Music Arsenal Blog

I find more often these days that many bands only have a Myspace (or PureVolume or TagWorld) page rather than an actual band website. When I want to see a band's upcoming tour dates, instead of going to yourband.com, I have to go to myspace.com/yourband. This may make me sound lazy, but all too often I end up at the wrong band's MySpace, a MySpace page with 1000 friends but no information or a page so mangled by a page editor that it takes 2 minutes to load. Finally, when the page does load, the layout and colors are so bad it's completely unreadable.

Has MySpace gotten so big that personal band websites are no longer important? Domain names are cheap (Under $10), webhosting is inexpensive ($5 or $6 a month), and designing your own webpage is getting easier all the time (HTML Tutorial). An individual website lets fans and promoters/labels/other music people know that a band is professional and serious about their music and not just a fly-by-night here then gone again group.

I enjoy pages with simple designs such as The Hold Steady and The Bronx. Both have full MP3s up for download, the news and tour dates are easy to find and the layout is clean and easy on the eyes. I think sites like Scott Andrew's are also doing a good job by taking that extra (and very welcome) step with continuously updated RSS feeds of band news.

I'm not saying MySpace isn't an important marketing tool to get word about your band out there, but its not the only thing a band should use to promote itself. Hopefully, some MySpace exclusive bands will look into making a website. But if not, please just stop adding so many videos, pictures, animated gifs and funky mouse cursors that I never visit the page again.

Bruce at Hypebot made an interesting post about Navio, a company which I had not yet heard of.

Apparently Navio is working on reverse engineering Apple FairPlay after being unable to successfully license the technology. Navio is working with such companies as TVT Records and Sony BMG to allow them to sell their records out of online stores other than iTunes yet still have them on iPods.

I'm sure the first thing on the minds of Navio is the ability to download single songs/albums but I hope they focus on the newer subscription models like Rhapsody 's and Yahoo's as well. I've been a happy iPod owner for about two years now however I'd be happier to trade my 20gig 3g model in for an iRiver. Not because the iRiver has any superior technology, but simply because I could utilize subscription services for my music as well.

I've been subscribing to Yahoo! Music for over a year now and I legally listen to a lot of music I would otherwise never purchase. I could put those songs on an iRiver and listen to them while away from my computer... with my iPod I can't. I'm not entirely sure of the technology behind the subscription models, but if Navio could develop a way for me to use my iPod with them it would give my old 3g a new life.