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Alternative Music
![]() ![]() ![]() The World-Wide Web is many things, but one thing it isn't is a radio station, at least not yet. In some ways, though, it's better. The Web gives you incredibly wide access to the latest and greatest at music's cutting edge, and there are no DJs to make the listening decisions for you. Artists both famous and unknown, signed and unsigned, post home pages to promote upcoming gigs and offer downloadable song clips. (After all, it's easier than stapling posters to telephone poles.) Record companies, no matter how small or regional, do their darndest to promote their up-and-coming bands. Fans cruise for what's hot and build their own pages as paeans to their favorite bands. It's a vibrant and creative atmosphere and one of the Web's most entertaining facets. ![]()
The true alternative music pioneer of the Web is the justifiably famous Internet Underground Music Archive. Founded by college students at the University of California at Santa Cruz, IUMA offers unsigned artists the chance to gain exposure on the Web whether they have a home page or not. For less than $100, IUMA will build a band's home page and maintain it for a year, indexing in several ways, including by genre and geography. If you want to know what bands are hot on the Cleveland or Tacoma scene this month, IUMA is a great place to look. Links to music-related on-line events, publications, and record companies round out the offerings of this important Web music hub. IUMA's got a great beat, and you can dance to it.
The Ultimate Band List lets any artist or band list itself for no charge. The list is democratic, too: Elvis Presley appears a mere stone's throw from the significantly less well-known Pretentious Flamedogs. It's a big, sprawling, democratic mish-mash searchable alphabetically and by six genres. Definitely the place to get up-to-the-minute information on your favorite bands or to discover some new ones.
Rocktropolis is another cool music site, as notable for the little flying saucers that zoom across its home page as it is for its content. According to its creators, Rocktropolis is "a rock 'n' roll fantasy theme park, a surreal city landscape inhabited by some of pop culture's greatest musicians and cult heroes. Plus its new pretenders." What this really means is that you'll encounter incredible graphics as you wander around this virtual city exploring chat rooms, looking over pages devoted to established artists, checking out concert updates, and, of course, ordering the inevitable $18 T-shirt.
CDnow is the Web's largest on-line record store, and its inventory is mind-boggling. Searchable by artist, album title, record label, or even song title, the site will almost always root up that one special disk you're looking for. We were pleased to find that a fairly obscure recording like the debut album of the New York folk duo Professor and Maryann was available, and at $13.97, it was $2 cheaper than it was at Tower Records (shipping and handling are extra). There's no substitute for browsing through the record store bins on a rainy Sunday afternoon, but if you can't find what you're looking for there, CDnow is definitely worth a try.
There are lots of music 'zines on the Web, but Seconds, which is affiliated with the Underground Music Archive, is among the best. Each issue features interviews with more than a dozen artists, both established and up-and-coming, and the accompanying photos are top-notch.
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SonicNet was New York's coolest music bulletin board from the day it debuted in 1994. Now, its brand new Web site does an equally good job of scoping out the alternative music scene and delivering the info in fun and vibrant ways. A constantly changing list of hot links to up-to-the-minute scenes and scenemakers is very well-chosen, and the funny (but somewhat off-color) "Indie Rock Guide to Dating" is something you won't find anywhere else on the Web.
RockWeb is an elegant, no-nonsense site that focuses on about 10 emerging artists at a time. With band bios, sound clips, and tour dates packaged attractively, this is a great place for new bands to get high-quality exposure and for listeners to discover tomorrow's bands today.
American Recordings is one of the stranger alternative music sites on the Web, mixing promotions and sound clips for unknown bands like Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartment with tour dates and downloadable info for artists as wide-ranging as Johnny Cash and Slayer. The Web Wide World of Music section here is a comprehensive and useful list of links to music sites.
Pollstar is the Web's best source for concert tour information. You can't order tickets here, but you're bound to run to Ticketmaster with credit card in hand after you look over the top 10 tours, the artist of the week, the new tour listings, and the tour gossip.
Blow-dried MTV VJ Adam Curry left TV a couple of years ago to become a full-time Internet guru, and he's found big success with his Metaverse site. At The Vibe, you get one-click access to dozens of articles about the glamorous side of the music biz, along with Curry's famous Cybersleaze report, one of the most visited pages on the Web.
Buzznet is a great-looking and tragically hip San Francisco 'zine covering a variety of topics, including science fiction, technology, and art. The music write-ups are first rate, and when the next big band explodes out of the Bay area, you'll read about it here first.
X Communications' Music View is the Web page of college radio's longest-running syndicated music show. College radio is always the best barometer for what's hot and what's not, so the dozen or so artists featured here at any given time seem destined for success.
Passionate music fan Rob Thornton worked for months to pull together the Indie Music Hub, a collection of links to dozens of alternative and independent music Web resources. No flash or gimmicks here, just plenty of links to the latest indie rock discoveries.
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Copyright (c) 1995 Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Ziff-Davis Publishing Company is prohibited. Internet Life and the Internet Life logo are trademarks of Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. |
![]() QUICK CLICK! Internet Underground Music Archive The Ultimate Band List Rocktropolis CDnow Seconds SonicNet RockWeb American Recordings Pollstar The Vibe Buzznet X Communications' Music View Indie Music Hub |