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Music Media

Has P2P Influenced Your Music Tastes? 115

Posted by Cliff from the off-the-beaten-path dept.
Whatistehmatrix asks: "About 5 years ago, when I first found out about KaZaA, it was somewhat 'underground' and had less than 1 million people. I soon discovered there was an unbelievable amount of music open to me. Instead of getting the music I always heard on the radio, I always sought out the music that was previously unavailable to me [Japanese pop & rock, overseas techno, etc]. Well, fast forward to today, and I actively buy CDs from groups I fell in love with from the songs I found on P2P. I was wondering, if any of the Slashdot community used to/still uses P2P programs to try out music that isn't heard on the radio, to expand your tastes in music from different countries & cultures?"
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Has P2P Influenced Your Music Tastes? More

Has P2P Influenced Your Music Tastes?

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  • Streams (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @07:24PM (#11894806) Journal
    I find music streams to be much more useful for discovering new music (here's one [slashdot.org] from a couple of weeks ago that I immediately went out and bought). As a push medium, it's much better for bringing things to your attention that you didn't know about. P2P mostly assumes that you already know what you're looking for, which allows you to hear music you've read about without making you buy it but doesn't encourage discovery by itself.

    • Re:Streams (Score:5, Interesting)

      by tommertron ( 640180 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @07:30PM (#11894878) Homepage Journal
      I find music streams to be much more useful for discovering new music (here's one from a couple of weeks ago that I immediately went out and bought).

      I totally agree. However, I also found a lot of good music by reading about an artist in a magazine, or hearing about it from a friend, and going and downloading a song or two of theirs. Kazaa is basically useless for finding music now, thanks to the sabotage of the music companies, but I'd be willing to shell out 99 cents or two at iTunes to find out if I like an artist.

      Of course, these days I just tend to borrow a friend's CD and rip it to my computer... which is worse than the Napster days, when I'd download one or two and buy the album afterward. So, sorry RIAA, looks like your tactics are kind of backfiring... (on me anway.)

      • My biggest complaint about all the online services, including p2p is catalog. It's way too hard, if not impossible, to find some of the interesting but more obscure stuff. I wish iTunes had a larger catalog.

        The thing is, this would be an opportunity for artist to make even more money by selling recordings of live performances. Authorized bootlegs, if that's not an oxymoron. I know it varies, but I don't think all recording contracts with the labels cover all live performances.

        And to get back to the topic,

    • Re:Streams (Score:5, Interesting)

      by merdark ( 550117 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @07:37PM (#11894932)
      I agree. But often, after hearing a good group on a stream, I'd download a couple of the songs via p2p to find out what the 'other' songs on the cd are like. The previews at places like Amazon are good, but often they are simply too short, or are non-existant (in the case of new/rare groups).

      If I liked the group, I'd go buy the CD. I bought more CDs during that time than I did my whole life. Of course, after the RIAA decided to kill streams in the US with licensing fees, and then started suing customers for checking out music with p2p, I stopped buying CDs in protest. So far my silent protest has not had any impact, other than to give them more ammo against p2p because 'oh, their profits are down... must be because of p2p'.

      Also, with the copy protection schemes becoming more prevalent, it looks like I will never be buying new music.

      The only exception I make is for groups not tied to the RIAA. There are very few of these unfortunately. :(
      • If you're in electronic dub visit thinnerism [thinnerism.com] and also monohm [monohm.com] for other organic & artificial ambient. If you're in Europe also check out the live performances or go paypal. Also, check out interchill [interchill.com] dl available on iTMS or ambient us [ambient.us]. Wonderful stuff, discovered on long silent psyradio stream...

    • Re:Streams (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ShamusYoung ( 528944 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @07:54PM (#11895083) Homepage

      For me it wasn't even discovering new music, but new genres of music - I was never into techno until Kazzaa. I discovered some of it was really quite good (lots of it is also crap, and much of it is impossible to find outside of the 'net) and I built up a good collection before the whole thing went to crap. A lot of that stuff is indie, and isn't on any label, so I wasn't hurting the RIAA's bottom line at all.

      But they just couldn't let a good thing last. Bastards.

    • A good stream site I stumbled on was http://www.basic.ch
      They have 100+ artists and Djays doing incredible stuff. I rarely find their stuff on Kazaa though.

    • Re:Streams (Score:3, Interesting)

      by joeljkp ( 254783 )
      I tend to gravitate more to sites that offer a "Recommendations" feature based on stuff that I've rated previously. With P2P, you have to know what you're searching for, and streams can get somewhat old (although I agree, I've found some excellent ones).

      What I really want is some website that lets me condense all my ratings for everything (books, movies, music, games) and spits out some nice recommendations for me. Maybe even a community site with real people doing the recommending.

