thesixtyone
February 10th, 2010 by Bea | Emerging Artists, Independent Artists, Internet Music, Music Website, New Music
Thesixtyone.com is my new preference for listening to music over Grooveshark. While I do love using Grooveshark and being able to have the ability to check out pretty much any song I ever could imagine and then being able to save those songs on to a playlist, I rarely use Grooveshark to break out from my typical music and find new stuff. This is where thesixtyone comes into play.
Being sick of the same old stuff, I discovered thesixtyone and started on my musical adventure. The interface of the site just recently changed, so I still am getting used to it, but it is actually pretty fun to use. All you really need when you are using this website is the album or the band, and then you have a few menus that pull out when you hover over areas that allow you to navigate. These toolbars allow you to skip the song, save the song to a playlist, “heart” the song, and more. There are a few things about this interface that I do not enjoy, such as how last time you could simply “save” songs while now you have to save them to playlists that have a maximum capacity of 10 songs. Another odd thing about this interface is that you cannot look at a list of songs to chose from; while you can search for a particular artist, you cannot see a list of the top X songs or so and choose from there.
The cool thing about thesixtyone is that it is a place for new artists, and then it is the listeners who decide what’s good. The more hearts and saves a song gets, the more popular it becomes, and the more well known the artist becomes. They claim to be “nurturing a growing ecosystem where talented folks can sell songs and merchandise directly to their fans.” On thesixtyone artists can make at least $7 per album and are paid every 30 days– that’s a lot of money in comparison to the standard $1-2 per album.
They’re named after Highway 61– “The road by which people left their homes to take their music to the world.”
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There are many ways to discover new music on Grooveshark. In my opinion, simply choosing the “Popular” category will list many new songs. Also, Grooveshark has a program that specifically helps new bands promote themselves and share their music.
By the way, Grooveshark has been using the “Heart” system for years. Their toolbar also allows you to add a particular song to any one of your many self-created playlists (up to 100 per playlist, I think, for the free version – no registration required), as well as, skipping, repeating, and shuffling the song list you are playing, including Grooveshark Radio, which can be genre speific.
Also, you can ‘scrobble’ your favorites to your Last.FM profile.
In my opinion, the real adventure is going on at Grooveshark, not that I won’t give thesixtyone a chance.
Thanks!