Take a Walk Down Amie Street
The original intent of this blog was to strictly cover live music gigs and to back up that coverage with lots of photos and music clips. That's still the main intent, but I do have occasional dry spells, where I either don't get out to the clubs as much, or I simply don't find the music worth writing about.
So to fill the gaps and keep up the continuity, I've been diversifying a bit to cover other stuff that should be of interest to the live music fan. Sometimes it's just a reminder of forthcoming festivals and events, and sometimes an interesting web site that should be of interest to music fans.
This one falls in that second category. Amie Street is yet another commercial site for downloading music and having it billed to your credit card, but it is quite different from iTunes and iTunes imitators.
Amie St. focuses on independent up and coming musicians. Both fans and bands can register without any fees. Performers upload their tunes and they're initially given away. Fans download them for free. As they become more popular though, the price starts climbing... potentially to 98 cents. Popularity is determined primarily by the number of downloads.
Downloaders can also earn credits for recommending music to their friends. Those credits can then be spent on more music.
I really like the model. Musicians get feedback on how their songs are being received by the fans (through the price per tune stats) and they receive 70% of the revenues. Fans get exposure to a broad variety of independent performers and may discover the next band that'll make it big.
My biggest complaint is that you can search the database on just about every parameter except the band's location. I'd like to be able to zero in on Canadian or even GTA-specific bands, so that I can not only download the music, but then keep an eye out for live gigs by the ones I really like. Also, although the bands can have a profile of sorts, the site doesn't appear to allow links to the bands' web sites or MySpaces.
All the same, if you're willing to pay for at least some music downloads, this one is worth a visit. Free songs may be a bit iffy, but once a song hits the 30 cent level or so, I've been finding the quality quite excellent. You can sample before downloading, so it's not like you're buying the music blind (or should I say deaf!).
There are a number of MySpace-like features as well. Check it out.
So to fill the gaps and keep up the continuity, I've been diversifying a bit to cover other stuff that should be of interest to the live music fan. Sometimes it's just a reminder of forthcoming festivals and events, and sometimes an interesting web site that should be of interest to music fans.
This one falls in that second category. Amie Street is yet another commercial site for downloading music and having it billed to your credit card, but it is quite different from iTunes and iTunes imitators.
Amie St. focuses on independent up and coming musicians. Both fans and bands can register without any fees. Performers upload their tunes and they're initially given away. Fans download them for free. As they become more popular though, the price starts climbing... potentially to 98 cents. Popularity is determined primarily by the number of downloads.
Downloaders can also earn credits for recommending music to their friends. Those credits can then be spent on more music.
I really like the model. Musicians get feedback on how their songs are being received by the fans (through the price per tune stats) and they receive 70% of the revenues. Fans get exposure to a broad variety of independent performers and may discover the next band that'll make it big.
My biggest complaint is that you can search the database on just about every parameter except the band's location. I'd like to be able to zero in on Canadian or even GTA-specific bands, so that I can not only download the music, but then keep an eye out for live gigs by the ones I really like. Also, although the bands can have a profile of sorts, the site doesn't appear to allow links to the bands' web sites or MySpaces.
All the same, if you're willing to pay for at least some music downloads, this one is worth a visit. Free songs may be a bit iffy, but once a song hits the 30 cent level or so, I've been finding the quality quite excellent. You can sample before downloading, so it's not like you're buying the music blind (or should I say deaf!).
There are a number of MySpace-like features as well. Check it out.
posted by Charles Whaley at Saturday, January 27, 2007
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