      I found http://ratingzo [ratingzone.com]

      • Re:Streams (Score:2, Interesting)

        by AdamPiotrZochowski ( 736869 )

        checkout AudioScrobbler.com , they even let you download their database to run own
        statistical analysis.

        They provide the good stuff:
        - most listened track by artist
        - most listened track by listener
        - most listened artist by listener
        - similiar arists to an artist

        Although, their database is not too clean, some arists are duplicated, for example
        you will find 'prodigy' and 'the prodigy' as if they were separate artists.

        but then, audioscrobbler.com provides you with their database, its a project that
        run

  • Not at all (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Homology ( 639438 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @07:24PM (#11894814)
    I've never used Kazaa or similar P2P programs as they where ripe with security problems. I'm old fashioned enough to quite simply go to a music store and listen for my self, and buy it if I like it.

    • Re:Not at all (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bluelip ( 123578 )
      You may not find that 'hidden gem' just by listening to store music. Not all stores carry all artists. P2P usually does though. I've actively sought out and bought music I found from artists I wouldn't have known about if it weren't for P2P.

      That's not to say that I've liked all I've found. The good are far less than the bad. I'm glad I did find them though.
    • ...but iRate [sf.net] has certainly changed my taste in music, and without any paranoia about opening services to the 'net.

    • Re:Not at all (Score:3, Interesting)

      by eyeball ( 17206 )
      I've never used Kazaa or similar P2P programs as they where ripe with security problems. I'm old fashioned enough to quite simply go to a music store and listen for my self, and buy it if I like it.

      All the power to you. That's fine if you like the kind of music that comes on CDs. I worked in record stores 15-20 years ago, and got really sick of most music. Now I'm discovering (and purchasing when possible) tons of music via alternative media channels -- p2p networks, blogs, podcasts, word of mouth, and st

    • thats great, but music store only has few thousand records, I have friends
      that have more tracks than many music stores, now I dont want to go and say that
      in particular your music store happends to be Walmart with 20 artists ranging from
      Black Street Boys to Christinna Spears, but still, could you elaborate as to what
      music store provides you with world music?

      my own story : I try to listen to varied music, I had columbia house subscription
      whos selection blows (no Jean Michelle Jarre, nor no Prodigy (atleast
    • dunno where you live, but here, it's everything mainstream, the stuff i buy is online ONLY. The only music store here are samgoody, nothing techno or jpop based [excuse me, there's a section with 10 cds of karaoke that is labeled "Techno"]. If you can find the store, you can listen and buy, but here, it's the internet or nothing.

  • 3500 oggs (Score:3, Interesting)

    by davidsmind ( 524428 ) * <davidsmind@davidsmind.com> on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @07:26PM (#11894827) Homepage Journal
    Way back in 2003, I searched for *.ogg with giftd and downloaded 3500 of em in one night. It took about a year before I had listened to them all and now I have an incredibly different perspective on music.

  • Club Music (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DemENtoR ( 582030 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @07:26PM (#11894829)
    Acctualy, a lot of music I hear in clubs, that I couldn't find in stores here in the US. Or what you can hear on your radio station sometimes past midnight on the weekends, when they're broadcasting @ a club (at least it seams to be the trend on here in the area on the pop stations). I was able to find on P2P networks, and I also found a lot of new artists producing electronic music, that I never heared of. And polish music (let the jokes come), Kazik, etc..., (for those in the know), stuff I wasn't able to listern to since I moved here.

    • Re:Club Music (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Acctualy, a lot of music I hear in clubs...

      I cry shenanigans -- nerds do not go to clubs! Nice try, DemENtoR!

      • Re:Club Music (Score:4, Funny)

        by DemENtoR ( 582030 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @08:47PM (#11895459)
        Well some of us are young, college age, and acctualy do fun stuff on friday, staturday nights.
        • Some of us are even old (well, not that old), many years out of grad school, and still do fun stuff on friday and saturday nights (and sometimes even mondays and thursdays).

          I, too, tend to hear new music in clubs-- usually if I'm going to see one band I'll show up early enough/stay late enough to hear some of the others. If I like them I'll buy their CDs right there, from them. I've discovered some of my favorite bands that way.

          Live shows in small clubs are also just way more fun than big concerts. The
          • The only time I've had a really good time at a big concert is when I have good seats close to the stage. Unfortunately, these cost big bucks, especially in my market (Los Angeles). Thus I only buy such tickets when I really like the band and when I can afford it. Every great once in a while, I'm able to get comped or backstage, but it's rare since there isn't all that much overlap between my gig and the concert gig.

            Clubs are fun, even if the music is sometimes shitty. (In the latest L.A. Weekly, I read the
            • Yeah, I'm in LA, too, but have also lived in Detroit and Boston (also have good club scenes). The biggest places I'll go for shows are theaters (like the Wiltern) -- they tend to have pretty good sound, and aren't overwhelmingly large. One of the best shows I ever saw was Nick Lowe in a ~3000 seat theater that had only about 50 people in it. He didn't care, and had a great time, and it rubbed off on the "crowd".

