The search for good music (on a tight budget)

Alright, what to write about this lovely evening?  Have I left out enough details online to talk about the report at my new job that there is significant animosity between the union folks whose high hourly wages and Cadillac benefit plans pushed to the company to outsource an entire department?  Nah, I'll wait until I get called a scab.  :-D  How about the "war of words" going on between Bill Clinton and Rush Limbaugh?  No, I'm in a good mood tonight, no reason to blow it on an press hungry former president. 

Instead, I feel like talking music.  Like a large part of the US workforce, I'm not making enough money to shell out for CD's or iTunes.  But music is still a big deal to me.  Do I turn to piracy to feed the hunger for new tunes?  Preferably not, although questions about the illegality of getting digital copies of albums owned on tape or out of print music come to mind, but we'll save that for another day.  No, instead we turn to the world of free and legal download-able music.  Simply googling for free legal music, MP3s, or other terms tends to pull up sites that lead you on a wild goosechase of links, or the most original one I ran into, offer free downloads of popular songs, as covered by the sites own house band.  It's one of those occasions where Google just doesn't cut it.  That's where I come in. 

The main focus will be Christian music, mainly of the hard and heavy persuasion.  One of the best places to start is blabberdownload.com.  The gentleman that runs it hangs out on firestream, the believer's heavy metal refuge (so do I, I'm righteous_slave there, just like on twitter) and dredges the web for the best in free, legal, Christian metal, punk, black metal, hardcore, ect for us cheapskates to download.  The site doesn't host anything, instead providing links to where bands and labels have their songs, demos, EPs and sometimes full albums available.  Just lots of music to go through, new stuff and old stuff that bands want the public to have access to.

The next example is one I found through blabberdownload, and that is record label Indie Vision Music.  From the homepage there, go to the downloads tab and feast your eyes on a massive selection of tracks, exclusive EPs again a few whole albums, and most importantly, some HUGE label samplers.  The Summer Slam Vol. 3 comp alone is 56 songs ranging from death metal to metalcore to emo to pop punk.  Get this one quick, because it's moving towards the bottom of the list, and a few other big samplers have disappeared.  The label's roster runs that same gamut, with a huge variety of genres to choose from, and they work to support Christian bands in the underground. 

Speaking of record labels, search for your favorite record label's website.  Very often they will have free samplers for download, a few tracks from their various bands, or links to the individual band's websites/myspace where tracks may be available.  Facedown Records regularly puts out samplers of their excellent hardcore punk bands (one is available right now).  They also have links to each band's myspace under the "family" tab, where you can often find more download-able tracks, or at minimum some streaming ones to check out.

On the streaming front, there are several sites that let you build a library of music to listen to online, if that is your preference.  Last.fm is my personal favorite, they have a huge selection of popular and not so popular music, but don't be surprised if your favorite top 40 artist doesn't have any full tracks available to listen to.  There are also some social aspects to the site, again, I'm on as righteous_slave there.  And look around, some bands have songs to download through this site as well.  For streaming, a close second for me is Reverbnation.com.  The focus here is building up local scenes, so you can search for bands not only by genre, but by location too.  Again, look for righteous_slave if you want to say hi.  (Notice a trend there?)  Note, neither of these sites focus on Christian music, but there is plenty to be found on them, whether you like metal, worship, or rap.   

Another place to look for free stuff is mail order sites.  Yes, there are still places that will ship you CDs, and as the brick and mortar stores keep closing, web stores are becoming the only place to get those shiny disks that one sticks in the computer to rip the songs to your iPod.  Divine Metal Distro has a free sampler up right now, although you have to fill out your info except payment data just like a regular order, and even though it's not free, Undark.net has a 50 cent sampler available for download (come on payday!).  If you're not po' (that's so poor you can't even afford the last two letters) both sites have some good specials on CD's and downloads to check out as well.

And finally, don't forget to check your favorite band's website and myspace.  Frequently bands will have tracks, demos, live recordings, or b-sides up on either or both of these options. 

So there you have it.  Just from what's listed here, one can enjoy many hours of new and new to you music, all at no cost or possibility of imprisonment.  Like I said, these sources, except where noted, provide much Christian extreme music to fill your hard drive with.  If screams of "Jesus is Lord" ain't your cup of tea, that's fine.  The hints listed should net fans of any genre at least a little bit of free stuff.  It may not be the same songs coming out of your radio, but commercial radio seems to have really hit the skids lately, with every station, regardless of their format, apparently pulling from the same pool of around 150 songs.  So, with that, I bid you happy searching and downloading. 

