I was in my car on the way to the beach and got thinking. I was searching for some great music on the radio and what sounded like the same song played at five different radio stations, and it hit me:

Are we doomed to hear the same mass-produced pop-music in the future?

Not if it is up to us. At TrackTesting.com you can listen to new upcoming bands for free and receive free downloads to the best and newest music. Broaden your musical horizon while helping upcoming artists break through.

We now pre-listen to all tracks before you get access to them, to ensure the quality of the tracks! Now it’s all fun…

Try it out here!

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Tony Dunn wrote a great article on the histori of Rock & Pop Music! Check it out:

You may be wondering when exactly did rock/pop music begin? There’s no clear answer to this. Some might say that it started with the advent of rock n roll with Bill Haley and the Comets in 1952.

Others would say Elvis, although not the first but surely the original truly global superstar. Yet none of these were really the first.

Rock n roll has its roots in blues which has its roots back to the 19th century with black immigrants trying to escape from their slave driven lives. Fast forward to the early 20th. century and some of the earliest recordings on 78 began to appear.

Read the whole article here or upload your own track to make music history here!

Many a legendary band has never made it past the grubby rehearsal room due to the devastating effects of “Musical differences”. The conversation usually starts like this:

Vocalist: “I think this track needs another verse.”
Guitarist: “Nah, how about some kind of Jazz hook and maybe a solo in a Phrygian mode?”
Bassist: “Can we try this Mark King type thing I have been working on. It would be amazing over the intro.”
Drummer: “Does anyone have anything to eat?”

Five minutes later the guitarist is picking the vocalists teeth out of his fretboard.

Deciding what works and what doesn’t is a minefield for your average musician. Every song is an emotive piece that someone in the band is far too attached to. Getting an independent opinion is even more difficult as it seems everyone has an agenda.

Most bands play their demos for family members or girlfriends who, of course, are going to rave about it and congratulate you on how clever you are to get “That squawky sound coming out of that wiggly thing with the bits” (Actual quote).

It is equally bad for the home DJ who slaves alone over their computer for days, without a break, only to get the feedback “Is that a new ringtone?”

We hope to put an end to all this misery with a unique approach to the problem.

TrackTesting.com offers musicians the chance to have their songs and albums reviewed online by independent ‘Testers’ who will give honest opinions and help categories the music for listeners.

Testers receive music store vouchers for their troubles and the musicians get a full test report. If their track is good enough it gets sent directly to A&R people at various record labels as well as playlist committees at radio stations.

“It’s a different approach to an age-old problem” said Thomas Rode from TrackTesting.

“Getting your music independently appraised and getting in front of the right people has been the downfall of many a good musician. With this service, we bypass all the headaches associated with that and help musicians make good decisions about their music.”

The service has already proved so popular that TrackTesting.com is now looking to sign up more Testers. A passion for music is essential and the ability to be analytical about new music is really all that is needed. In return you will receive the gratitude of thousands of struggling musicians and gift vouchers to enhance your music collection.

So if you want to see an end to fretboard induced dental injuries, sign up as a Track Tester and help shape the music industry of tomorrow. If you choose to sit back and do nothing, we could all be listening to back-to-back Britney Spears songs on an infinite loop for the rest of time. The choice is yours.

Click here to learn more about TrackTesting and start testing tracks

Marcia Henin gives good advice to Indie Artists.

Read the whole article here:

Indie artists are independent artists that do their own recordings and in some cases managing. They usually rely only on them selves for promotion and in this way they can keep their style and not bend it to a music label wishes and demands.

Go to TrackTesting.com now to help your own music career.

Indie artists are independent artists that do their own recordings and in some cases managing. They usually rely only on them selves for promotion and in this way they can keep their style and not bend it to a music label wishes and demands.

Are you tired of the music on your iPod? Listen to new music for free, and receive free legal music downloads doing so.

TrackTesting offers you new unreleased music from upcoming artists and bands from the genres you choose to listen to. You’ll get the chance to hear a lot of music before it’s released to the public, broaden your musical horizon and receive free legal music downloads as well.

You’ll be helping a lot of unsigned artists and bands break through by rating their songs and giving them feedback. Everybody has the opportunity to upload their tracks to TrackTesting, but we pre-listen to all the tracks that are being uploaded, to make sure the quality is good enough.

When hundreds of people from different social, demographic and geographic backgrounds rate a music track, it suddenly becomes possible to predict the “hit”-potential of a song. There is so much great material of unreleased music in the world, but it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. We’re a needle finder, and you’ll be the one to listen to the needles first!

Don’t miss this chance. Feel free to give it a try! We promise you it will be fun, free AND you’ll receive free legal music downloads for rating the tracks you listen to.

Start listening now!

For the last 3-4 years we have been helping unsigned artists and bands getting their music heard. Having been in contact with thousands of different bands from all over the world, we have come to learn a lesson or two, and would love to share these with you. This is the first one we will share.

There are countless artists and bands in the world, who are all competing for the same limited amount of record deals. So what can you do about it?

As we see it, you’ve got two choices:

1. Forget the traditional code of practice and sell your music online yourself, or
2. Take pro-active action towards getting a record deal at a major record label. Do this by branding yourself as a great “investment”

The traditional code of practice

The traditional code of practice is to record a demo and send it to the A&R people (the people at a record label who look for new talent to sign) at various record labels and hope to get signed if the label likes your music. This is not how it’s done anymore.

