There was a time when Myspace was the premiere platform for musicians to promote their music. It was kind of like your weird uncle's attic, messy and sometimes NSFW, but a place that could foster some interesting and unexpected discoveries.
In the post-Myspace era, sites have popped up to fill the music-sharing void, with SoundCloud being one of the front-runners for underground music sharing and discovery.
In terms of design, SoundCloud's interface is pretty ideal for music promotion and discovery. Its layout is clean, its social feed makes it easy to find new content and its transparent statistics make it clear what is gaining popularity. But with SoundCloud's new copyright laws it seems that the smaller artists and DJs, who were the constituents that made the site popular in the first place, will have a harder time finding success on the platform. Many indie labels and artists have already complained that the platform has taken down their music without much explanation. Popular mp3 blog ThisSongIsSick had its account deleted from SoundCloud and Kaskade, a popular DJ, also had his music taken down.
Before, the platform's lax copyright policy made it possible for DJs to remix content and allowed users to discover new artists and genres. But with SoundCloud's new licensing deal with Warner Music and the site's stricter copyright laws, it seems that it will be increasingly difficult for DJs and artists to produce music featuring uncleared source material without the platform taking it down.
It's unclear, though, if SoundCloud is going to enforce these rules equally among its users. Will big names like Skrillex or Diplo be regulated for using copyrighted material as harshly as smaller musicians and labels? The tension between SoundCloud's grass-roots beginnings and its new corporate copyright policies has even prompted some users to create FrownCloud, a satirical music streaming service that prevents users from uploading any content in fear of it being deleted.
This new direction for SoundCloud comes at a crucial time as more and more musicians are forgoing signing with major labels to have more artistic autonomy. As Complex's David Drake points out, Macklemore made waves when he opted for a distribution-only deal. Azealia Banks was dropped from her label and, according to Twitter, she seemed very pleased with the outcome. In an interview with Hot 97, Banks revealed that after she got dropped from her label she simply paid TuneCore, an online music-distribution service, $75 a month to put her music through official channels like iTunes and Spotify.
So as more and more musicians are avoiding major record deals and as SoundCloud becomes less friendly toward user-generated content and more of a machinery for major record labels, where will music lovers go to discover music that isn't in the Top 40? And where will independent musicians go to get exposure? The music industry will inevitably reinvent itself. Until then, here are 5 places to go to discover new and fresh music.
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