contemplating going to Coachella because I have to get my Gram Rabbit live fix regularly. I've been wearing out the CD. Plus they claim if you see them out in the desert it will all make sense...
I'd have never been into rock or anything like that before I found P2P. I'd probably still be buying chart CDs.
Also thanks to P2P, I spend more money on CDs than I otherwise would have done: about $400 more, actually.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
Yes, it turned me from a moping little \m/ Metal Kiddy \m/, into a vibrant, social Cyber. I discovered a whole new world of music.
I started listening to a lot of 'local' bands - folks within a few hours of where I lived that I couldn't ever get to as far as their shows, but bought their albums - many only EPs sold directly from the bands. I'm grateful for that.
I think with the interesting people, their lives can't possibly be wrapped up into a nice little package.
In addition to allowing me to sample a lot of music is not available in stores or on the radio, I've also been influenced indirectly by p2p, mainly by the RIAA's responce to it. I used to like a lot of major label bands, but have gotten so disguested with the RIAA's anti-technological tactics that I now only buy music from independent artists. This may seem like a purely political act that just limits my choice, but it has actually opened my ears to a lot of good music I wouldn't have heard otherwise. In some genra's, I've found that indy's simply have better music then the big record companies. For example, if you like punk, you can't do better then Epitaph or Alternative Tentacles.
e ntacles.com
http://www.epitaph.com
http://www.alternativet
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
There is little risk involved in downloading a song these days where the delete button is only a click away, where spending my allowance when I was younger on a horrible album could render me poor for a month.
The name (trademark?) Napster was acquired by Roxio in 2002 and now sells only RIAA-approved top 40 crap in DRM'd MS-Windows-only formats. Which is why it's difficult to find anything beyond the top 40 crap. Unlike the pre-RIAA Napster, the new service also has many technically imposed limits one how you can use the files you have paid for and downloaded. You still have a wider selection, more flexibility and cross platform options with iTunes or even plain old CDs.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I could rant for hours on this topic...
enough to say I have discovered bands and artists that would never get played on commercial radio and love them.
that said, radio has its place... and so do P2P apps and music downloads... if used well, they Recording Industry Associations could actually make MORE profit... but you cannot teach an old dog new tricks...
Time for a new upbeat view on the world of music rather than the current oppressive regime!
A Tale of 2 idle hands
Has anyone heard of any unsigned or indie bands promoting music through a P2P site and seeing some success? I have yet to hear of such a story, but I understand there are some interesting music promotion models on the way. It seems there is a sort of "tipping point" that a band must reach in terms of fame/recognition before a band can be "found" in a P2P community... Thoughts? -M http://www.GarageSpin.com
I use Grouper to stream and discover new music from my friends. Unlike Live365 and other user-generated stations, Grouper lets you listen to an existing playlist or create your own from your friends' music collections. The only downer is that Grouper makes it difficult to download tracks on a wholesale basis. If discovery through streaming is what you are after Grouper hits it.