              Sometimes the music is shitty (sometimes really bad) but if the promoter is any good and you

  • yes. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rogabean ( 741411 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @07:26PM (#11894832)
    I still pull a song or two here and now from P2P to check out a band a friend may have mentioned. It opened me up to alot of things I may/may not have bought before without hearing it.

    Typically if I hear about a new band I do this:

    1. find that band's website and see if they offer any downloads...

    2. if none.. then I'll swing over to google for a quick search...

    3. if none I'll jump on a P2P network and grab a file or two... listen and decide.

    Then it's either off to purchase the CD or off to iTunes (typically both..as iTunes is typically lacking in my tastes). Besides I love having the original CD/Case.

    • Re:yes. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Paladin128 ( 203968 )
      Me too... I remember about 6 or 7 years ago, living in the dorms, and Napster had come out. I first downloaded a bunch of stuff that my dad used to listen too when I grew up, and started remembering how good it was. Then I got even more experimentative, searching by genre. Within two years, my collection of a dozen CD's was about 100. It's close to 300 today, and still growing.

      All in all, I've spent more money BECAUSE of Napster than I would have without it. Now I don't download a whole lot; I just trade M

  • It's all about community (Score:5, Interesting)

    by oO Peeping Tom Oo ( 750505 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @07:27PM (#11894843)
    I've found networks such as Fasttrack and Gnutella lack a sense of community. There isn't much chatting going on. I've personally been influenced to listen to/buy new artists through the soulseek network. Through its use of chatrooms and using "user lists" as a method of browsing, soulseek has opened my eyes to many new artists (most being on non-evil labels).

  • Yes, it has... (Score:5, Funny)

    by R2.0 ( 532027 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @07:28PM (#11894854)
    I've discovered I like music much more when I don't have to pay for it.

  • Cannot search for MUSIC on p2p (Score:5, Funny)

    by Pegasus ( 13291 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @07:30PM (#11894874) Homepage
    P2P cannot change my taste of music, because I remember music by MUSIC (what a suprise) and not by the people playing/singing, name of band, etc.

    It might start affecting it when someone developes a search sistem where i humm a certain melody and it comes up with similiar tunes.
    • All you need to do is remember 2-3 words in a row in the chorus of the song. Then, search them on Google with the word "lyrics". For example [google.com] this search's second result is for "Slow Down Gandhi" by Sage Francis (which was the track I was looking for). And "wasn't pop then" isn't even in the chorus, where as "slow down Gandhi" is. I heard this track on JJJ here in Oz driving to work. I jotted down a few partial lines to the track and found it in under a minute on Google. Of course it's best to avoid contract
      • ...for about 50p a shot you can ring 2580 from your mobile, hold your phone near the speaker, wait 10 seconds and hang up. you'll get a text message back a minute later with full details of the tune. ok, it's expensive, but it's *cool*. see http:///www.shazam.com [shazam.com] for details...
    • It's been done. In fact, it was on slashdot a little over a month ago.

      The Meldex system, designed by the New Zealand Digital Library Project, solves the problem by offering a couple of ways to find music. First, a user can record a query by playing notes on the system's virtual keyboard. Or he or she can hum the song into a computer microphone. Last, users can specify song lyrics as a text query or combine a lyrics search with a tune-based search.

      http://slashdot.org/articles/05/01/25/2030207.sht m l?ti [slashdot.org]

  • Very much so, yes! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by thecampbeln ( 457432 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @07:32PM (#11894891) Homepage
    I liked a few tracks off of the "Bend it like Beckham" soundtrack, so after finding the track title on IMDb and searching for the artist (B21 in this case) I ended up with a ton of results in addition to the track I was looking for (remixes he'd done, etc.). I ended up downloading a bunch of the tracks and I have to say I enjoy a bit of the Punjabi Hip Hop scene! I NEVER would have been exposed to this if it wasn't for P2P.

    Also (though I'll get flack for it I'm sure), the original Russian version of the Tatu disk (remember, the two Russian "lesbians" who sung "All the things she said"). Anyway, the Russian version of their album is 10x better then the English (and I don't speak a lick of Russian - pun kinda intended >=).

    Course the RIAA hasn't seen any revenues from this "exploitation" (ever try to find Punjabi Hip Hop or Russian releases in Tower Records?!)

  • P2P is a great way to listen to music that wouldn't otherwise be available. I've been able to track down songs from every corner of the planet, as well as tracking down those hard-to-find classics. Say what you want about the legality, but how am I supposed to buy an album if I don't know the name of an artist/song/album?
    • Before Napster hit its peak, I searched for different types of music and found many I'd never heard of before. I found Swedish Goth, Russian trance, Bangladeshi pop, Far Eastern Classical. Most of the groups I found were not available via normal channels.

