ThePhanastasio

I feel like the internet, in general, has increased the accessibility of most any entertainment and information.

As a lady in my mid-twenties, I remember a time when you actually had to hear about music through magazines or word of mouth. These pre-internet times didn't allow for as much accessibility to artists who may have been underground outside of the cities these artists lived in, or the scenes in bigger cities. If an artist didn't hit the mainstream in some way, Middle America wasn't going to hear about them.

Now, we've got this nice, fancy-schmancy internet which allows us to look for new music by genre, location, or any other way that strikes our fancy - in addition to allowing us to interact with people from across the world instantly about their particular recommendations that we may not have heard of or known how to look for otherwise. And that was a REALLY long sentence. But I don't want to go back and edit it. Anyway, I digress...

There are thousands of sites, millions maybe, that allow people to learn about different artists. One good type of sites to allow people to find new music are the recommendation type sites. Some examples of those would be:

pandora.com
tastekid.com
last.fm

Then there are sites with a more social vibe to them. I would have to mention last.fm again along with that, but also turntable.fm, spotify, 8tracks...the list goes on and on and on.

You also have a plethora of music forums, this one being amongst the most active specifically music oriented sites on the web. Those are great places to talk about music, get recommendations, and all of that good stuff.

Additionally, you do have, of course, illegal downloading - sites like thepiratebay, demonoid, btjunkie...those all enjoy an enormous amount of traffic for torrents, often pirated music files. This allows people to sample a MUCH MUCH MUCH wider amount of music and the fact that these downloads are not paid for makes it cost effective for anyone with an internet connection.

OH! And you've got your nice sites where bands can directly reach out to potential listeners, maybe even sell a few albums. Sites like bandcamp, soundcloud, and jamendo come to mind, as far as excellent vehicles for newer bands. Bandcamp in particular allows artists to sell digital copies of their albums, offer them for free, or a "pay whatever you want" option. Even somewhat established artists like Amanda Palmer and Sufjan Stevens use bandcamp.

There are about a billion other things I could say, but I think that's about the general essence of the internet's effect on music. Yes.

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