IndieNews – StumbleAudio to discover new music?

StumbleAudio is a new music discovery web application, unrelated to StumbleUpon, I think, and much like Pandora (which completely sucks outside the US… stupid America slowing down cultural globalization! =) or Last.FM (more of a social network) or Jamendo (open source, sweet, social, but sometimes hard to find stuff I really like) or, or, or like countless others, but with even less information available on the website or in the press about what the heck is going on behind the flashy screens.

It’s very curious making, the site launches Friday July 18 with over 2 million songs by over one hundred thousand underground artists but with no word about how said artists joined or how others can sign up or how they get paid when their songs are played, though the one bit of available small print assures us that they do. Clearly they’ve tapped into someone else’s license agreement, since some artists who are on there didn’t know about it. Or they’re potentially behaving badly, or maaybe this was negotiated through Merlin? Just a guess, based on wondering, not evidence.

Albums on StumbleAudio can be streamed from beginning to end, and the different ways of purchasing the songs or album pop up conveniently linking you to Itunes, CDBaby etc, but I can’t help but feel disconcerted when the info on who, what, how is so totally limited. There are four pages of contact forms on the site; a small about page with no links telling us they used tons of user data from other sites to begin to build their application which though probably legal makes me feel slightly creeped, excuse me while I get used to the new world order; 2 links to articles about the launch that are actually the same Techcrunch article twice; and the application itself. Inquiring minds want to know more!! Not just about the company, but exactly how these bands are different from the artists featured on Pandora – these are just the unknown indies who sound like the bigger acts, or what? (The various recommendation engines try to find stuff you’ll like based on what you already like, which can be fun, or boring, or hilariously inaccurate depending on the service and your own standards.) And where are the indies we already love and want to hear, are they not welcome here, or unlicensable in this model somehow?

There’s some great music to discover on StumbleAudio as elsewhere, but it feels like there’s also something you’re not telling me. Grr. If you can buy data about me, I should be able to access data about you is my feeling, call me crazy. Ok, admittedly, they’ve been online for like 4 days, so there’s probably more info coming, but let’s say this to help urge it along: Releasing a clear explanation might help folks who like the service promote it, plus it could give some guidance to all the lost souls who complain on forums and comment threads that “indie” is just a sound, or a self-ghettoization based on ego. Anyway, check it out for yourself, it does kind of rock…when it works (I stopped getting sound after 2 banging and new-to-me hip hop tracks. Server overload? I dunno…)