In Command Base Alpha, that is, our living room, we have a giant entertainment hub in which all music is played and all television and movies are watched. It’s either MP3-based, or it’s our delightfully anachronistic vinyl record collection, both patched into the stereo. And anything we watch, be it movies or “Mad Men,” is floated down wirelessly from the Internet and streamed right to the TV. I heart technology.
But in the endless assortment of distractions that is the world-at-your-fingertips nature of the Internet, it’s easy to get lost, and it’s easy not to know where to begin. If you’re a music fan, you might not always know where to go to listen to music, to find out about shows or hear about new bands. Here’s a primer on some of the resources I’ve been using for years to keep hip to the jive, both locally and in a more generalized sense.
Best Site to find music you didn’t know you loved:
eMusic.com</b>
I’ve subscribed to this site for five years now, and it’s consistently been my No. 1 source for new music. Now, to be fair, my tastes often run more toward an indie-alternative bent, which is a genre eMusic excels at providing to its users. The entire catalogs of labels such as Merge, Matador, Kill Rock Stars and V2 are available, meaning albums from the likes of Arcade Fire, Spoon, The Decemberists, Cat Power and many more are up for grabs.
The site’s true appeal lies in the fact that the MP3 files you download don’t have DRM encoding. This means that members can burn, copy and play their files as often as they want, on an unlimited number of other computers and devices. In the past, major labels didn’t want to put their artists on eMusic because of that — but in 2009, Sony Music Entertainment signed on, followed by Warner Music in 2010.
Members pay either $11.99 for 24 downloads a month, $15.89 for 35 downloads, or $20.79 for 50 downloads. Compared to the dollar-a-song prices on iTunes, that’s a heck of a deal — less than half the price, and full albums often are available at discounted rates. Unlike iTunes or Amazon, you can’t just download anything you want. Because of the limited number of labels participating, not everything ever released is on the site. But for someone who enjoys learning about new music and digging through releases both new and old, eMusic is a gold mine. There are editorial picks that are actually useful, user-created playlists, and much more. If you’re at all curious about music that’s outside the mainstream Top 40, you’d do well to sign up.
Best Site to see what’s going on around the state for shows:
Wait, you mean besides this column’s semimonthly roundup of shows? Hey, I’m not going to lie — even I use Jambase.com to keep current on various shows around the state. The site provides free listings from not just Maine, but all over the country, of shows of all different kinds. Rock, pop, folk, hip-hop, metal, Celtic, jazz, country and yes, jam bands, are all represented. For a casual look at what’s happening in Maine or anywhere else, check this site out.
Best Site to check up on new releases and figure out what you want to buy:
Basically, Metacritic assembles reviews of thousands of different albums, movies, TV shows, video games and DVDs from hundreds of different websites, newspapers and magazines. Not only does it tell you what’s coming out during a given week, it also gives a very good cross-section of what music, film and other media are capturing the minds of the English-speaking public.
Reviews are combined into an aggregate score on a 0-100 scale, and by the end of the year, all the high-scoring items rise to the top of the heap. The highest-scoring albums thus far this year include releases from Janelle Monae, Big Boi and Arcade Fire. While it can help you decide what to listen to and what to avoid, it can also be a fun site to simply log on to and peruse.
Best Music as social media site:
For sheer listenability, Pandora Radio is pretty sweet. But for connecting with both friends and strangers, Last.fm takes the cake. The free site entails mainly the user downloading a tiny plug-in, called a “scrobbler,” that links itself up with the music player on your computer and-or your iPod, Zune or other device.
The site tracks everything you listen to, and allows you to see what you were really into during a particular seven-day, month, three-month, six-month, year and overall period. Your profile finds other users with tastes similar to yours, and recommends new music to you. It also creates your own personal radio station based on the music you listen to, and allows you to listen to other users’ personal radio stations as well. There are concert listings, information on all artists, and, perhaps most interestingly, overall charts from all Last.fm users. You can get lost on this site, as I often do.
