Fresh Cherries from Yakima

let me cut the bullshit and set myself up for a lawsuit from jump: i have been a faithful oink user since 2004. since then, oink was my single greatest tool for sampling the music of all types of artists, period. from obscure garage bands to rising hip-hop stars to high-quality david bowie bootlegs, most of my favorite bands and artists were discovered through oink’s massive library. back before they changed the rules on uploading multiple albums, i blew almost a third of my share ratio downloading the entire mountain goats discography, which includes albums that have been out-of-print since the ’90’s. when searching for an artist that i’ve heard about but have never heard any music from, oink was my greatest resource.

however, oink was an even bigger help when it came to jumpstarting my own career.

the day after i finished recording my debut album, buttons for north caroline, i uploaded the entire album onto oink. in all frankness, it was singlehandedly the best way to get my name out there. it’s not like i became an overnight blog success story or anything, but a sizable number of the couple hundred people that downloaded buttons contacted me to let me know how much they enjoyed my work. in fact, one person enjoyed the album so much, that he decided to upload the entire thing onto his blog, which happens to be one of the longest-running, most popular, and downright best blogs on the internet. to date, my album showing up, in its entirety, on largehearted boy’s daily downloads section is the biggest thing that has happened to fresh cherries from yakima. without that boost of confidence, i probably would’ve given up on this.

the fact of the matter is this: oink was a valuable resource for unsigned artists to get their work out to an audience without going the traditional route of getting signed or flipping over their couch cushions, hoping to find thousands of dollars in change so they can self-release their work. in addition, internet piracy only hurts the artist if said artist sucks.

oink, you will be missed.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 28th, 2007 at 12:48 am and is filed under "meaningful" essayism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.