GET
LISTED ONLINE - FREE!
Here
is our review of some of the best so you know what to
expect . . .
There are lots of sites on the web that allow
you to list information about you, your band and your music
online for free. Being that exposure and reaching as many fans
as possible is the name of the game . . . get yourself
listed on
as many as possible!!
To make this easier for you we had one of our
MusicIsland editors (a musician himself with a working band)
check out some of
the tops sites. Here is his review and grade on each site.
We have also provided a link so you can easily click on each
one
and
get yourself listed!
TIP: The quickest and easiest way to approach
this is to go to one of these and take the time to fill out
all their forms. In doing so create a Word Processing document
with all the info you fill out (like bio, band members, song
titles, etc.). It may take a while to fill out the first
one as you come up with all this info but they you can easily
copy and paste it into the forms on the other sites!
PLACES TO GET LISTED ONLINE
MP3
www.mp3.com
This site was bought by CNET and is currently undergoing
a major overhaul. Check them in 2004 for their new site and
services.
SoundClick
www.soundclick.com
Good one. I have been on soundclick for a few years already
and upon going back it’s clear that they have improved
the site. You can put a lot of info about the band and the
songs you upload. They’ll give you a mailing list and
a message board as part of the free membership. I loaded the
songs from my computer with a DSL line and it took only a couple
of minutes. They also have a great feature…the MP3 slurp
that pulls a song from another web location very quickly. GRADE:
B+
BandName
www.bandname.com
This is pretty basic. You can enter a fair amount of information
about your band but no pics or sound files. They do have a
place where you can enter a link to where there are samples
of your music or music for sale. GRADE: B
Gig America
www.gigamerica.com
This was the first time I’ve seen this page and I’m
impressed. Great design, looks like a lot of resources and
they don’t hard sell you the upgrades like MP3 does.
There is a step by step wizard to help you set up your band
page and it is very easy to follow. You get pics, a bio, song
files, contact info, gig swap…Nice job! I’m
uploading songs here now and it’s going very quickly.
GRADE: A+
MusicBuilder
www.musicbuilder.com
Not great. The design is messy and hard to navigate, like
a guy who has a desk only he can find stuff on, and I’m
having some trouble uploading an image. The songs seem to load
pretty fast, but I still haven’t been able to load a
pic. They do let you post a good amount of information,
songs and stuff. One unique feature is that they will let you
sell single downloads, or make a CD for sale. OK. GRADE: C+
Sonic Garden
www.sonicgarden.com
Very nice. Sweet design and easy to build an artist page.
They have a gang of resources and everything is easy to find
and easy to change. I like the music upload because you can
add multiple songs at one time…pick your songs and go
make a frickin sandwich, very cool. Also one of only a few
sites I’ve seen that will let you upload a video. Yeah!
GRADE: A
Indie Launch
www.indielaunch.com
This sight is alright. The site construction is a little cumbersome
and in my opinion they have too many "required" fields,
like why do they need to know the date a song was
written? It’s pretty easy to follow though and the uploads
seem pretty quick. GRADE: B
Bands411.com
www.bands411.com
Just started and I like this site already. They give you a
breakdown of exactly how you’ll build your page. The
process is simple, they walk you through it and they have a
lot of resources. You can load up to 10 songs! Also one of
the few sites that allows you to alter color scheme, fonts
and the general appearance of your personal page. It’s
cool, but you can get caught up in it.
To upload songs you
must enter their length and a description. I like the option
of doing that, but don’t like when they make me. I’m
uploading a song now, but they don’t give you a status
bar so it’s hard to tell if it’s working or how
long it will take. The upload speed wasn’t terrible,
but I’m a sucker for a status bar…or at least
something to tell me it’s working. Overall, pretty
good. GRADE: B+
Independent Music Network
www.idnmusic.com
Good site. Easy to set up your page and you get to enter all
your info and enter links to songs you already have on the
web all on one entry form. Their main shtick is that they put
out a catalog you can sell your CDs in, the artist gets $6
per. The band site is bare bones…no pics and only links
to songs you already have posted. GRADE: B
Online Rock
www.onlinerock.com
This site seems to have a lot of resources but is a little
hard to follow. It appears that you can create an entire website
for your band…not something I’m really interested
in as I already have one. I registered easily enough, but it
looks like this is more a site for someone who doesn’t
have a website. They want me to choose a web editor and the
whole ride. Could be cool, but the jury is still out. I’m
looking at a guys site right now and it looks like a full fledged
web site. Again, if you didn’t have a band site and wanted
someplace to point people this might rock. GRADE: ??
Garage Band
www.garageband.com
I’ve been on garage band for close to a year. They closed
and then reopened without the "record contract contest"
bait they used to have. It’s strengths are also it’s
weaknesses; you have to review 20 pairs of songs to post a
song to garage band. It’s cool that people are forced
to participate, and by participation they mean listening to
random songs and reviewing them.
Unlike MP3, promoting your
songs like mad will not help you, all the songs get the same
number of reviews and you can’t choose what to review.
It’s a unique concept and I don’t know of any
other site that does that. It’s also interesting because
they encourage and reward people who write actual text reviews
and
give feedback, this allows you to see what actual random
people (mostly musicians and music lovers) think about your
tunes.
The flip side is that if you want to post a lot of music
you have to listen to a lot of random songs (mostly trash,
lets
be honest here) and write some kind of review. You do get
to put pics and info on your band page before you load
songs. A great site, but time consuming. GRADE: B+
Corner Band
www.cornerband.com
Not bad. They sell a number of membership packages for prices
ranging from 20 to 200 dollars. Their free package is very
basic and I haven’t yet been asked to post a picture
or songs, just a brief description of the band and stuff like
location and style of music. GRADE: B
Music Scene Online
www.musicsceneonline.com
Nice design but a bit confusing to build an artist page. Also
doesn’t give you a progress meter when uploading materials
but it seems to go pretty fast. You can post a photo and music,
I’m still waiting to find out if you can post more than
one song. OK it said my song and picture were uploaded but
they don’t appear on my preview page. Good looking site,
but not very intuitive. GRADE: B-
