Social Networking and Indie Music-from Uplister to IndieMV

I'm a bit of a Luddite when it comes to music, preferring to listen to records and CDs as opposed to mp3s. I don't own an iPod, so I don't have a computer full of downloads. That means that I've kind of missed the boat when it comes to some of the intriguing online music communities like Mog and Last.fm.

Now there's an indie-oriented music community where one can find other music fans based on taste. IndieMV is "social networking for the indie music community" and they issued a press release yesterday about their plans for a "radically different licensing model for independent musicians. The new approach...will...give independent musicians and independent record labels a significantly larger, less encumbered, more immediate, more controllable, and more lucrative share of proceeds from the online sale of their music and videos..."

Their online community, IndieMV is focused on connecting indie musicians and fans and looks like it could be pretty fun, even for someone like me without a library of mp3s. According to their website:

"IndieMV: the indie music community is built on a simple yet effective principle: unite passionate indie music people from all walks of life. Finally, with IndieMV, there is an online destination that lets you build your own 'scene' - connecting you with great new indie music, the people who make it and those who love it."

Whenever I hear about new music-oriented social networking websites I get a little bit giddy in anticipation that they may rival the cool times I had when I worked at Uplister before the iPod revolution. Uplister was narrative playlist-sharing community from 2000-2002 where many college radio DJs and music obsessives wrote High Fidelity-style lists about break-up songs, driving music, first concerts, etc. I'm all for finding a community that recaptures the passion and creativity of Uplister. If you've found one, let me know!

P.S. If you want to read more about Uplister, here's a link to a "The Playlist is the Thing," a paper that I presented at an International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) conference about the Uplister community. The paper also gives some context about the digital music scene during that era around 2000 when a whole bunch of companies were looking at ways to provide music recommendations in light of the success of Napster.