NoiseTrade.com ... Join the Revolution

"Who needs peer-to-peer when you can have artist-to-fan? If artists and fans realized how they could help each other and started making direct connections, without a middleman, the whole industry would change overnight. It would start a revolution."- Derek Webb

Behold the birth of NoiseTrade.com, a website that has the potential to revolutionize music on a grassroots level. In 2006, Derek Webb gave away over 80,000 copies of his album Mockingbird in an attempt to freederekwebb, as the campaign was called. In 2007, Radiohead stood the music industry on it's head in a similar stunt, allowing fans to pay what they wanted for their album In Rainbows. Well, 2008 is upon us and Webb and his band of merry men are at it again, shooting to steal from...no one and give to, well, everyone.

NoiseTrade.com is the brainchild of Webb and three others that is combining the options of free download (for telling 3 friends) or pay-what-you-choose ($1-25 range). Yet instead of one artist, what you have is a community of artists who are offering up albums. As Webb put it, "What happens when the generous, forward-thinking artist meets the generous, forward-thinking fan? They live happily ever after."

What is truly revolutionary about this concept is that is gets the music into the hands of the fans and gets the word out. Too many good musicians are never heard, yet there are indie success stories such as Webb or Over the Rhine. Why do bands like this succeed without a label? Besides the quality music, they build a loyal, enthusiastic fan base that consistently sells out their shows. This possibility is now given to the masses of independent musicians. And they will succeed on the quality of their music, not on the amount of money a record label throws into advertising.

Currently notables on board are Webb, Sandra McCracken, Matthew Perryman Jones, Katie Herzig, Sixpence None the Richer, and Micah Dalton. Both Jones and Dalton's records are in my personal top 10 of 2007. Webb's album The Ringing Bell was ranked in the top 100 of 2007 by Paste Magazine (much more prestigious than my Top 10). As of Sunday, there are only 31 albums for download, yet the number is expected to continue to rise. And to say only 31 albums to download for free seems to downplay the reality that there is a plethora of free, quality music.

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