#noistrade

[tomigra]

[rocublog]

Music for the thrifty

Similar to any hipster worth their salt, I greatly enjoy discovering new music.

I think I started discovering new music in middle school, when my best friend’s older brothers would introduce us to whatever obscure alternative and indie bands they were into. We would burn copies of the new music to play in portable CD players. Those were the days of yore.

Nowadays, access to new music is easier than ever.  Those willing to pay full retail price can simply download their music from iTunes, Apple’s online music store. Traditionalists still buy CDs, but that demographic is rapidly shrinking. On the other end of the spectrum, many internet-savvy music aficionados choose to download their music illegally through  myriad torrent sites because of the low possibility of legal consequences.

Once I reached college, I found myself both without significant money to spend on music and a little reticent to just download music illegally. Fortunately, I’ve discovered several websites that have helped me continue to discover new music while spending virtually no money. Enter Grooveshark, Spotify, and Noisetrade.

Grooveshark is a website that offers free music streaming with no audio advertisements. If you create a free account, you can follow artists, save playlists, and create a collection of favorite songs with a very simple interface. The major downside to Grooveshark is its lag time in music catalogue. Grooveshark is somewhat like a music Wiki in that all its music is user-sourced. This means that new releases often cannot be found long after they become available in other formats.

Spotify is similar to Grooveshark in that it streams music from a cloud-based library. Spotify has the advantage of a much more organized music catalog, in a format similar to most offline music players. Also, new releases can be found almost immediately. While it is much more user-friendly, Spotify users are perpetually annoyed by its audio ads, which play periodically and are un-mutable, unskippable, and generally obnoxious. If one is willing to pay a relatively small monthly fee ($5 for students, $10 otherwise) for Spotify Premium, the ads go away. Premium also lets users download a small amount of music to their hard drives, to play offline.

Noisetrade is conceptually very different than the other two sites. On Noisetrade, musicians put their own music up to download for free, with an optional tip. Most musicians on Noisetrade are up-and-coming, who want to build a fanbase. Also, lots of more well-know artists put track samplers and B-sides to download for free, in order to create interest for a big release. Thus, while a majority of artists on Noisetrade are less known, more “mainstream” material shows up there frequently as well. Noisetrade tags their artists with big-name artists that sound similar, to make it easier for users to discover music similar to their taste. 

So while it may seem that the only available choices are spending gobs of money or else illegally downloading music, there are other options available to the music aficionado with a tight budget.

 --Words and screenshots by Jon Mead

[cruxandco]

Artwork for Kye Kye's single, Noel, released exclusively on Noisetrade

[haileyreese]

One of my BIGGEST Holiday wishes is for everyone to learn the gift of giving. I have my version of Santa Baby up on Noisetrade you can pay what you like or download for FREE . All funds from the song go to the Mark Taper-Johnny Mercer Artists program at the Children's Hospital in Los Angeles. Grab it HERE  

[a-simple-riot]

Me encanta hacer estos "descubrimientos" de música que no conocía y que valen la pena. <3

Jars of Clay - NoiseTrade EastSide Manor Sessions (por NoiseTrade Video)

[jimjacobson]

Visit Original Link

The Thread / Shovels & Rope / Noisetrade Sampler

[nikitamaria]

Visit Original Link

"Gutter" by Paper Route

This song and others by them are available free (legally!) right now at

http://noisetrade.com/paperroute

[paradisiacallife-blog]

If you like choruses the size of giraffes and hooks as catchy as the bubonic plague then you just might want to try us on for size.

Quiet Company

noisetrade.com