      Now I don't even bother, since the RIAA has taken to vilifying even those who don't listen to their crap. I can find interesting music on Magnatune and the like. I make sure I do my research and send my money to indie artists.

    • Listening to http://www.cbc.ca/ [www.cbc.ca], I've heard some pretty interesting music, from a Swiss yodel/alpenhorn duo that sounds remarkably techno to http://www.gjallarhorn.com/ [gjallarhorn.com], published in North America by http://www.noside.com/ [noside.com], who handle many Scandinavian acts, including Wimme and http://www.cabal.se/silence/hedningarna/index1.htm l [cabal.se], a remarkable group that pushes the boundaries of folk music.

      Hedningarna's song "Min Skog" sounds like someone managed to teach Ozzy Osbourne how to sing in Suomi and operate a

  • Yup (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @07:33PM (#11894900) Homepage
    Yes, definatly. While I didn't seek out forms of music specifically, I would sometimes download other things from people's collections when I found they had something else I wanted. It was this way that I found a few of the bands that I listen to.

    But more importantly, if I heard a song I liked and didn't know what it was, I could find out on the 'net and download it. But whenever I did that I would try to get other things by the artist to find out if I liked them. I bought more than a few of my CDs after finding music this way.

    While the iTunes price isn't bad, it still discourages expirmatentation the way Napster and Kazaa used to let you. I think the idea of 5 or 10 cent music (as in that article that I think was posted here a day or two ago) would fix that problem for me. I think that would be about ideal without actually being free. Plus it would force the services to try to compete on a level other than price (the difference between 9 and 10 cents isn't a very good reason to switch services, so to get new people they'd have to have a better catalog, less DRM, better quality, whatever).

    • Re:Yup (Score:3, Interesting)

      by YrWrstNtmr ( 564987 )
      Being able to experiment was one of the central themes of the old model of emusic.com. $15/month, all you can eat, no DRM. You could preview and try something new without actually spending $$ on that particular track/album. Too bad they got bought and changed the price/download model.

  • No, but music taste has diversified (Score:3, Interesting)

    by failedlogic ( 627314 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @07:34PM (#11894908)
    I've found that, with the exception of some J-POP, my music taste hasn't changed dramatically only diversified a bit.

    I like maily rock, metal, blues, jazz and other misc types. I've found that using the Internet and P2P, I've been able to hear albums which are either really hard to find or that I would never have heard before. Simply using Amazon and looking at what other people have bought, I've found really helpful. When I used Kazaa, I browsed other's shared files, and often went and bought a few albums afterwards.

    I've also found that using internet radio, has been really helpful. Canadian radio stations suck because of CRTC regulations (and I can't get Satellite radio ... though a US P.O. Box is tempting now...). Internet radio offers much more diversity in content.
    • When I used Kazaa, I browsed other's shared files, and often went and bought a few albums afterwards.

      This is the best feature of P2P services. If I like band A, and I find that those users who share Band A's songs also tend to have Band B, chances are I will like Band B too.

      This is what Amazon and other try to do with their feedback based recommendation system. It works to some extent, but not as well as P2P in my experience.
  • It allowed me to get my hands on some early 80s music that I would never have heard on the radio, or found in a shop - which I now can listen to more than I would have done otherwise.
  • i found out about one of my favourite groups on kazaa, and i like that genre in general now.

  • Absolutely YES (Score:5, Interesting)

    by justanyone ( 308934 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @07:50PM (#11895040) Homepage Journal

    I'm a white, upper middle class suburban 37 year old male and never would have listened to rap or dance mixes had it not been for P2P. Likewise Mel Torme, who has some incredible vocal talent that I was previously unaware of.

    Since the cost of the music was near zero for the friend of mine that grabbed it online, I could see if I liked it. Testing it out and seeing if I like something is a valuable thing - used to be (I hear) that record stores would let you do that. They don't do that now, I believe (though I've not been into a record store in 10 years).

    So, I did make aesthetic decisions about groups based on P2P experiences, some positive and some negative.

    I should mention that I'm a lot more likely to vomit down a record exec's shirt than ever purchase a CD again. But, I only really listen to the radio anyway (and at that, NPR), so they haven't lost any money on me.

    One thing I'm wondering about is something my friend mentioned - that he download the stuff directly from napster and that was over 6 years ago. The statute of limitations on theft in Illinois is less than that. So, he legitimately now owns all the songs he got then. I'm not sure if he's right, but it was a funny perspective.
  • I do. Normally, someone with vastly superior music taste to myself will recomend to me a band, and I shall go and download a whole bunch of songs from them. Next, I woll procede to buy albums from them if I like it. Mostly bands that most people have never heard of in their lives, but still.

    The most recent band to do that to me was The Weakerthans.
  • I never really listened to a whole lot of music before music piracy. I had one or two CDs, a couple tapes, and that was it.

