If you’re like me you love music. If you’re like me you’re also looking for new music. It seems most radio stations are into heavy rotation and selling a select few artists a month which is making it just that much harder to find new music. Morning Becomes Eclectic can be a decent showcase but I find it’s limited and I have less control over what could be playing. I love Pandora, it’s very organic and suggestive… but they have a decent library of popular music you probably already know about. What to do?
Enter thesixtyone, an online music showcase. The idea is pretty simple, artists upload their music, listeners create profiles and are given “points” to bump music up to the next level. Bumping unknown/undiscovered to lesser known artists cost you more points and as the artists move up levels their “cost” decreases. Though if you bump an artist and then they get bumped you end up getting “paid” points. So the earlier you “discover” the artist / song the more points you get.
With this system it forces you to bump only what you really like otherwise you spend points rather quickly. You can add songs to your profile and subscribe to users and watch their progress also.
There are a few ways to browse the site. First of all create a profile (it’s free) and if i’ve inspired you to try this out be sure to put me (abricko) as your referrer (i’ll get points) and then start the fun.
You can listen to songs by genre many have been discovered or started the bump process. You can comment on songs, add them to your profile, bump them or share them with a friend via email. Another way which is more random is to use “The Rack” which is located on the right side of the main page and just play through the tracks and when you hear something you like add it or bump it.
It’s pretty addicting beyond the discovery of new music because of the point system. You can also earn more points by logging in daily (+10 each day) or +1 each song you listen to in the rack, +5 for each friend you refer (+20 for each level they move up to).
Try it out, you might like it. I look forward to subscribing to your profile and seeing what you discover. Together we can destroy the record companies and the stupid RIAA!
I still like http://www.purevolume.com. The charts are a great way to find good bands that you might like.
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purevolume is cool, but for a totally new artist to post their stuff they have to be picked by the purevolume staff to be added to the rotation in order to make it into the charts. Plus they seem to welcome record labels (which is not always a bad thing) but who knows what kind of kick backs they’d take… though, they feel much less big corporate / agenda driven than KROQ or MTV…
with thesixtyone it’s totally community driven, songs make it based on what you like or promote and with the points system it’s harder to abuse or cast clout… you have to either be decent at picking good artists that others will like or you have to spend a TON of time listening to random track to build points
thesixtyone seems to give a better / more fair opportunity to the artists. plus the game element is fun… I really do think this type of thing is the future for music distribution, who wants a big ugly record label choosing what you should or shouldn’t like just because they have the money to push an artist?
Plus the site, as an application, is well written and does a few decent/slick browser tricks.
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The website itself is very cool. I listened to a few things in the Rock section and none of it sounded very good. I guess I like discoverying artists that have already been discovered. :)
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