Even more free music statistics
Some facts and figures:
- I got tired of waiting for music-queue zero and added the SXSW 2010 music to my queue on April 9th.
- My music queue before adding the music was 367 songs totaling 1 day, 4 hours, 17 minutes, 11 seconds (under 1.2 days).
- The 1,038 songs from SXSW 2010 totaled 2 days, 18 hours, 13 minutes, 15 seconds (about 2.75 days—my prediction was 2.5 days).
- My music queue after adding the music contained 1,405 songs totaling 3 days, 22 hours, 30 minutes, and 26 seconds (about 3.9 days) of music.
- I finally started listening to the SXSW music on April 18th, 9 days after adding it. That is, it took me 9 days to listen to the 1.2 days of music that preceded the SXSW music in the queue.
- I have just finished listening to the SXSW 2010 music, early in the morning on May 16th, a month and a week after adding it and 28 days after beginning to listen to it. That is, it took me 28 days to listen to the 2.75 days of SXSW music.
- My music queue, now empty of SXSW songs, has 1,199 songs totaling 3 days, 14 hours, 39 minutes, and 30 seconds (about 3.5 days) of music remaining. This includes 34 full albums, not counting samplers.
Maybe I’m beating a dead horse at this point, but there’s a lot of free music out there.
May 16th, 2010 at 08:10:58
Well, there is free music and there is free music… I checked out the SXSW tracks from 2009 and after about an hour of skipping track after track of stuff that just wasn’t all that good, I just deleted all the SXSW tracks from iTunes. I don’t know what it is about SXSW’s music, but they just are not very entertaining to me.
Amazon.com has some great sales where a full album of music can cost anywhere from $4 down to just a buck. Plus they also highlight a free track a day. They usually have about 100 free tracks every month. Plus around 100 $5 albums as well.
Mind you, most of Amazon.com’s stuff isn’t “free”, but its way cheaper than full price and they don’t always do Independent musicians in those sales. I have seen quite a few mainstream bands being sold for $2 to $4.
I guess part of my problem with free music is that I already have 18,777 tracks and any new stuff has to meet a higher standard than other folks may apply.
May 16th, 2010 at 14:11:55
The SXSW batches are very heterogeneous, moreso than most other compilations. There’s no small share of crap, but it’s just a large-scale instance of Sturgeon’s Law; there are a few hidden gems each year, too.
Amazon has plenty of free music, too, as linked from my list. The same principle applies: Most of it is mediocre at best, but there are some diamonds in the rough.
Amie Street can be a lot cheaper than even Amazon’s sales, because of its start-at-free-and-climb-up-with-popularity pricing model, though obviously it depends on which song or album you’re looking at.
I’m up to 24,301 songs and am seeing a similar effect: I’ve become quite ruthless about unchecking and fast-forwarding songs that don’t get at least 3 stars out of me.
I keep them in my library so that I have a record that I’ve heard the song and don’t like it.