    A friend at school started passing a collection of mp3s on a CD around at school. I copied em' to my HDD, and gave em' a listen.

    Without that CD, I might have not been introduced to Industrial, and might not have become a solo recording artist myself. I now have purchased hundreds of CDs, and occasionally purchase music from iTunes and Napster (not iTunes so much, though - I've only purchased about 10-15 songs online).

    After getting that CD, I got a taste of NIN and KMFDM - And I was thirsty for more. I asked friends online if they would recommend me other artists. Once I got a recommendation, I usually hit Morpheus or whatever P2p client I was using at the time to check em' out if I couldn't find samples legally.

    Now, thanks to p2p networks, I am a music fanatic. I listen to classical, industrial, 80s/early 90s metal, blues, jazz, funk, electronic rock, and more. I also am a huge fan of indie artists.

    I'm all about doing things legit, so I don't keep the music I download. In fact, I don't download anymore - I can't. All P2P traffic is blocked by my college. We can't even use BitTorrent.

    Oh well, it just helps me to stay legal while boycotting the RIAA. I buy used CDs nowadays, anyway. It's cheaper, and since I just rip them to my HDD, I don't need a CD that's going to last forever.

    Now, if I could just get my fans to distribute my music on p2p networks ;)

    A small note: A year ago IIRC, I was using Limewire to do genre searches. Rather effective way to find quick artists in a genre, assuming people rip their music and edit the id3 tags properly :)

  • Massive Attack (Score:3, Insightful)

    by computersareevil ( 244846 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @08:08PM (#11895194)
    If it wasn't for P2P, I never would have discovered Massive Attack. Now I own all of their albums on purchased CD's. What shit-for-brains in the RIAA thinks that P2P is bad for business?
    • If it wasn't for P2P, I never would have discovered Massive Attack. Now I own all of their albums on purchased CD's. What shit-for-brains in the RIAA thinks that P2P is bad for business?

      Currently, record executives make a shitload of money because bands have no other choice to promote their music. You're not making it easier for them to sell music, but you're not making it easier for them to make money. So, they have no use for you and your buying habits.
    • I think its the guy in the suit that compares the seven (I think they have seven albums, I might have missed a few) Massive Attack albums you bought to the million upper middle class white kids who downloaded the new fifty cent album instead of getting their mommies to buy it for them.

  • Oh god yes, (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LordMyren ( 15499 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @08:19PM (#11895278) Homepage
    music plasma [musicplasma.com] saved my life! it shows a graphical map of artists and how they connect to other artists (in way of "genre"). Its some entirely arbitrary linkage and the breadth isnt that great, but its supposedly all based on user inputs.

    i find audioscrobbler [audioscrobbler.com] to be too over-run by the songs everyone has on their playlist. it doesnt really help you discern genre's, which is what is so great about musicplasma. its much more directly peer to peer, but somewhat less useful. you pretty much have to find well done groups, but even well done groups rarely play the music in the group.

    Mood + genre awareness has a long ways to go.

    -Myren

    • Music Plasma is ok if you run a graphical browser, and only search for uberly popular
      stuff.

      I just tried looking for:

      Via Gra - newest russian pop band, no hits on Music Plasma, although the group
      is signed with Sony Music, and is very popular in both Russia and Japan (Via Gra is so
      popular in Japan that they learned few of their songs in Japanese to appease the fans)
      info on the band : http://dime32.dizinc.com/~russmus/bands-viagra.htm [dizinc.com]

      DAAU - Belgain experimental Symphonic music... Again, Music Plasma f
    • Check out allmusic.com. It is simply the best guide to music I have come across. Extensive catalog (I have a hard time stumping it with an unknown band) well-written histories and links to similar artists and related projects. Plus the mood awareness is excellent. Seriously, try it out today.

  • How to select a good band (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jon_oner ( 753207 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @08:19PM (#11895279)
    I recently found out a great way to pre-sort the good bands from the crappy ones. If the song you just downloaded is a 30 second loop or 3:15 of silence, then it typically means the band sucks and is in it just for the money (no talent or art). Thank you RIAA for helping us choose.
  • I found a lot of music via streaming servers that I really enjoyed. Of course they're all gone now.

    P2P hasn't really changed my listening habbits as much as given me a way to avoid things that I don't like. I hate buying a CD and find out it's crap. P2P guarantees that I get my money's worth. Unfortunately the RIAA has benefited from this new endevor as well.

  • Yep (Score:4, Insightful)

    by The Bungi ( 221687 ) <thebungi@gmail.com> on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @08:36PM (#11895397) Homepage
    I discovered a shitload of artists I've grown to like and listen to. Indie stuff, foreign (well, foreign to the US) and so on. Much of it stuff you mainly find at B&N.

