Music Connection Magazine is an all-encompassing industry site and my favorite of this bunch, with thoroughly researched columns such as the A&R Report and entertaining profiles on songwriters and engineers who might not normally receive the attention or gratitude they deserve from the music media. The “tip jar” section also includes interesting tidbits for aspiring artists, although despite the site’s unique layers, I was bothered by the flashy advertisements along the sides and top of each page. Similarly, Digital Music News’ tacky advertisement banners and dreary-looking interface overshadow its more helpful features, such as numerous recent news stories and an extensive job board. One step ahead of Digital Music, the visually attractive though perhaps simplistic news feed on Hits Daily Double’s news page covers all aspects of the industry, from charts to producers to music on television, easy to traverse and encouraging interactivity with a news search, album sales chart archive, and an appropriately witty “rumor mill.” Billboard’s Business page is similarly inclusive, highlighting news from every genre of music as well as the legal, publishing, and global realms, and allowing users to participate in polls and view the most popular and most e-mailed stories. However, the top headline graphics at the forefront of the page may change almost too frequently to stimulate interest in those titles. Downhill Battle, a non-profit organization run by music activists working toward a fairer industry, takes a more progressive and strongly anti-RIAA stance, a well-organized though biased site that includes links to spin-offs such as the RIAA Radar (example pictured, above left), a tool that consumers can use to distinguish whether an album was released by a member of the RIAA. Finally, the Velvet Rope Forums serve as open arenas in which to post thoughts on particular artists, venues, or events in the industry, with a community feel and frequent user activity and conversation, although the information found here must be examined critically given the anonymity and unknown credibility of those posting. Overall, my explorations this week lent me great insight into the music industry and its online cultural manifestations.
3.28.2008
Industry Connections Abound: A Concise Look at the Online Music Community
This week, I actively explored the Web once again in search of notable, lively resources that will supplement the content I address in my entries as well as provide my readers with additional links of interest pertaining to music industry issues and events. Using the Webby and IMSA criteria for evaluating websites and blogs, I have found what I feel are ten additional outstanding music blogs and magazines, new sites, and organizations based on their content, structure, visual design, functionality, interactivity, depth, and activity. These links have been added to my linkroll (right), but I will also evaluate each of them here. The first two sites I found are related to my last entry on social networking sites’ music platforms and their ability to help “break” new artists into the business. Taxi, self-described as “The World’s Leading Independent A&R Company,” helps unsigned bands and songwriters find record and publishing deals as well as placement in films and television shows. However, despite useful links to resources and industry job listings, Taxi's page comes off a bit like a cheesy infomercial, with a section for success stories and a corny front-page picture of a band huddled around a “What will Taxi do for you?” sign. Another site also deals with new artists, Rolling Stone’s “Breaking” blog. Although frequently updated, with each entry featuring a different emerging artist and encouraging interactivity via YouTube videos and leaving comments, the blog simply describes one band at a time and does not give thorough show critiques nor name any upcoming performances. Following up on my earlier post on digital downloads and songwriter royalties, Broadcast Music, Incorporated is a performing right organization that collects license fees and distributes them as royalties to their songwriters, artists, and publishers. The site is visually appealing and easily navigable, with catchy graphics spread throughout its extensive news feeds, online music magazine, and licensing information. However, it houses personal financial motives, presenting itself as a way to save businesses money and encouraging users to pay to join the service. Pro-Music, on the other hand, presents licensing issues in the digital era in a more balanced manner, outlining both sides of the debate and including artist testimonies with visually aesthetic graphics. Unfortunately, some of the links are slow to load or link to dead pages.
Music Connection Magazine is an all-encompassing industry site and my favorite of this bunch, with thoroughly researched columns such as the A&R Report and entertaining profiles on songwriters and engineers who might not normally receive the attention or gratitude they deserve from the music media. The “tip jar” section also includes interesting tidbits for aspiring artists, although despite the site’s unique layers, I was bothered by the flashy advertisements along the sides and top of each page. Similarly, Digital Music News’ tacky advertisement banners and dreary-looking interface overshadow its more helpful features, such as numerous recent news stories and an extensive job board. One step ahead of Digital Music, the visually attractive though perhaps simplistic news feed on Hits Daily Double’s news page covers all aspects of the industry, from charts to producers to music on television, easy to traverse and encouraging interactivity with a news search, album sales chart archive, and an appropriately witty “rumor mill.” Billboard’s Business page is similarly inclusive, highlighting news from every genre of music as well as the legal, publishing, and global realms, and allowing users to participate in polls and view the most popular and most e-mailed stories. However, the top headline graphics at the forefront of the page may change almost too frequently to stimulate interest in those titles. Downhill Battle, a non-profit organization run by music activists working toward a fairer industry, takes a more progressive and strongly anti-RIAA stance, a well-organized though biased site that includes links to spin-offs such as the RIAA Radar (example pictured, above left), a tool that consumers can use to distinguish whether an album was released by a member of the RIAA. Finally, the Velvet Rope Forums serve as open arenas in which to post thoughts on particular artists, venues, or events in the industry, with a community feel and frequent user activity and conversation, although the information found here must be examined critically given the anonymity and unknown credibility of those posting. Overall, my explorations this week lent me great insight into the music industry and its online cultural manifestations.
