Some of you regular and more observant readers may have noticed the small ‘Drop Box’ icon on the right hand side of our site, UK Fests. Clicking this button takes you to a page where you can send music to the UK Fests team to listen to via a new social networking site which is built around music. This site is called SoundCloud. For those of you who use Flickr, SoundCloud is much the same but with music.
I thought I’d take a moment on this fine Easter Monday to just explore this website in a little more detail and hopefully encourage a few of you to take a plunge and sign up yourselves.
The basis of the website is to allow members of SoundCloud to upload their own tracks for others to listen to and even download. The beauty of SoundCloud is the social aspect of it all. The ability to make new friends, who you share the same taste in music, and find new talent is particularly attractive. Whilst Myspace have been recently trying to move more towards the music area of their site where they hold an advantage over rival social networking sites, it does still not revolve entirely around the music. Members of SoundCloud are able to review and leave comments on other artists music: offering advice and their own opinions of the tunes.
As we all know “the best things in life are free” and this is proven by the fact that basic registration to the site is free. The site continues to be free unless you want to upgrade to a Pro account. SoundCloud is also free from the annoying adverts that you can find on many websites.
Whilst I have only been signed up to SoundCloud for a relatively short period of time, it has become clear that there is a lack of variety of music genres. SoundCloud has attracted a lot of electronic artists who have found the site to be a very helpful way of distributing their music. As a result, there is a lack of rock, pop, indie acts who would all find SoundCloud to be a useful resource. However this is the only downside to the site currently but as popularity grows and the site develops I am confident that many artists of all backgrounds will begin to populate the website.
Using SoundCloud I have found some incredible artists whom I’d like to share with you. The first is an artist called Narsti with a track called Not As Strong As The Machines:
The second is an artist called Eclektric with a tune called Bop.
So check out the site, sign up and start looking for new talent!
Tags: eclektric, Narsti, SoundCloud
