"In early 1999, I discovered .mp3 encoding through the www.mp3.com website. It was fantastic! Here was the ability to post my music on the internet so the whole world could hear it. You could include band photos, lyrics, bios, and links to your homepage along with the songs. It was attractive looking, too. I could do anything I wanted because there were no distribution networks or record labels to appease. Then again, there wasn't much money to be made (you can sell a CD mp3.com makes through their site for splitting the royalties), so it was mainly for enthusiasts or people needing a free promotional tool.

Another cool thing was that when you uploaded a track it was instantly visible on the genre page you picked for that song. You also had a good chance of placing a song in the top 50 or even top 10 of that genre. It was very small and very independent and it gave the small-time an amazing way to flaunt its stuff. But, now things have changed.

About a year ago and I'm not sure why it's happened, Billboard Top 100 bands started appearing on the site. Metallica and Marilyn Manson held the top of the lists on the Metal genres, and relative occurences on other genres. Why were they there? Don't they have access to every other method of distribution and advertisement? Now they have to rob me of visibility on free access sites?

The volume going into the site is a lot greater today, too, so you've got to fight for space. This I can't complain about, it's the way it works, but having Limp Bizkit putting their music up so all the morons download the crap that they hear on the radio every two seconds doesn't help with my ratings.

Today, I went onto the "alternative" genre-page, whatever "alternative" is supposed to stand for, but let's not get into that right now. The Offspring and Linkin Park held 7 of the top ten. It's depressing.

I still use the site to post music and photos. I'd imagine mp3.com isn't responsible for what's happened. They let any band that wants to have a site have a site, so... But, for all of those who would like to post music on a free site that gives a little better exposure, try http://www.iuma.com/ It's not as flashy, but haven't seen Creed there, YET."