bandcamp

[xdylanx]

No music site will be as useful for bands as Myspace Music was a few years ago.

[buckytoole]

also i'm really not convinced that people's musical tastes are narrowing. they may becoming more banal and programmatic - mor formalistic if you will - but there certainly is a wide buffet of choices out there and it's mostly thanks to the internet that such formulaic and recently popular genres as deathcore, dubstep etc have not only become differentiated, but growing and profitable musical phenomena.

this is essentially the counterpoint i meant. as usual plagueship articulates much better.

But the internet also makes people lazy.

I don't really have any strong feelings one way or the other.

[brianutatx]

The majority of people do have access to live music though.

omg... what?! look buddy, just because you live in a major city or college town doesn't mean everyone else does!

First I want to re iterate that the majority of people have access to live music. I know that people who work on research labs in Antarctica, Astronauts and people who are in prison most likely don't have access to live music. The majority of us do though. I do live in Austin TX, it's called "the live music capital of the world", so obviously I have more access to live music than if I lived just about anywhere else in the world. Though I have family who live in tiny Czech towns in Texas places like Needville and Seally, and although you can't catch your favorite Dubstep, Witch House, Deathcore, or Skramz band in those small towns they still have live music to listen to, typically Country Western music as well as traditional Polka bands. I could say the same about other non-Czech towns in Texas that have Tejano bands or Zydaco bands. The majority of the world has regional cultural music that you can see live, most of the time the music is played by people who live in the community at dance halls or town gathering centers. I never said the majority of people have access to live music they want to hear, just live music in general.

also i'm really not convinced that people's musical tastes are narrowing. they may becoming more banal and programmatic - mor formalistic if you will - but there certainly is a wide buffet of choices out there and it's mostly thanks to the internet that such formulaic and recently popular genres as deathcore, dubstep etc have not only become differentiated, but growing and profitable musical phenomena.

I think the formulaic/banal/programmic nature of post-internet music is a result of the narrow interest spectrum of todays music listeners. There is a wide buffet of music but with the ability to consume exactly what you want with out digging through what you don't know about leads to a narrowing spectrum.

Also I think genres like dubstep and deathcore wouldn't necessarily need the internet to gain popularity. My reasoning for this is looking at their respective predecessor genres. With dubstep you can look to drum n bass a music style that was mainly popularized in the club scene in the UK, it gained popularity through live DJs spinning and mixing drum n bass to live audiences. Drum n bass is an interesting style to to talk about it's rise to popularity because unlike hip-hop where fans would also buy albums as well as listen to DJs mix it live, drum n bass was never a style of music where most of the musicians were releasing albums for the mass audiences, it was almost completely sold as singles to be spun in clubs. With deathcore we can look at death metal which gained popularity though zines, distros, and live shows and to a certain extent other media sources like MTV. Both drum n bass and death metal didn't have that much exposure from the internet during their initial rise into popularity. With dub step and deathcore I'm sure their rise into popularity would be much slower if the internet didn't exist but its foolish to think that that the internet is imperative for them to be popular.

[Charon]

Myspace blows.

[Pete > You]

I'm not reading all this shit but I just want to point out dubstep gets played in clubs, so its popularity has nothing to do with the internet. Look at the history of dance music. Shit might just get popular maybe only regionally, but it gets out there independent of the internet.

[BROOTALPOODLE]

I'm not reading all this shit but

i feel like all the different view points are coming from people who grew up in two different generations- one with out websites like myspace/ bandcamp/ last.fm to find music and ones that did.

[BROOTALPOODLE]

Myspace blows.

i was about to argue with this saying that all social networking sites were pretty much the same

but no that would be fucking idiotic of me, myspace does blow. big time.

[dearericiquit]

No music site will be as useful for bands as Myspace Music was a few years ago.

I feel like you're very correct with this. A lot of bands got signed and were recognized just through that website, and probably since a chunk of them didn't get too far it won't ever happen like that again.

As for bandcamp, it's better than myspace now, better than pure volume (which I'm amazed is still in existence), probably not on par with lastfm (I don't go on there so I don't know how useful it is for people).

Personally, if I'm in a record store I'll ask someone if they know anything about a band or if it's a band I know of to get a second opinion and usually end up dropping some cash on it. I'm sure many of you do the same. Above all though I like that I'm hearing more about bands through word of mouth more than the internet.

I also really like how Touche Amore up and deleted their myspace.

[Gnarlin Gnartree]

I just remember being in MIddle School and looking at bands Myspace pages and always checking out their "Top Friends" and finding out a lot of bands through that. I know, Im lame.

[BROOTALPOODLE]

I just remember being in MIddle School and looking at bands Myspace pages and always checking out their "Top Friends" and finding out a lot of bands through that. I know, Im lame.

yeah thats how i got a lot of my music in middle school. i think once high school came around i started going to more shows and i started looking at music blogs and what not, and those two things got me into way more/ better music than myspace did