Death Row Albums Now on eMusic

With Death Row record label now on eMusic, west-coast hip-hop classic albums such as Dr. Dre’s The Chronic (4x platinum), 2 Pac’s All Eyez On Me (9x platinum), and Snoop Doggy Dogg’s Doggystyle (4x platinum) are now available at relatively cheap prices (as low as a quarter per song).

Death Row, specifically The Chronic, is responsible for establishing the west coast in hip-hop and popularizing the distinctive style of g-funk.

80s and 90s dance remixes, daily.

If you enjoy 80s and 90s dance/pop/new wave songs, and you further enjoy remixes of those songs, then the retro remixes blog is exactly what you need to add to your rss feed.  I have been expanding my mp3 collection with these remixes for months now.  They compile a set of 5 to 8 remixes of the same song and put them in a zip file for you to download, daily.

Merry DRM-Less Christmas

Download a great christmas album complete free of DRM over at emusic.com.

A Charlie Brown Christmas (with bonus tracks) – by Vince Guaraldi.

DRM-free Mexican music on emusic.com

One of the labels that supplied their music collection to emusic.com is a wide-known mexican record label, musart.  Some of the artists that arrived to emusic from this deal, and artists whose entire collection can now be obtained DRM-free are:

• Pepe Aguilar
• Antonio Aguilar
• Joan Sebastian
• Chalino Sanchez
• Paquita La Del Barrio
• Mi Banda El Mexicano
• Pancho Barraza
• Banda Los Recoditos
• … and more than 100 more.

Hopefully, we won’t see the end in mexican music record labels going DRM-free.  Unfortunately, Fonovisa, another great mexican music label, is not part of emusic.com, yet.  Will it be any time soon?

DJ Magnet attracts Digitial Music Collector

A few weeks ago I wrote about my methods of discovering music. In this post, I described how mixsets are a golden source for discovering music. I just discovered a new blog that I would be adding to my feed reader for this purpose: DJ Magnet. Not only does he provide mixsets, but individual mashups, as well.

“DRM in downloaded music will be gone”, says emusic.com’s CEO David Pakman

This is a great interview with emusic.com’s CEO David Pakman.  Emusic.com is my favorite music download store.  This article gives us a great insight on Mr. Pakman’s opinions regarding DRM.  Some notable quotes from David Pakman:

The average iTunes customer buys one song per month, spends about $10 a year on iTunes. The average eMusic customer buys 20 songs per month and spends $168.

EMI totally understands [music that plays everywhere] now. I think they made a courageous move. Obviously, the indies have done this since the beginning, and the indie market share has grown considerably in the last five or six years, while the majors have declined. They must be doing something right. I think another major will take the same approach this year, and then the other two will do it next year. DRM in downloaded music will be gone. Its days are numbered. There will still be DRM for subscription rental services.

Keep ‘em Coming

Another DRM-free MP3 Music Store: cdbaby.com.

While you are at it, pick up the album in mp3 format by the Vinyl Kings: A Little Trip.  A great band that closely resembles the beatles.  Here are a few quotes about the band:

“This, by all means, is the real thing.  The Beatles have split; long live the Vinyl Kings!” – Beatles Unlimited Magazine.

“Some of these songs could have been hits for the Beatles”  - BBC Radio Merseyside, Liverpool, UK

More DRM-free music stores

• PureTracks: This site really looks promising ($1 a drm-less tune) – can’t wait to give it a try.
• gBox: (coming soon) Universal and Google get together to sell DRM-free music.
• Walmart: jumping into the DRM-less music sales business – great, the consumer ultimately wins. Except if that consumer happens to be using firefox ;( in that case he is out of luck.
• 7digitial: a UK-based site for DRM-less music – haven’t tried this one out, yet.

upcoming artists ask for YOUR $upport

There are three sites that allow music fans to support their favorite artists with what matters the most (initial start-up cash).  Each of these three sites offer a slightly different spin in the way they approach this, but the basic idea remains the same.

• strayform.com: artists make a proposal for a new project. If they get enough money from people who beleive in them, they create the product. After the product is completed, it gets delivered to the public for free.
• sellaband.com: users listen to up-and-coming artists’ music. If they like their music, they donate $10. After a band or artist reaches $50,000, they record an album in a studio and send all contributors the final product. Users have the freedom to withdraw their money from a band at any time before the band reaches their goal of $50,0000.
• amiestreet.com: songs start out as Free. As more people show interest in a song, the song keeps increasing in value – a true testament on how popular a song is.

This is a win-win-win system for all involve: Artist get more money by eliminating the middle-man, Consumers get low-priced DRM-less music, and the companies offering these services get their fair share

I haven’t looked around these sites, yet. Therefore, I don’t have any artist I can recommend. I *am* looking forward to listening to these artists and backing up those that are worthy.

via Techcrunch.

My Current Three Methods of Discovering New Music

I currently have three ways of discovering new artists and songs. I still have no persistent way of getting all of this music. I would only buy DRM-free digital files. Therefore, I sometimes struggle a bit to find these songs. However, as long as I have all these songs written down, I have a peace of mind knowing that someday I can add all of these songs to my collection. If you are familiar with David Allen’s GTD (Getting Things Done) system, then this method may sound familiar. The system works for collecting music, as well. First, you clear your mind by storing all the artists and songs you want (never worry about these songs, again). Then, when you have time and money and are in front of your favorite music site all you need to do is pull-up this list and go down the list and grabbing songs you have pre-selected.  Really, no rocket-science here… : )

These are my current three methods in which I found new songs (or artists) to add to my “want” list:

1. Sirius Satellite Radio:

While driving, I am continually going down the dial through my preselected Sirius stations. When I found a song that I want I press a “memo” button on the receiver. By pressing this button, the song title and artist gets recorded into the system. My biggest surprise since listening to Sirius Satellite, is my discovery of blues music. I never would’ve imagine myself spending hours listening to blues. I liked a few blues songs before purchasing Sirius – and that was that. However, I have found that this type of music is one of my favorite music genres now. I am constantly pressing the “memo” button when listening to this station (Sirius Channel 74 “Sirius Blues”).

2. Megamixes on the Internet

Several DJ’s record their mix sets (usually half-hour to hour sets of music blended one after another) and make it available for free all throughout the internet. The key to some of these mixes is that the playlists are often provided. Therefore, when you listening to the one-hour mix set of a certain DJ and you bump into a song you want, all you have to do is reference the playlist and write one more song to your WANT list. Here is a sample of sites where you can find mix-sets such as these:

• Party Ben’s Sixx Mixx: definitely my favorite. They are no longer active. Party Ben used to publish one 1/2 hour mix set per week. These were the mix sets that have been very close to my style. I truly miss these mixes.
• Zebramixx: a close second to Party Ben is DJ Zebra. Again, any of his mix sets are a sure bet. I have found several new songs and artists in his playlists.
• DJ Z-Trip: his mix sets are harder to come by. You really have to put your google skills to work to find them (oh yes, they are out there – i have found a few). All-in-all, one of my favorite DJs.
• Other DJs on top of my head: (again their mix-sets are harder to come by, but you just have to linger a bit on their web pages or search google a bit to get ‘em – they’re worth it): DJ Moneyshot, Paul Devro

3. Pandora and Slacker

These are internet radio services that play songs according to your taste. Both services have a “bookmark song” feature that lets you store the name and artist of what is currently playing. I have also discovered great music using both of these services.

Again, since I only buy music from DRM-free sites, I often have trouble finding the music I want. A service that has helped me get many of these songs is LaLa.com. I have a huge collection of CDs and I have traded many of my CDs for very great ones.