Music Connection Magazine is an all-encompassing industry site and my favorite of this bunch, with thoroughly researched columns such as the A&R Report and entertaining profiles on songwriters and engineers who might not normally receive the attention or gratitude they deserve from the music media. The “tip jar” section also includes interesting tidbits for aspiring artists, although despite the site’s unique layers, I was bothered by the flashy advertisements along the sides and top of each page. Similarly, Digital Music News’ tacky advertisement banners and dreary-looking interface overshadow its more helpful features, such as numerous recent news stories and an extensive job board. One step ahead of Digital Music, the visually attractive though perhaps simplistic news feed on Hits Daily Double’s news page covers all aspects of the industry, from charts to producers to music on television, easy to traverse and encouraging interactivity with a news search, album sales chart archive, and an appropriately witty “rumor mill.” Billboard’s Business page is similarly inclusive, highlighting news from every genre of music as well as the legal, publishing, and global realms, and allowing users to participate in polls and view the most popular and most e-mailed stories. However, the top headline graphics at the forefront of the page may change almost too frequently to stimulate interest in those titles. Downhill Battle, a non-profit organization run by music activists working toward a fairer industry, takes a more progressive and strongly anti-RIAA stance, a well-organized though biased site that includes links to spin-offs such as the RIAA Radar (example pictured, above left), a tool that consumers can use to distinguish whether an album was released by a member of the RIAA. Finally, the Velvet Rope Forums serve as open arenas in which to post thoughts on particular artists, venues, or events in the industry, with a community feel and frequent user activity and conversation, although the information found here must be examined critically given the anonymity and unknown credibility of those posting. Overall, my explorations this week lent me great insight into the music industry and its online cultural manifestations.
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2 comments:
You give a great overview on some useful online sources for information on the music industry. You cover many websites with insightful and sometimes humorous critique. I appreciate that you include not only praise of each website, but criticism when needed. I especially enjoyed your criticism of Taxi's website appearing like an infomercial. After exploring it, I see that it has useful information, but had the same negative reaction when I first saw it. I also enjoyed that you grouped together your critiques of sites you found strong similarities in - such as Broadcast Music, Incorporated and ProMusic. This eased the read of your post and allowed your critiques to be more cohesive rather than a list of your reactions. Lastly, I appreciate that you guide your reader through each website so they can follow your ideas. For example, you provide the interesting sections under Music Connection Magazine. When I visited the site, I knew immediately where to go for interesting information because you guided me in a field I am quite unfamiliar with.
One aspect of your critique I found to be unclear was that you failed to mention your purpose in compiling these sites. Some of the sites, like Music Connection Magazine, seem relevant to someone researching the music industry field because of its updates, reports, critiques, and reviews. Billboard's Business page is another that seems related to the field of research. However, some sites, like Taxi, seem limited in their information of the music industry. The Velvet Rope forum also seems interesting in discussing updates, but how might it be feasible to your research? Overall, I would have appreciated a little more clarification on how you selected these sites - are they for research or sites you just enjoy to read? If both, where do you draw the line? If one is looking for information on the industry, but not specifically on artists or shows, where should they go? Either way, I thoroughly enjoyed your post and your linkroll websites.
I have found your post to be very informative on the sites you have included in your link roll and also quite interesting. In evaluating these sights and your commentary, I was excited to see that we didn't have any of the same websites listed so it was also pretty beneficial for me to read your post for my own blogging. While evaluating your work, I at times agreed and at times disagreed. In regards to the Taxi website, I have to agree with you completely, it is very cheesy and obnoxious. However, I have to disagree with your commentary on the Rolling Stones Blog, which I found to be very interesting and distracting me from continuing onto the next sites. Although most other sites that I have found (two I would recommend to you, by the way are hypem.com and artistsdirect.com) are more conveniently designed for web blogging, I still consider Rolling Stone the official and final word on music (kind of like Vogue with fashion) and I appreciate what they have to say about the music industry more so than most other bloggers, except maybe Vice. I found Broadcast Music, Incorporated to be a little behind the times, advertising south by south west which was three weeks ago and kind of immediately made me uninterested. Pro Music and Music Connections Magazine I didn't hate or love, they fell within the same criteria as most other music blogs. Digital Music News along with the Velvet Rope, were pretty mundane as you also mentioned, while Hits Daily Double and Downhill Battle wouldn't load. I liked Billboard's Business page for the same reasons as Rolling Stone, although not to the same degree; its mainstream name just gives it a feel of reliability. Overall I really appreciated your blog as a resource to explore different websites evaluated by someone in a similar field as myself.
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