Friday 20 December 2013

Best Of 2013








In case there is anyone still out there paying attention, here is my best of 2013, minus metal (I wanted to keep it under 400mb).
I haven’t posted anything  for a long time, and what has happened to the blogosphere in the meantime? It  appears to have been decimated; most blog owners giving up in the face of having their links reported for DMCA infringement. I’m sure I wasn’t the only person to links reported which didn’t actually contain the material that was being reported (see hissy fit below).
So what is left? You can listen to vitually anything that isn’t on Spotify ($0.00084 per play to the artist) or Soundcloud on Youtube – corporate owned, and full of adverts: trebles all round. Crucially, you can still download pirated new music on a plethora of soulless websites (search using duckduckgo: artist + album title + “mediafire”). There is no editorial content, no one enthusing about the artists, or encouraging exploration of back catalogue, or similar artists. It’s posted when it’s brand new, or before it has been released – the time when there is the most buzz, and most units get sold. Also, unlike the blogs of old, most are money making websites – forcing you to look at paid adverts before you can get to the download link. This is not better than the situation 5 years ago, whichever way you look at it.
At least good music is still being made, and here is some. The two meejafire links can be downloaded separately. If you use itunes, the grouping is ‘white dot 2013’.
As always, buy some albums - direct from the artist if you can; and if you can't afford to buy all the albums you want - don't buy the ones on major labels, you'll only encourage them.




PASSWORD to unzip is:
2013