Audio Democracy

[Toxxic 0]

I have a new project called Audio Democracy, and we envision it as the future of music reviewing. Based at http://audio-democracy.com it's not currently 'live', but we're planning on launching on Monday 28th May 2007. At the moment an overview of what we do can be found HERE.

 

Basically, we're a bunch of people reviewing music. Any music. It doesn't matter about the genre, it doesn't matter about the recording quality, it doesn't matter if the band or artist is big or small. However, we also have a few little features that we think will make us useful:

 

*We accept tracks to review electronically. At the moment all submissions should go to [email protected], but when the site goes live people will be able to sign up for an account (for free) and then upload music directly to the site ready for review. Part of the reason we've done this is to cut down on the carbon footprint of all those CDs being burned, posted in envelopes, listened to once and then maybe never listened to again. No, it makes more sense to send the track via the internet, and it can be deleted from a harddrive once no longer needed.

 

*However, those reviewed tracks don't just go away. No, they get streamed on Audio Democracy itself, so people reading the review can listen to the music at the same time. No more will people think "well, this writes them up as being OK but I don't know if they're my thing". They'll know.

 

*Anyone can view the site, but registered users will be able to post their own comments and (if they want to get that involved) reviews in reply to the main review. That's why it's called Audio Democracy - we may be the reviewers, but that doesn't mean we know it all. Everyone gets a say, and if enough people think we're wrong we'll be shouted down. We're aiming to blur the lines between the critics and the audience (but please note that overly offensive or downright malicious comments will be deleted).

 

*Every track gets rated... but not just by us. A registered user can vote on a track to put the average score up or down.

 

*Bands/artists who've signed up for accounts will be able to put their upcoming gig and show dates up so people who've read the reviews and listened to the tracks will know where they can next see the band live.

 

*We're also looking at becoming an iTunes affiliate so readers can buy the tracks straight from the website if they want to. That means readers can discover, read about, hear, find out gig dates of and buy tracks from a band on the same day, all in one place!

 

 

We're hoping that enough people will start using Audio Democracy for us to become a real, vital tool in the world of music. Imagine if a record label starts looking through and sees a band they'd never heard of with a really high rating for their tracks, and hundreds of posts from people going "yes! I love this tune!". How about if a record label gets a demo that sounds interesting and can go "hmm, I'll see what the public says on Audio Democracy"?

 

 

I don't really know if many of the people on here are at all involved in the music industry, in whatever level. However, I'm hoping that some of you might be in bands, or know people in bands, or know people involved in independent record labels, or something like that. Please, pass the word out because I really think that this could become a useful tool for such people... but the more people use it, and view it, and sign up to it to make their voices heard, the better it will be.

 

"Audio Democracy - because everyone's a critic"

[k thx 0]

Sounds like it could fill a nice little niche. I'll give it a go.

[IllustriousOne 0]

I'm interested. I'll definitely check it out.

[Red Hot Thumbtack In The Eye 0]

The problem with this idea is that an open to the masses review site will basically be celebrating the lowest common denominator, and inciting nothing but petty bickering in my opinion. I really think that encouraging people to bring their local scenesters to your site to argue with you does nothing to improve the state of any music genre and will raise the noise : signal ratio far too high for most people to dig the useful information out.

 

Another thing that I feel is important here is: You promise to review any type of music? Why? The very few great artists will be buried under an absolute mountain of terrible to mediocre music that does nobody any good. Basically this very much strikes me as playing to a lot of people's local clique favourites that don't care about the quality of music, but rather, cares about being friends with the band or local scene bigwig. Even if you give a scathing review of a terrible band, it's still giving them more time and energy than they deserve and possibly taking focus away from great artists that do deserve it.

 

All that said, a review website with high quality audio samples and a growing knowledgebase of all types of music would be highly valueable for students and fans. I can only stress again the need for quality control of what is published on the site, both from the writers and the readers.

 

Good luck.

[Guest George's Box]

Tack is right. Think about that songmeanings.net thread: you wanna slog through what THOSE people think?

[Toxxic 0]

I'm not going to pimp this anymore, I just wanted to say that the site is now up and running, and I'd be interested to hear what people think of it; layout, idea, execution, whatever.