**More MANILOW Coming UP**

January 27, 2009 7:18 PM

Muxtape is back up! Kinda.Muxtape is back up with 12 artists currently signed up, and they plan to allow other bands to sign up in the near future. First on the blue here, and its demise noted here and juicy details over here

**yea Jonson**

Note: you have to be logged in to get any musical magic.

Wait a second. I can't create any mix tapes. I have discovered the new myspace!!!

posted by zenon (19 comments total)

Note: you have to be logged in to get any musical magic.

Wow, I just figured it was broken. Good UI there.
posted by smackfu at 7:45 PM on January 27

12 artists? Well, that's okay, I can just upload... oh.
posted by box at 7:48 PM on January 27

fail
posted by Burton at 8:29 PM on January 27

you can have any color you like as long as it's black, kind of thing?
posted by Rinku at 8:33 PM on January 27

Is this something I would need to not own a turntable and my own vinyl to understand?
posted by jbickers at 8:40 PM on January 27

Every so often a music-sharing service gets shut down, and then come back with some lame (but legal) alternative. What does this share in common with the old Muxtape other than the name? Same deal with Napster and Audiogalaxy.
posted by Frankieist at 8:51 PM on January 27

None of these music sharing services can ever just die and stay dead without some pathetic restart, can they?
posted by dead cousin ted at 9:04 PM on January 27

That's rough. There are plenty o' sites for musicians to promote themselves. It's so silly to think that the old Muxtape was taking away business from major labels. Snivel, whine, etc.

Still, I like being able to make a mix, and I'm sure tons of bands will upload their music. I hope the interface doesn't change.
posted by nosila at 9:04 PM on January 27

Get the bears!
posted by parmanparman at 9:31 PM on January 27

I'll be curious to see how it pans out. Creating good tools for musicians to self-promote on the internet is a laudable goal (I have a programmer friend who has been working on a similar project designed among other things to integrate with Wordpress) and I think about the topic quite a bit because truly useful tools are hard to find. There are and have been plenty of services with the basic attitude that "your listeners may come HERE and listen to your music HERE and maybe download it if they'll look at an ad at the same time and possibly be allowed to leave for an external site eventually though we will show them a scary disclaimer about how they might be unwittingly connecting to a terrorist child pornography database first, oh by the way here is your crap blog and your crap calendar and your crap commerce engine, now go stand over there with the other five million unknown bands." I'm not saying Muxtape will solve these problems but the field is definitely still open.

Whether it works particularly as a destination for consumers remains to be seen. Really facilitating playable listener-created mixes is fairly unique among music destinations and if this functionality holds up it there is certainly a value there. I wonder if people will really want that - the whole point of a mix tape, really, is tapping into your knowledge of your own collection, letting people create mixes from a catalog of relatively unknown music is sort of the opposite. And the issue that has plagued every open-signup music site from the beginning remains: the vast profusion of amateurish crap that makes negotiating discovery all but impossible (hell, I contribute amateurish crap myself into this mess myself, I know whereof I speak). So it will be interesting to see if they have any luck in keeping the quality on the listener destination side of things up at all.

If I wasn't test driving my friend's stuff I would probably sign up and contribute to the clutter to see how the tools work. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on it.
posted by nanojath at 11:11 PM on January 27

I know what you're saying, nanojath. My music is a hobby, but I like getting it out there for people to check out. Myspace? I didn't even bother. Jamendo and Amie Street aren't bad. I've mainly stuck to last.fm because it has a large following, and my tracks get played on their "radio" fairly often. At the end of the day, I just want to offer my noise for free to anyone who wants it, but I don't want to have to upload to 20 different services to do that. Muxtape, in this format, is destined to fail. You're right. Creating a mix tape is almost always completely separate from promoting new bands.
posted by Jimbob at 4:05 AM on January 28

By far the best thing that I have come across on the internet for listening to music online is Spotify but I don't think that you can get it in the US. It even sounds good up loud.
posted by ClanvidHorse at 5:25 AM on January 28

I've been having a lot of fun with Opentape ever since someone linked to it here.
posted by roll truck roll at 7:38 AM on January 28 [1 favorite has favorites]

This is like if Metafilter disappeared for a couple months and then came back with only twelve people allowed to make posts. And you had to be logged in to read the posts.
posted by paddysat at 9:31 AM on January 28

I predict a sudden increase in bands with names like Raddiohed, Ssufjan Stephens and Deth Cab For Kutie.
posted by naju at 9:36 AM on January 28

To me, the customizable playlists don't really seem like they're the point of this site, the way that mixtapes were the point of Muxtape. And I don't really think it's supposed to be a last.fm-killa either. It looks like just a promotional site for a few music acts. I doubt the roster will balloon much outside of the vague weird-indie-for-grownups market it's got now.

Not as ambitious as the original Muxtape? Of course not. But, you know, it's better than a kick in the mouth.
posted by roll truck roll at 11:14 AM on January 28

Fun fact: the first artist there, Francis (of Francis and the Lights), besides being an immensely awesome musician, is a MeFite.
posted by ORthey at 11:54 AM on January 28

I didn't have to login. In fact I couldn't with my old muxtape account ... I did listen to the new song from Dan Deacon and the interface is still a good one.

It could be cool if it becomes the new mp3.com. I use myspace all the time to listen to new music and it sucks. If it attracts decent talent, it could take off again.
posted by mrgrimm at 12:30 PM on January 28

My first reaction upon seeing the new Muxtape was unvarnished joy. You see, the night before I had been looking for a place to host a super-minimal EPK to help book the band of mefi's own chimaera - most sites that I found to host pictures, artist description, player, calendar were either too wrapped up in larger services or a bit.. ghetto. This new Muxtape is EXACTLY WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR. Now they just need to open up signups.
posted by thedaniel at 1:28 PM on January 28