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How Do You Find New Non-RIAA Music?
burgundysizzle writes "Given the general reaction to the RIAA in comments, I assume that there are a number of users that try not to buy from RIAA sources. What alternatives do you use - or more importantly - what methods do you use to discover alternative sources of music? I use Sellaband.com (some free legal music available) and Amiestreet.com (new music is free and most music really cheap) to find new music, but I'm always on the lookout for interesting sites to discover new music. Tell me about your experiences and any other interesting places you get new music from. I'm looking for inexpensive, and legal."
Most of the new stuff I encounter is from places like SomaFM. Most (all?) of the stuff they play is from indie labels and unsigned bands, and I can listen passively, which means I get decent background tunes while I work, and if I hear something I like, I can take a look at my stream player to see who the artist is and investigate from there.
:)
Basically, I'm lazy, so why not let someone else send the music to me?
I actually like to browse through friends lists of bands that I like on Myspace. Most of these bands are unsigned or indie acts. Chances are that the bigger bands I like have friends that are new bands that often fit into the sound of the "big" band. Not always just clones, either. While you come across some music that may not be what you look for, I have found numerous new acts that I really enjoy that I learned of only through Myspace. Of course, if I want to buy a full album I can look on iTunes to see if it's there. I haven't really tried the SnoCap (or some such name) service on myspace yet. The Plastic Constellations, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Lotus, Tal Wilkenfeld, The Bird and the Bee, Marjit Vinjerui and many others are artists I don't think I would have ever gotten through the mainstream, to name a few. If some of the these acts are RIAA, sorry on my part. Trolling the friends pages has really changed how I browse music, and it has done wonders in allowing me to find tiny acts that might never make "the radar."
Sig Registration Form 34c_766(a) submitted to Ministry of Signature Management. Approval pending.
/. led me to Jonathan Coulton whose quirky music I like very much, and who also responded to my email blindingly fast on the same day that a story about him appeared on /. - now he may not always reply quite so quickly but what are the odds I'd have been able to get a conversation going with a RIAA artist? Even some of the unknowns, who you'd think would be chomping at the bit to build a fanbase, seem quite aloof.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Listen to college radio stations, which is a whole lot easier now thanks to the internet. No, it's not all indie rock. Most stations have a wide variety of specialty shows, so you can become exposed to lesser known bands in nearly any genre--bluegrass, folk, country, j-pop, classical, avant garde/experimental, hip hop, dance, etc etc etc. And when their pledge drives come around, make a donation and support them!
This guy's the limit!
Magnatune.com - check it out. I'm a fan of Roots Of Rebellion, Very Large Array & Rocket City Riot.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
Don't buy music from a major chain: HMV, Virgin, Tower, Future Shop, Best Buy etc.
The best way to buy music is right from the musician's hand or web site (when in doubt, send them an email to ask about their situation). The second best way is to head on down to your local independant record store (Red Cat, Scratch and Zulu are examples here in Vancouver). The third way is to not buy music at all: download the tracks if you must and send them a few bucks (not a recommended approach if your tastes run to over-the-hill sellouts).
I just started poking around http://www.projectplaylist.com/ Don't know yet if it's worth much or not, but it might be worth a try.
I hate to admit I use it at all, but the music on myspace has some okay stuff. Just poke around the bands' pages and see what you get. Find a local band you may or may not know and follow their "friends" links, especially some of the smaller show producers and such. If you like metal, start with http://www.myspace.com/coldethylmusic (shameless plug, my tattoo artist is the drummer).
These sites are essential to maintaining my indie cred. They aren't 100% RIAA-free, but they do skew quite heavily toward the independent side. Pitchfork is the biggest of these and IMO the best music publication in existence.
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/
http://cokemachineglow.com/
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/
http://remix.kwed.org/
Is great source for a lot of nice remixes of old C= 64 games.
I have yet to find a station as good at introducing me to new music as WOXY. They started as a college radio station and made the jump to the internet a few years ago. They are constantly praised as being one of the best stations around, and I believe it. They still have DJs that select all the music they plan on their own, without any rules on what they must play. And the playlist is in constant rotation, with new bands being added all the time.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
I was literally just talking with my flatmate that was going on about how there's no non-drm music... there is and I buy it every week and know quite a few people (mostly djs though) that use it as one of the primary sources of music, along with the good old vinyl shops (like Know How in Camden).
