Where’s all the Indie music?
So, yesterday, Apple announced their new on-line music service. Basically, for 99¢, you can download a song from their list. You can burn the song as many times as you want, you can put it on as many ipods as you want, you can stream it to other Macs, you can copy it to up to three Macs. And, if you buy a whole album, it’s only $10. Not a bad deal, on the whole. The only problem is the $1500 it would cost us to buy a Mac and two ipods to use the service. Sure, it’s coming for Windows by the end of the year, but probably through some bogus MusicMatch interface. In the mean time, us non-Mac types are left in the cold.
I was discussing this with a friend, who is a “musician” (in that he’s played in some bands, and even had some gigs, but never released any albums), and he dislikes the new Apple service because it’s money to the record companies, rather than to the musicians. So, I asked him, how do I find Indie music that I can listen to and determine if I like it? I’ve looked, and I can’t really find anything. The only place I’ve found is mp3.com, which seems to be mostly about selling you low quality, highly restricted, compter only, non-burnable copies of mainstream music. For years, I’ve heard the promise of the Internet to allow groups to sell their music directly to the masses, cutting out the middle man, and bring in high profits for the artists at low cost to the consumer. Where is it? Where’s all the Indie music?
Discussion Area - Leave a Comment