Oh great. I was afraid the world had run dry of “everyone’s an A&R person”-style websites (which might be why people have turned to music blogs for their fill of unsigned/unheard acts). Now comes The Next Big Sound, a website which turns anyone into a virtual A&R person. The initial interest and reviews of the site show it to be something quite special, but I’m a tad skeptical.

As demoed at the TECHcocktail event in Chicago last week, the concept is simple and ingenious: listen to free music from unsigned bands, and “sign” your favorites to your own virtual record label. When your signed artists become hits on the site, you score points.

Simple…ingenious…and very addictive.

I like the concept, but it’s really nothing that new in the universe. I remember when Garageband.Com tried something similar (though not the same) many years ago. I’m sure there are other websites who have used comparable methods by which to break new music, but if this catches on it could become a movement all its own.

What are your thoughts? I guess if you’re in the throes of your own “funemployment cycle”, you’ll have plenty of time to get involved with this new concept. I’ll give it a whirl and let you know more after testing it out.

(TheNextBigSound — HT:Mashable)

For more on my experiment with The Next Big Sound, read on after the jump.

Well, it took me a while, but I found some really good stuff on here. http://loudersoft.thenextbigsound.com. Especially like blahblahblah. Very original.

However, here are my criticisms of the site design:

a) You can’t fast forward through tracks. This is a critical design flaw that needs to be addressed in order to save me from sitting through an entirely crappy song to find ten good seconds.

b) There’s no feature by which to report people. Crap like this: http://warrenc.thenextbigsound.com/ can be posted with no way to report the offense (in case its been taken down, the “artist” uploaded an empty track entitled “Obama Is the Anti Christ (WarrenC meets VJ NicoHitler StudioMix)” — nice). So, it’s a pranksters playground as it sits.

c) There’s no way to mark acts I’ve already heard as “heard” so I have to listen to eighteen tracks by the same shitty band even though I’ve already decided I do not like them.

Fix this stuff, and you’re on to something guys. Don’t fix these things, and watch it tank.

Related posts: