The idea behind the site is to turn scouting for new independent music into a game. From their website:

thesixtyone makes music discovery a fun, adventurous experience with persistent reputation and rewards — it’s like a massively-multiplayer game for music junkies who are always on the prowl for new sounds…

Musicians upload their music for listening, but rather than allowing the Simon Cowells of the world decide which songs go on the homepage, the listeners do. If you like a song you’ve found on thesixtyone, just click the “bump” button to increase its bump count. Doing so will cost you points, but if songs you bump get bumped by others, you can earn more points! Collecting points increases your level and reflects your skill in picking top songs in your favorite genre!

By listening to songs through the lens of the collective community on thesixtyone, you’ll always find good new music. We’re committed to giving every bit of music on the web the opportunity to find its audience.

mebeli

It can be quite an addictive experience as one logs in regularly to be the first to bump (”firstbump”) a great new song or just to check your score against others in the community.

I’m sure that this model of new music discovery will eventually replace the traditional music industry “gate keepers” in their role of taste makers. Just listen to “front page” songs that have gotten significant bumpage and although you probably won’t recognize more than a couple mainstream acts, you’ll find that songs that get that kind of attention are without exception, Quality music. That’s the power of the collective. We can weed out our own trash, Mr. A&R man.

In honor of this exciting discovery I’m posting my first thesixtyone.com song as the trackoday:

Love During Wartime by The Main Drag (warning: myspace link) is a track that I think is tragically underbumped, so don’t be afraid to click on it and set up an account. It’s free and you can help this track gain some dearly deserved momentum. Oh, and if you do set up an account, don’t forget to list me (gumptionthomas) as a referrer.

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I had also been sitting on a few walk tracks from over the winter that I hadn’t posted. Those are now up on the Dog Walks page for posterity’s sake.

Would you like me to provide you with a weekly mix of music rarities from my collection?

And just in case you were curious, Wordpress 2.5 rocks!

Just a little less cool.

But now I’m about to embark on the upgrade to Wordpress 2.5 and figured that’s as good a time as any to get back into blogging gumption.   So, please pardon the mess while I try out some new themes and plugins.

Hopefully more interesting posts will follow.