Wizard rock fans can often be insatiable when it comes to listening to the music they love. They stream it, download it, buy it at shows, and very often want to expand their libraries as much as they can.
That’s a wonderful thing.
However, there’s one key issue that faces fans nowadays – the lack of availability of some older wizard rock.
We’ve talked in the past about how the downfall of MySpace has taken away a primary way for fans to listen to the music they love, and that’s still a fairly big issue when it comes to music that’s no longer hosted there (or anywhere else, for that matter). Where can wrock fans go to both listen to music they enjoy, as well as find new bands?
But just as big an issue can be the simple fact that a decent amount of older wizard rock is now no longer available.
We hesitate to dwell too much on how things were “back in the day”, but all one needs to do is go online and try to find a legitimate way to purchase and download music from some classic (and very good) wizard rock bands.
For any number of reasons, a good chunk of classic wrock is no longer available to purchase. Fans can go to places like YouTube to listen, or even download old wizard rock podcasts to listen in. We’re asked via email and Twitter often by fans as to how they can find and purchase songs by bands they like. In fact, we saw one recent interaction between a wrock fan and a couple of “retired” bands on Twitter, because the fan really wanted to get a copy of an older song that could no longer be found online.
Now, we get that there are a wide range of reasons why that music is no longer available. Perhaps the band has moved on, and no longer wishes to make their music available – something that is entirely within their rights. Some bands may have ended their relationship with certain distribution sources, which charge bands a fairly high fee to make their music available on sources like iTunes and Spotify.
There are also a number of really good wizard rock compilations that are no longer available either. A lot of bands recorded songs specifically for those compilations that are simply no longer found anymore, which is a darn shame. In general though, just listening to the Geek Beat Radio stream of all wizard rock this weekend brought up more than a few songs that could not be found for download or purchase at places like iTunes or Bandcamp, where the majority of wizard rock fans would go to buy songs they love.
We here at the Wizrocklopedia would like to make an appeal to bands who no longer host some (or any) of their music online for download or purchase. We feel that fans worldwide would love to be able to once again purchase or download your music, which perhaps was only available via iTunes or CDs that are no longer in print. And because of that, we’d like to ask you to seriously consider putting your music online somewhere fans can purchase it, such as Bandcamp which would allow you to get paid for your music without costing you any up-front monthly or annual fees out of pocket.
Hey, if you even wanted to post it someplace at Mediafire and allow fans to download it for free with your permission, that’d be wonderful as well. We’d far prefer to redirect interested fans to a source that you are comfortable with, rather than see fans offering free versions of your music that you’d rather see available for purchase. When it comes down to it, we’d even seriously consider a Wizrocklopedia source to make music available to fans.
So what do you think? We’re interested in your thoughts and opinions. Wizard rock fans, leave a comment below and tell us what albums and compilations you’d love to see online for purchase! Bands, what are your thoughts on making your music available once again? Let’s see if we can figure out a way to get some great music out there.
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