    I had never really purchased that much music before. But here's the funny part: between 1999-2002 when I was really into Napster/Kazaa and other P2P networks I actually bought more music than ever before. Why? Because the stuff I really like to listen to I have to have in a CD. A downloaded MP3 just doesn't cut it for me in most cases. So I went out and bought the whole CD for those one or two songs I wanted. In some cases I found even better stuff, and in others the rest of the CD was crap, as is mostly the case. But them's the dregs.

    I'm not going to try and make the point that music sharing promotes CD sales, because I don't think it's true regardless of my personal experience, but there's definitely something to say about a worldwide, diverse network of people who share their music. Back in the day you woudl find the most incredible stuff on Napster. Today (on the other networks) it's difficult to find anything beyond the top 40 crap, which is ironic considering that's precisely what the *AA people are trying to get off the networks.

    • It's hardly ironic. Perhaps you missed that the name Napster is not part of the "networks" anymore. The name has survived, but everything else about it is different.

      The name (trademark?) Napster was acquired by Roxio in 2002 and now sells only RIAA-approved top 40 crap in DRM'd MS-Windows-only formats. Which is why it's difficult to find anything beyond the top 40 crap. Unlike the pre-RIAA Napster, the new service also has many technically imposed limits one how you can use the files you have paid for a

  • I am a fan of trance, eurodance, dance, techno, etc. I got to hear more from around the world. I actually like foreign songs (non-English) even though I have no idea what the lyrics say.
    • i dont like euro a lot... too awkward for me :/. What inspired me to write this article was i was listening to Ayumi hamasaki's new album [no link necessary] and thought it'd be a good topic and curious who's into since i went from rock to such diversified tastes, thought it was this "hidden source" [i have yet to find any real broadcasting radio company to play techno/trance or anything non mainstream besides jazz]

      my friend du0 just drove cross country a while back, looking for a good trance station, and
      • "P.S. p2p also told me actual artists for songs that people can hum, but not know the name, enabling me to buy their album [sandstorm, by darude, for a very good example]"

        Yeah, this too! I don't like listening to radio even online for music. I like to listen and skip whatever songs I listen to. With P2P, I can nuke the sucky ones. I only like 5% of the songs I hear. And yes, I am that picky.
  • Unless I have to, then it is only in a virtual machine set to undoable. Most of the time it is good old NNTP for me even better now that September is finally over

  • I will not give much credit to any p2p, especially since such networks like emule
    or torrent dont allow you to find other files that a given user has, but I will
    say that generally Internet did help me grown my taste and appreciation to world
    music.

    1) online friends, after many years on irc and icq and other chat networks you
    get to know lots of people from various places around the world. They often send me
    lists of whats popular in their country. I recently heard of Via Gra, a russian pop
    band (which i

  • YES YES YES! (Score:2, Informative)

    by grub ( 11606 )

    Without a doubt.

    Countless times I've read of a band that sounds interesting and I get it off eMule or BitTorren. If it's interesting, I'll buy it or download it from a pay-service. (I just bought a bunch of Boris [.ja sludge/doom/rock from emusic.com in fact])

    That all said, I'm sure the majority don't buy what they really enjoy but P2P has without a doubt expanded my musical horizons and helped my buying decisions.

  • P2P: zero impact on me (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tverbeek ( 457094 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @09:26PM (#11895671) Homepage
    I don't collect music over P2P, so it hasn't influenced me one bit. In high school and college I did that home-LP-taping thang that kids used to do, but becoming "executive producer" (translation: I provided the money) for an album made by some college friends changed my perspective a bit. Since then I've been scrupulous about paying for all the music I "own".

    I don't listen to commercial radio, either. No explanation for that should be needed, beyond the fact that the music is soullessly pre-programmed and the non-music parts (commercials, jock patter, etc.) are apparently aimed at people with half my IQ. {shrug}

    I get introduced to new music these days by listening to community radio [wyce.org]. Real people, playing music they like, without regard for genre. I used to think I had eclectic taste in music, but it turns out everything I was listening to was just another kind of rock. Now I listen to and enjoy everything from jazz to folk to world beat to blues to a whole geology of rock and even a little country. And all over that new-fangled wireless broadcasting network invented by Marconi.

    If you live in a city, there's probably a small, probably-struggling community broadcaster in your area. If you care about music and open access, try tossing some cash their way. And instead of illegally "sharing" music you like to a broadband-only audience via P2P, why not take a few hours a week to legally share it over the airwaves where anyone in your community with a radio can hear it?

