Mixest – The Best Way To Discover Indie Bands As They Surface

Mixest

Name: Mixest
URL: http://www.mixest.com

By now, you probably have your favorite sites for finding independent talent. Maybe you resort to this one, or maybe you have bookmarked some other website that serves that purpose. There are enough of these spread all over the WWW to keep everybody happy. And you can argue whether or not the one I am reviewing now is indeed “the best way to discover indie bands” as I say in the title. But I frankly don’t think there is one which  is as easy to get to grips with as Mixest. When you land on its homepage a clip will start playing automatically for you to enjoy. When that song finishes, another will begin playing. And so on. You aren’t required to input anything or hit a single key if you don’t want to. You can head straight to the site and leave it open as you go your merry way. When (and if) something that has you tapping your feet and/or banging your head starts playing it is a mere matter of clicking on the window again to see who it is, and make a mental note.

But the best parts of the whole service are unearthed only when you are willing to interact a little with the service, of course. You can favorite each single track that you like, and you can even use a “Block” button in order to prevent someone who is as tuneful as The Vibrators ever coming through again.

In order to favorite anything you must first create your own account. That costs nothing – just pick a username and a password and you will become a Mixest user as quickly and sure as night follows day. From then on, you will be ready to start building a library of indie artists of its very own.

Lystener – A New Way To Share & Discover Lyrics

Lystener
Name: Lystener
URL: http://www.lystener.com

OK, I am the first to admit that this site is not the greatest thing ever since Swiss Cheese came along, but I quite like it. That is probably because I am a lyricist and I can’t divorce a song’s music from its words, but even casual users could get something good out of it.

If we look at its roots, what the site lets you do is to input your Last.fm username in order for the lyrics to the song that you are listening at that time to be displayed. When that happens, you will be able not only to read them but also to share them with your friends.

That is not as superfluous as some of you might be thinking. For starters, non-native speakers of English (like me) often have trouble catching a word or two, even after years of listening to English music. That is something obvious – it is not the same listening to Liam Gallagher than listening to John Denver. Sometimes we frankly can’t get the words right. That is one use this site will certainly have. Continue reading

Vevo Adds A Channel For The Promotion Of New Artists

As one could have guessed from the latest figures that were released, the growth of Vevo is not stopping anytime soon. Last week saw the addition of a new channel, and one that could modify the way people experience the video platform for the better.

Named “The Next Wave presented by Schick Hydro”, the channel is basically a showcase for new talent. Unfortunately, not every kind of new artist could be featured there – only those who are signed to any of the three record companies that have partnered with YouTube (remember, Vevo is a joint venture comprising Google, Universal, Sony and investor Abu Dhabi Media Company) have a chance to be spotlighted .

The idea is clearly to give these artists that have already been signed a chance to become a new sensation to rival others like Lady Gaga (who is responsible for the bulk of visits Vevo has every month). Continue reading

Eyeball.fm – Another Way To Share & Discover Music Online

Eyeball

Name: Eyeball.fm
URL: http://www.eyeball.fm

The amount of services to discover (and recommend) music online has no end. If someone asked why, we could but reply “Elementary, my dear Watson” with a smirk. “There is no end to these services because today absolutely everybody can upload his songs to the WWW and make them available to just everybody. These services are vital – or do you fancy sitting for a whole week chained to your PC listening to newcomer after newcomer?”

I have already reviewed a couple of these services, and you (being the diligent reader of MusicKO that you are) already know how they work. I will simply enumerate some of the most notable (and in some cases unique) features of Eyeball.fm for you.

For starters, it is more than merely a service for recommending music – it is a true backup service since you can upload your whole iTunes library to your account and access your music from there. And when you do that you are automatically gaining access to information such as bios and song lyrics.

Integration with services like Facebook is also accounted for, so that you can get down to recommending songs with your already existing circle of friends.

Best of all – in contrast to services like Pandora and Rhapsody, Eyeball.fm is available globally. This means that someone like me (who resides in South America) can use it to the full from the word go. Continue reading

Kyle Jenkins (Songr) – Interview

Kyle Jenkins from Songr (the social service for the discovery of music that I just reviewed) was kind enough to sit through my interview the same day my original post was published. Thanks a lot, Kyle! You will find his answers below.

Songr
Full Name: Kyle Jenkins
Age: N/A
Startup: Songr
Position: Owner

THE STARTUP

Tell us a little about your startup. How was it conceived? What are its most distinctive features in your opinion?

Oddly enough, the best ideas come when you least expect it. I was simply singing to myself in the shower (yes..yes..) when I realized I had sung the same song over and over for the past week! This led me to my hunt for better songs, which, to my dismay, brought me no results.

After hours of Googling, the only good source seemed to be YouTube, which, as we all know, isn’t dedicated to music. This got me thinking. I mean, I couldn’t be the only one with repetitive shower songs right?

Since I had some free time, I started on the design and, after 5 tries, finally got one that seemed decent. Working from that, I utilized my limited PHP skills and coded the site.

Eventually, I hit a wall when I was coding the rating system. I received help from a good friend on this part – which he coded our perfectly.

After 3 days of work, I finally got the site together. Over the next couple of days I started implementing features slowly, but efficiently. We are now working on a community system which allows for user registration and interaction.

I mean, the whole point of Songr is that it’s community powered, right?

What was the original launch date?

It was originally planned to be in late April, but additional allotted time allowed us (well, me) to complete it sooner.

What has been the response so far? In which countries has it been more successful?

It’s been pretty successful actually. We’ve received around 300 unique visitors daily since launch, but it doesn’t seem as if the majority of them are voting. Hopefully, the planned community features will encourage this. Continue reading

Songr – Finding New Music To Try In A Social Context

SongrName: Songr
URL: http://www.songr.com

Songr is a social site for the discovery of new music. The way it operates is by having people submit these songs that they are listening to in real-time. A ranking with these tunes is there and then created. The songs can be voted up and down (like any social service that aggregates content such as Delicious or Digg), and the ones that are met more effusively end up topping the list for each respective genre.

The featured genres, by the way, are quite representative of the tastes of the general public. You have “Rock” and “Pop” along with “Metal” and “Rap”, and a couple more like “Country”, “Jazz” and “World” are thrown in for good measure. These will be enough for the site to get going, but as a fan of Anime and Japanese music I wish there were at least a J-Pop genre available. I hope that is implemented in due time. Continue reading

The Sixty One – Discover New Artists & Share Your Finds With Everybody

TheSixtyOne

Name: The Sixty One
URL: http://www.thesixtyone.com

A social site, the aim of The Sixty One is simple: to let you discover new music through your friends, and upon recommending new music yourself you can gain experience points and move up towards becoming a more prestigious (and hence influential) member of the site.

And if you are an artist yourself, you can submit your own work and have it rated by the rest of the community. The system is certainly useful in the sense that if you have the right contacts you can become noticed in virtually no time at all. Continue reading