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Roadrunner Staff Blog By: Anthony Loudside
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Nov 17.09
Too Many Choices And Not Enough Time...
So starting out with a 'Getting To Know" post was a bit intimidating considering the amount of die hard KsE fans the world over who could have potentially analyzed the post to the Nth degree, but it was fun to look back on and write about such a highly influential band at the same time. Moving forward, I will definitely revisit the 'Getting To Know' posts, but for now I wanted to tackle a subject that has been the center of many recent debates amongst myself and my circle of friends and colleagues, and that is the subject of free streaming and illegal downloading and how it has changed (and may continue to change) the way things are done.
So I have to say that starting out with a 'Getting To Know" post about Killswitch Engage was a bit intimidating, considering the amount of die hard KsE fans the world over who could have potentially analyzed and dissected the post to the Nth degree, but it was fun to look back on the band's history and to highlight certain points and milestones they've achieved thus far in their career. Moving forward, I will definitely be involved in more 'Getting To Know' posts, but for now I wanted to tackle something that has been the subject of several recent conversations amongst a select group of friends and colleagues, and that is: What is your main source or outlet for discovering new music?
Prior to the advent of the interwebs, there were only a handful of ways you could go about getting any kind of info on new music from unsigned and independent bands/artists:
1. You could read through every possible Rock/Metal magazine that was available to you. The demo/unsigned sections of each magazine and Metal Maniacs (R.I.P.) 'Shorts' section were especially helpful.
2. You could try to get your hands on any indie 'zine out there that you felt was worth the asking price of anywhere from free (basically the cost of a stamp to request it) all the way up to $5 for some of the more well produced ones.
3. You could get involved in the tape trading community and network via snail mail and live shows.
4. You could simply start a band and give it your best shot at getting signed to a label or hope to become successful enough to tour nationally on your own dime, meeting other bands and hearing plenty of new music along the way.
Fast forward several years and you have the interwebs. P2p file sharing and sites like Napster kicked things off for introducing people to new music on a massive scale. Having instant access to hundreds if not thousands of music websites (like the one your on now, as well as mine) and online magazines to scour for constant updates and information is extremely convenient as well. Other cool sites like Lastfm allow you to create a profile page, create playlists, share your musical interests and rate musical compatibility with other users based on what you listen to the most via 'scrobbling'. And of course, Social networking sites like Myspace took things even further, allowing for the discovery of just about any band in existence that cares enough to create a page (and send out a few million friend requests...of course).
The latest game changers (in my personal opinion anyway), are the Blogspot and real time chat boxes. Plenty of people are familiar with both of these, but as always, there are also plenty that aren't. For those who don't know, the basic role of your average music based blogspot is to be a hub for links to thousands of band myspace pages or official websites, which allows for you to go directly to any given band's page or website to check them out to see what you think. Bands are usually tagged with a sub-genre and some blogs add in their own FFO/RIYL (For Fans Of/Rocks If You Like) feature, listing other bands that have a similar sound or style. Another even more important function of the blogspot is to help promote the unsigned/independent bands out there who choose to give their music away to blog owners to post on their blog in exchange for the potential to gain a larger following. And because many blogspots tend to link back to one another, creating a small network catering to similar genres and sub-genres, it basically amounts to DIY marketing on a zero budget for any band that cares to have their music posted on any given blogspot. Not only is this platform entirely beneficial to upstart bands, but it also allows for users to hit a single spot and discover tons of new bands/music in a matter of clicks.
The chat boxes, which are usually incorporated into most blogs are also another extremely great way to discover tons of new bands, as you interact in real time with other users who will typically recommend bands to one another based on each others individual taste. Users in each specific chat box typically become a small tight knit online community of sorts, constantly sharing information on new and upcoming releases as they go. For those of us who don't have all the time in the world to keep up with the latest underground bands from the middle of nowhere, chat boxes are a great way to get up to date information and opinions on who the latest and greatest (and sometimes not so great) hype band of the week/month/year is.
Anyhow, getting back to the original point of this post, there are tens of thousands of bands that pop up all over the world every year with a hope of getting noticed outside of their own local area, using tons of different online resources as a tool to gain exposure on a global level. I know what I use to stay on top of things in the world of extreme music, and I feel that it has worked extremely well for me...
What I want to know is, what do you use and why?
© 2012 Roadrunner Records. 
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