  • This is slightly off-topic, but for broadening your musical knowledge I recommend you start listening to your local college radio station. Assuming you are in the US, and not too far from an urban area, you've probably got at least a couple stations with hugely varied programming available to you on your dial. A couple of my favorites: WRUW [wruw.org] of Cleveland, and WFMU [wfmu.org], a non-college indie station in New Jersey. Share eand enjoy.
    • Is there some kind of law saying that all US radio stations have got all-capital names starting with a W? Seriously.
      • Yes-The ITU (International Telecommunications Union) prefixes for the US are W,K,N, and A (IIRC) so the FCC when it assigns call letters decided to assign Wxxx calls to TV and radio stations east of the Missisippi and Kxxx calls to western ones, with other call formats starting with WKNA used for other services, (like K9COP, N3RD, AT1C, or W1AW for ham radio)
        • Ah, thanks. Sounds a bit like companies advertising with their trade register ID instead of a name to me. ;) We don't have anything like that here in Germany, at least not as far as I am aware. Radio stations call themselves whatever they want to, although acronyms are popular and the letter R is frequent for obvious reasons.
          • Sounds a bit like companies advertising with their trade register ID instead of a name to me

            Pretty much because they have to. Even if a a station is better known by their name, eg "Minnesota Public Radio" or "MPR" here in MN, by law they are required to identify themselves by their call letters, "KNOW," every half hour. So the ID ends up sounding like "this is K-N-O-W, Minnesota Public Radio, broadcasting from..."
  • My tastes haven't been influenced much by p2p, allofmp3, streamed audio, whatever.

    However, I HAVE discovered a LOT of new artists that I hadn't heard of before.

    I've also been able to "try out" a lot of artists that were a "maybe" thing.

  • Yes, but we've lost something... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by starglider29a ( 719559 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @10:18PM (#11895943)
    Upside of P2P:
    • A friend can hear a song somewhere in the US, can tell me about it on the phone, and I can download it, even if the record store or radio stations here never heard of it.
    • Looking for something, you always find something else you weren't looking for
    • I LOVE the various versions of the same song, that you'd never hear or. Plus remixes.
    • If you get a shard of lyric of a new2U song, you can find the title from google and d/l it to hear the whole thing, including determining who the artist is.
    Downside of P2P:
    • Having grown up in the years of "the Concept Album" P2P dissociates the music from the album and the effect is lost.
    • As artists mature, their music changes. Imagine a young kid trying to figure out the flow of RUSH's career from album to album just by what they found on P2P.
    • My friends and I share life experiences through a "Soundtrack of life". Certain albums remind me of certain people, and we share thoughts and express ideas using those themes in those albums. P2P'ers (pronounced 'kidz these daze') will never listen to "the same album". Their loss.
      -
      "All this machinery making modern music can still be open-hearted" (Name that album ;-)
    • Song: Spirit of Radio
      Album: Permanent Waves
      Thenk yew, veddy mooch...
      • Veddy guud, Veddy guud.

        Now, to illustrate my point, did you not, when you read that lyric, think of the OTHER Songs on that album? Did you recall the album art? Did you think back to when that album came out, and your life at the time? I do. They P2P'ers won't. Again, their loss.

        Offtopic note: You realize that Very is to Veddy as Gary is to Geddy, as in Gary Lee...
        --
        "Just think of what my life might be... in a world like I have seen."
        Rush
        0x840
  • As i said before, p2p isnt only good for finding different genres of music, it's also godly for identifing music you've already heard, but cant place. It's hard sometimes, other than doing extensive searches on the web for every group [techno is espically like this... too much "what's this song called?"] A lot of things are to blame, like for one radios dont say the song name for every song. Over where i live thou, there's a new station that says every song name, and advertises like that. And guess what? pe
  • Napster started to catch on in late '99, which was right after I had moved away to school. I was living in the dorms, and had access to a fast connection.

    When I went into college, all I listened to was metal (Corrosion of Conformity, Prong, Pantera, White Zombie) and the sort of crap you heard on the radio all the time.

    These days, based largely on P2P access (and more recently, iTunes), not only do I buy more music, but I listen to a lot of lesser-known bands. My tastes range everywhere from Ryoskopp, Jem
  • Originally, back on my 1.5gig Seagate harddrive 90Mhz Pentium computer, when Napster came out, I used it to get Jamiroquai songs. Living in the American South, you can imagine how hard it was to find their singles any other way. After about 1 year of finding their tracks online, I started using my summer earnings to buy their albums (this was around the time that Synkronized came out), all of which I now own. When I moved on to my 900Mhz Athlon HP machine, I used AudioGalaxy (back when it was free) to fi
  • Ironically enough, I never would have gotten into Metallica if it hadn't been for the ability to get a taste of a lot of their music using WinMX. Now I own three albums and I've seen them live once. This isn't even up for discussion: Bands that don't get much radioplay get even better publicity on P2P networks. Most of the people that go WAY underground for their downloads are smart, savvy people. They are a very good fanbase to start out with.

  • I live in a small town in the midwest. Let's just say the music we get from our local radio stations and television is quite a bit less than diverse. Sure, we have MTV and VH1, but corporate crap music isn't too appealing.