Places like DjDownload.com, Beatport.com, Trackitdown.net etc. all offer unencombured 320kbit mp3s, and in some cases FLACs or plain old wavs. You simply cannot play stuff from iTunes or similar on a large soundsystem, you can hear the difference easily and it's not nice. These are niche sites for an audience of maybe a quater of a million or less people, but a lot of them care about sound quality, respect the artists enough not to pirate the music and best of all - the artists get a nice bug chunk unlike iTunes or large-corp record deals.
Dont get me wrong, iTunes is ok, but there have always been alternatives in niche areas and always will be. iTunes is good for finding new music and is gaining in popularity by individual artists and much smaller labels, but the majority of my stuff comes from these alternative retailers.
iTunes is the new boy here trying to be the alternative to the big highstreet retailer...
This album is not affiliated with the RIAA ;)
... CD Baby is a huge collection of independent artists and most, if not all, have no affiliation with the RIAA.
/., MySpace has loads of indie artists too. It takes much more sifting through crap to find them than on CD Baby, but I've found so many fellow musicians both that I listen to and jam / collaborate with thanks to MySpace that I have a hard time hating it as much as most slashdotters do.
Now that that's out of the way
Also, as much as it's hated here on
About three months ago, I had a "discussion" with someone who claimed that piracy would be the end of the music industry and that no one would want to play music anymore. My assertions that real musicians (and I know quite a few) just want people to listen to their music. They'll work a day job, go without eating, or do anything else it takes to keep playing in front of groups was dismissed. In my experience, the guitar/bass/sax/whatever is always the last thing to get hocked and the first thing to come out of the pawn shop.
Real musicians play for the people, not the money. They always have and they always will. This fifty-year invention of the rock star lifestyle is just a fad.
Speaking of that, the movie Rock Star with Mark Wahlberg has an interesting opinion on that. Paraphrased. "You've got to start drinking and sleeping with women. Live the lifestyle. Be sexy. Then the women will want you, and come to your concerts. That'll make the guys want to come, and it's the guys that buy the album." (I lookes for the exact quote, but couldn't find it.
By the way, I use http://jamendo.com/ to get almost all my music. Current favorites are:
Put identity in the browser.
the CD production/distribution is done by a big label.
That's sorta the point of the RIAA radar. Either the RIAA makes a buck, or they don't. I'm sorry if you find that misleading, but RIAA affiliated is RIAA affiliated. You can't be mostly RIAA-free. You are or you ain't. I don't want a single one of my dollars going to the RIAA members. Period.
Informative?? Well, I like 'em so BACK OFF.
I'm a big fan of Pandora. You can type in a band name or song name that you like, and it'll start playing similar music. A lot of the music will come from non-mainstream bands.
No, I will not work for your startup
Many /. readers have already experienced the future of music distribution. Imagine a system where high quality digital music (in both lossless and lossy formats) could be found for all but the most obscure artists, and even many of them as well! All indexed and searchable by genre, likeness, etc.. All with download speeds high enough to max out whatever fat pipe to the nets you happened to be sitting on. That system was Oink.
I have subsequently gone to concerts, bought a fair bit of merchandise and even the occasional CD from the artists I discovered through Oink. I discovered a distressingly large proportion of my current playlist through Oink. I say distressingly because the fellow running Oink was located in a country with copyright laws as messed up as the U.S. (U.K) and he was shut down. Oink is now, sadly, dead.
Let me make this clear. Oink was not legit. However, it was *better* than any legit music store in existence, and not because it was free. If the labels could get their act together and offer a service like Oink for a monthly fee, I'd pay through the nose for it. However, the labels simply don't understand the new music consumer. We don't want to pay $10 per lossy album when we have digital players that would take in excess of $30000 to fill at those rates. Some of us (although certainly not all) want to be able to download high quality lossless tracks that are as good as physical CD's so we can enjoy them on high quality audio rigs. As for DRM, none of us want anything to do with that BS.
If the labels give us what we want and we'll gladly tithe 20, 30, 40 dollars a month of absolutely rock-steady continual income to them on perpetual basis. If they ignore us, we'll just wind up on Oink's successor, whenever one finally rises to dominance in the gaping hole formerly filled by Oink. Maybe it will be in a country where they can squish it, and maybe it won't. One thing is certain though, eventually the Oink model is going to take over. Having used it, I just can't imagine going back to the legitimate alternatives.