Time to Stop and Think
I have discovered a lot in the past few days refreshing all my programming skills. I have come to some conclusions that are important to share with you.
First: There is nothing more important than tying this community to music, pretty obvious. What is not so obvious is this, reinventing the wheel is not necessary. I have in my mind a path from where we are now to the point I want to be in the future. Most web sites have no interest in preexisting information because they have as their goal, capturing the monetary stream from musicians, not building a community to support musicians.In the case of this site, it is not only a good Idea to link to the artists website it gives it the ability to have access to the music that is already present on those sites. At the same time, that action will drive up web stats for each artist making their site rise in the listings, in other words, we will be helping them.
I do not consider this the end place at all and I will not be satisfied until this site can allow you to make and keep playlists and play your music choices when you want to. you should be able to vote for songs you like and you should gain a reputation based on your activity. At the same time I don’t want it to do the senseless stuff like losing artists into black holes in favor of others just because they are new. There has to be, if you amass information, A way to filter it and select what you want. At the same time it is imperative that information is not obscured. This is a very complex problem.
If I had found a site that truly supported indie musicians then I would probably be there right now but even if I was, I would wonder what was coming to ruin it. It seems to be a constant that sites that build communities destroy them. This is mostly caused by someone wanting to be a king or be rich or both. I have no problem with being rich I just don’t pursue it with a plan of becoming rich while riding on the backs of others. I am not saying everyone should be forced to pay for every song play. I am more into heavily reminding everyone to support the musicians financially and in other ways but money is the power of producing quality music so let us as a community stay focused on the needs of the artists if we like their work.
Most individual songs cost hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars to produce. When an artist gives away a song as advertising we should not assume that it feels good, they may feel it is necessary. It should be in our will as listeners to help artists forward if we have it in our will to listen to their gift of music. Still in this economy everyone has to give as much as possible both Listeners and Artists.
It is the same as planting a garden so you can reap the harvest. In that plan you always protect the garden because it makes no sense to put it at risk. Some of us can afford to help artists financially. Some can become their advertising agency, some others can offer them support by praising their songs when they are created and others can offer technical support on the creation of music itself. There are many levels of support all equally important.
So, now is the time to contact artists you might know and tell them we will link to their website. We will bring them to the attention of new listeners and we will provide the critical feedback they need about their music and help them in any way we can. I have always believed that what is necessary is for artists to work together for their own mutual success. Right now many are lucky to even find an audience. At the very least we can offer them that. If you haven’t joined Bestbop Music Community and you just stopped by to find out what it is about, I can sum it up like this: Helping each other succeed.