Capitolism, ROI, and Free stuff, oh my!

I am an avowed capitalist.  Not only because it is a far cry better than the alternatives, but because, just like freedom, the price is eternal vigilance.  A capitalist system doesn't stand if the people get apathetic about supporting competition, keeping the producers in check with their own knowledge and actions, as well as stay active in keeping the government from over-running the market.  When the people fail in the first, the producer's greed overruns everything, when we fail in the second, the government regulates business into the ground, or at least out of the country.

But my subject today is not economic systems, but one of the byproducts of them. Advertising is a fascinating product of capitalism.  A producer's objective is to move product.  Advertising encourages people to buy product.  It has developed into a massive industry in and of itself.  Polls and studies and data are all gathered, analyzed, metrics are generated, ROI (return on investment) is calculated, and various ad campaigns are launched or left on the cutting room floor.  The web has seriously changed the advertising landscape in a huge number of ways, one of my favorite being making "free stuff" more available.  The simple fact is that cost of the stuff given away pales in comparison to the value of moving up in the web searches and the increased value of the advertisers ad space (that ROI we mentioned earlier)  Now, 99.999% of the free money, free gift cards, free computers, free iPods offers that we see are fertilizer.  They typically require a long maze of filling in your data, usually several times, signing up for other free trials and newsletters, and usually just getting a larger slice of the spam pie for your trouble.  At worst these offers may be harvesting your data for identity theft purposes, or downloading malware/spyware/destructive viruses onto your computer.

There are a couple of places to go on the web where you can earn free stuff legitimately.  One I recently came across is swagbucks.com.  After seeing them featured in a short bit on the news (in a piece that evidently wasn't good enough to archive on the website) I figured what was the worst that could happen?  A little digging comes up with other positive reviews, as well as a B+ rating for the parent company Prodege LLC from the Better Business Bureau.  Regular readers (both of you :-D ) will notice a new widget to your right.  Feel free to use it or the link in the paragraph above.  The set up is very simple.  You sign up, use their search engine to look up stuff on Ye Olde Web, and random searches will earn you swagbucks, which can be redeemed for lots of nifty stuff from their catalog.  Yes, getting other people to sign up earns you bucks as well, hence the link and widget here.  Don't expect to earn a new blu-ray player in a week, but simple things like installing the toolbar and using it instead of your bookmarks to go to sites you frequent will slowly but surely fill your swag wallet.  By what I have found thus far, swagbucks doesn't seem to be aggregating your personal data for commercial purposes any more than Google, Yahoo, and Facebook are, so why not get a little bit of that advertising budget for your time?  

Another one I've been using longer is mypoints.com.  Instead of actual merchandise you spend points on gift cards for various retailers.  They have a search option, but I usually earn my points simply by viewing the sponsor pages from the emails that are sent on a regular basis.  Because I'm not shopping online with their chosen merchants, or signing up for free trials, quotes and the like, it has been a very slow build up.  But it is building, and with a bit of concentration the points would add up much more quickly.  Now, the site is owned by Classmates Media Corporation, but an A+ and accreditation from the BBB overcomes that hurdle.  No, I'm not including a link because Mypoints doesn't offer points for referrals, they offer points for adding people to your network.  DM me on twitter or facebook or email me if you would like to sign up and score me a few points.   :-D

At this time, my spam intake hasn't jumped significantly since signing up for either of these sites.  I think it's safe to say I get more spam from my job hunt than both of these put together.  So there you have it, some free stuff for you that is the direct result of the evolution of capitalism.  Advertising dollars spent generating hits and higher search ranks flow from the producers pockets, and some marketers have figured out ways to get those dollars to the consumers for helping the producers.  Now if these marketers could just teach these wonderful free market ideals and results with those silly folks in D.C........

P.S. Like the rest of the world, I see the "I made six figures sitting on the beach in Maui and so can you!" ads all over the place.  Glancing at some, I've seen principles that make sense, and with a little diligence, have found a few that just may be marketable.  I don't think any of them will have me retiring in a year, but for a second stream of income, there are some promising and legitimate looking affiliate marketing, ad making setups out there that work.  As my research continues, expect those to pop up in here as well as the usual politics and religion.  I think making money online is rapidly joining the list of things you avoid talking to people about if you don't want an argument to start, just like religion and politics so it's a logical addition.