    I started listening to online radio stations. I started at Launch [yahoo.com]. It was awesome. I could find new music, rate what I wanted to hear, and find new and exciting bands and artists I would have never of experienced. Launch only had a select few songs and videos by each artist. I bought seve

  • Like others here, I haven't found new music by using p2p, but used it to try to find samples of artists I heard of elsewhere like streaming radio, blogs, DJ set lists, college and public radio playlists, etc.

    I did, however, discover the pleasant effect of browsing people's online music libraries way back in the heady pre-napster days of Hotline. Browsing various hotline servers devoted to MP3s was like going down a street with 500 record stores, some disorganized and broad, others tightly focused and tidy.
  • Gnutella is pretty handy for finding songs that someone's specifically mentioned to me, but it doesn't give recommendations. For those, I'll look things up on the iTunes store, to see what else was purchased by people who bought it.

  • Before I started using the ed2k network last April I had six gigabytes of music, mostly ripped from CDs I had bought as a teenager, of which I estimate that I listened to three gigabytes of it regularly. After using ed2k for ten months, I now have 84 gigabytes of music. I estimate that I listen to something like 20 to 30 gigabytes of it regularly, and I try to listen to at least one new artist, album, or work per week. (Since I work from home more often than not, I am fortunate to have plenty of time to fa

  • Well I don't download any music anymore, as I am still stuck in my Guns N Roses fan times (have all CDs in my car), but my wife has changed her habit a bit since napster came out. The only difference is that she uses amazon to check out what others have bought, uses the preview function to check out if she likes it and then downloads it.

    I can also confirm that we have since bought a number of CDs that we would have never known of (mostly imports from Brazil).

  • Otherwise I would not know great Tom Lehrer's songs :)
  • I've never really downloaded that much music using p2p networks, because I prefer to buy music I actually care about.

    However, there's an increasing number of "netlabels" releasing high quality music for free. If you're interested, start by checking out archive.org [archive.org].

    When I find something I like, I also write about it here [alexyoung.org].

    Netlabels have definitely changed my interest in music, since they dare to release stuff that's often too progressive or unique to really sell, and in my opinion that's the beauty of the
  • Got me to listen to (and purchase) albums by The Braxton Brothers [braxtonbrothers.com], Cara Dillon [caradillon.co.uk], and Ray Charles [raycharles.com].

  • P2P enables artists to "grow on you" (Score:3, Insightful)

    by techstar25 ( 556988 ) <techstar25 AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday March 10, 2005 @11:38AM (#11899392) Journal
    Before P2P, I would only purchase "sure thing" albums that I heard on the radio and thus already loved and wanted to hear over and over. The thing about P2P is when it's all free you are able to aquire an entire album that you aren't sure about yet (since there is no monetary risk involved), and listen to it therefore letting it grow on you. You get the opportunity to take a chance on several bands that you might not otherwise purchase the CD. One example is the band "The Mars Volta". Nobody, and I mean nobody, heard this band the first time and though "I love this!". I downloaded some tracks and it took me a few listens before I realized it's pure genius. Only then when I loved the album did I purchase the CD (and on the day their second album was released I was first in line, without having to hear any of it). The same is true with many hardcore or metal bands that get no radio airplay. My musical tastes have grown greatly because I have a chance to hear all kinds of artists that I otherwise would not take a chance on.

  • The Radio System (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Spazztastic ( 814296 )
    Theres a major flaw in the radio system. Whenever they play a string of songs in a certain order for that day, if their ratings go up just a little bit, they will play the same exact songs in that order the next day. This is how they attempt to get higher ratings, while also failing to introduce newer bands.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I'd have never been into rock or anything like that before I found P2P. I'd probably still be buying chart CDs.

    Also thanks to P2P, I spend more money on CDs than I otherwise would have done: about $400 more, actually.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I started listening to a lot of 'local' bands - folks within a few hours of where I lived that I couldn't ever get to as far as their shows, but bought their albums - many only EPs sold directly from the bands. I'm grateful for that.
  • In addition to allowing me to sample a lot of music is not available in stores or on the radio, I've also been influenced indirectly by p2p, mainly by the RIAA's responce to it. I used to like a lot of major label bands, but have gotten so disguested with the RIAA's anti-technological tactics that I now only buy music from independent artists. This may seem like a purely political act that just limits my choice, but it has actually opened my ears to a lot of good music I wouldn't have heard otherwise. I
  • There is little risk involved in downloading a song these days where the delete button is only a click away, where spending my allowance when I was younger on a horrible album could render me poor for a month.
  • I could rant for hours on this topic...

    enough to say I have discovered bands and artists that would never get played on commercial radio and love them.

    that said, radio has its place... and so do P2P apps and music downloads... if used well, they Recording Industry Associations could actually make MORE profit... but you cannot teach an old dog new tricks...

    Time for a new upbeat view on the world of music rather than the current oppressive regime!

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