Guidelines in Buying Music

Where do you start looking?

First of all you need to know which genre you like. This is something personal. We do no all like the same music, so you have to find your niche or niches in the art of music.

It is not uncommon that you like more than one genre and it might be interesting if their can be a fusion of them.

Finding a band

When you know what you like to buy, you might start looking for a band that plays the genre you like and that you might consider buying.

Major Record Labels

Big major record labels invest in artist that they promote and spend large amounts of money on offering a great product that you can buy in every store and that is well promoted in the media.

Those labels have the advantage that you buy music that is common liked by the public and does not need any promotion.

There are also some major record labels who are specialized in specific genres of music, like Nuclear Blast that only brings out metal music.

Indie Music

There are a lot of great artists out there that do not sign for major record labels, but produce their own work.

Some might have their own record label and those musicians are normally not less talented or professional, but major record labels only use artists they can benefit from and cannot invest in all talent.

So some make their own destiny and make their own Cds.

The problem with many of these artists is that they do not have the big bucks that major labels have and that they might depend on the support of their fans to be promoted.

You will most likely not find their Cds in stores, but in on line on their website or like in many cases through CDbaby.com.

They might also sell their music and merchandise on gigs where they perform.

You might also not hear them on mainstream radio stations, but on smaller on line stations.

Creative Commons, Soundclick and Reverbnation

There are also sites like Creative Commons, Soundclick and Reverbnation that allow artist to share music with their fans. In many cases they also offer free downloads.

If you listen to songs on Reverbnation, you might also help your favorite artist top in the charts.

If you download free music and listen to it, you have nothing to lose if you do not like the song, but if you like what you hear, it might be nice that you buy some music and support the artist in that way.

You can always help promoting what you like as well, by sharing it with your friends, hoping they might like it too and you can also learn from what your friends like.