Legal punk rock downloads? You betcha. Downloadpunk.com is where it’s at. More than 500 indie/punk labels (including Ian McKaye’s Dischord, Fat Wreck, Alternative Tentacles, and Beer City), most of your favorite punk bands (no not all, some notables are missing, like The Buzzcocks, Dead Milkmen, Gang Green, and Rollins Band, but most of the bands you’ve heard of, and some you haven’t, they’re there.) You won’t find Brittney, or Christine, or any of the top 40’s bands (thank goodness) but you will find Very Metal, the Ramones, Dead Kennedys, Jello Biafra, Government Issue, Minor Threat, SOA, Black Flag, Radio Birdman early Offspring, and Green Day, and more.
It’s $.79-$.99 per song, or $3.99-$10.99 per album. (it says in the FAQs $9.99, but I believe I did see one full album for $10.99) Watch for free downloads scattered here and there. It’s all DRM free, and comes in either MP3, or WMA formats, at bitrates of 192kbps. I’d like to see them offer Oggs also, since those formats aren’t Free, but, I can live with MP3s for now. You can, also, opt in to giving an additional 1% of your total purchase to one of several charities (explained here).
This is a great way to support indie/punk artists, and labels, the music is high quality, and _you can play it anywhere_.
I give these guys an A, and can’t wait to get a little more money and shop some more with them. I’d give them an A+ but besides the Ogg thing I have two problems with the site.
- Their sample player doesn’t work in Firefox on Linux (I don’t know why–it works in Opera, so maybe it’s not their fault.)
- No downloadable artwork/linernotes. I’d pay some extra money to get liner notes etc. I know nobody else does this either, but it would be a nice thing to have.
This is one of my favorite, cool things, I found in 2006. 😀