Start by asking yourself: “How many demos do you think a major record label receives daily?” The answer is probably hundreds or thousands.

Now ask yourself: “How likely is it that they’ll listen to my tracks and sign me compared to hundreds of other artists?” Got the answer? Slim to none.

You can take matters into your own hands by uploading your music for distribution on iTunes etc. We would like to help you with this at TrackTesting.com, where you can learn a lot more on selling and distributing your own music online. If this choice is not for you, read on – if it is, feel free to go to www.TrackTesting.com to learn more.

Pro-active action

Major record labels are all about business. You get signed by a record company, if they think you can sell a lot of records and earn a lot of money for the record label.

The bad news is that the record labels want to sign you if they think you can sell a lot of records. They want to sign the artists and bands they think are commercial – even if it means compromising the quality of the music, and commonly won’t sign the high quality artists and bands if they don’t believe in the commerciality in them.

The good news is that you can easily satisfy the record labels demand for commerciality. The secret behind this is minimizing the record labels risk to sign you. As cynical as it may sound, you want to look like a good investment opportunity for the labels, because that is exactly what they are looking for. And if you can show them that you can make the record label money, they will put a lot of hard work into you guys.

So how do you do this? How do you brand yourself as a safe investment for the record labels?

There are three simplified steps to the process:

1. Write great songs
2. Create a image for you as an artist/band
3. Build your fan base

Write great songs

This one should not be hard to understand, and not something we can help you with. But we can help you find out which of your songs your potential fans think are great. See more below.

Create an image for you as an artist/band

Marketing is everything, and you need to emit an attitude that complies with your genre and music style.

Build your fan base

This is a critical part of convincing the record labels that you will be a great investment. Having a fan base means that there are people who are already buying your music and going to your concerts. So play all the gigs you can get hold of – even the ones who does not include any pay. You want to get your unique image and great songs in front of as many people as possible.

Another step you can take to get your music a commercial rubber stamp, is to upload your music for testing and feedback at TrackTesting.com. TrackTesting offers a unique service for unsigned bands and artists. You get the opportunity to upload your music for testing and feedback, which means that your track is sent to 200-300 of our many thousand testers from all over the world.

The testers listen to your song and give it a score and a comment, and you will receive a test report with invaluable information. The strength of the test report comes from the segmentation of our testers, who are divided according to age, gender, geographical location, music taste etc., which gives you, as a musician, a detailed overview of what you can do even better with regard to your music and who your greatest fans are.

Furthermore, TrackTesting can handle putting your music up for sale online, and each month, the tracks with the best ratings will be sent to A&R people at leading record companies. If your music receives a good rating, your music has already been given a seal of approval by a wide selection of the population and has therefore gotten a commercial rubber stamp.

Go to TrackTesting.com now to upload a track for testing and feedback

Here at TrackTesting we’re eager to test and promote music. Actually we have been testing music for more than 4 years now. There has been two kind of test – our sound bite test which is a 30 second sound snippet and the full track test. These test gives the artist and bands a report stating which listeners that loves the music. The report is separated into segmentation so you are able to see which age segment, gender, geographical area your music appeals.

Now we’re introducing a very important step – The Pro Panel

Pro Panel consist of music professionals with a proven position as DJ, Club DJ, Radio Playlist Commitee Member, A&R on a label, Music Producer or similar. Only the very best of our Full Track test will qualify for being tested in the Pro Panel and as an artist you will definitely want your music at the Pro Panel as you will have the chance to be spotted by these music professionals.

At our pre test we have had 4 artists and bands that has been signed to one of the major labels, several tracks being played intensively in the radio and lots of tracks being played at the clubs.

How do I get my music into the Pro Panel? You will only be able to enter the Pro Panel if your tracks scores enough in both the sound bite test and the full track test. If your track has qualified for the Pro Panel you will be invited to join.

If you are a music professional you can join the Pro Panel here

Music distribution and promotion

We have a goal here at TrackTesting which is to help as many Artists & Bands to reach the market. We have been doing a lot of testing during the last 3 years and have a lot of loyal users here at tracktesting.com. Therefore, we are proud to announce that we have launched our new application for www.myspace.com and so far it has been a success.

Artists & Bands are able to upload their music for test and get a qualified feedback report as known from www.tracktesting.com. The user base is merged with our existing so we can ensure a fast result as usual.

So now we have our own space at www.myspace.com – go and test it…..

Today we are introducing a brand new feature called “Friend Finder” at www.tracktesting.com – this feature allows you to import your contacts from your prefered e-mail client, including Gmail, Google Apps, Yahoo!, Live, AOL, and see if your friend are already active at TrackTesting.com. And of course, if they are not already here you will have a chance to invite them. 

By connecting to your friends you will have the opportunity to discuss music with them and if you are an artist or a band you will have the opportunity to invite all your friends. Unfortunately, we can’t guarantee that they will be invited to test your music as this will twist the test result. I bet, if invited my friends for voting on my music I would get A+ all over the line. But we promise that this will help other artists and bands getting an opinion on their music. And this opinion is really important. So please, go invite your friends – and they will of course receive gift cards when doing a music test.

Here at TrackTesting.com we want to make you cool. And give you a great chance to present you nicely. Music is more than tones – it is also attitude. So we decided to make profile pages for artists and bands so you can show the world what you look like by uploading pictures.

And the best part is that we have made some beta tests showing that people think your music is better when they see a picture of you. So by adding some more information you can improve your test results.