I hated the old Beatport Flash site. It was slow, the tiny fonts got on my nerves and I couldn’t easily share URLs to releases. There’s an all new Beatport based on HTML5 and I’m really enjoying it. There really isn’t a better way for most DJs to music up before the weekend than this.

- Track pages with BPM, harmonic key & waveforms
- More personalized recommendations
- Improved search
- Even deeper list-digging capabilities
- HTML5 for access on multiple devices
- Individual track pages
- Top releases ranked separately” – gearjunkies.com

For more info: beatport.com

Sometimes I like to sit back on the couch with my iPhone and troll through SoundCloud or Last.fm tracks. Happily now I can add Beatport to the list. The new Beatport iPhone App is free. You can find my own music on Beatport: click here

“The Beatport iPhone App lets you access Beatport’s music catalog on your iPhone. Browse, listen, and add music to your cart all while on the move. Filter through Beatport’s extensive library using: 1. Expertly selected featured releases updated weekly 2. Artist charts from the most relevant DJs and producers in the world 3. Overall and genre-specific Top 100 sales charts 4. Powerful search function. The Beatport iPhone app’s persistent preview player allows you to dive deeper into Beatport’s vast electronic music catalog without missing a beat. Simultaneously browse the app while listening to high quality audio previews.” – Beatport.com

Grab the new Beatport App: click here

I’m curious if you keep and maintain public profiles for your music on social networks other than MySpace. Last.fm? Imeem? Bebo, Fairlitzer? What about Pandora or The Hype Machine? Do you upload your full songs so services can stream them without compensation? Is it worth the promotion to you?

I bring it up because yesterday I got pretty frustrated using the new Last.fm. Once accepted as a label you get access to a part of the site called the Music Manager. You can upload and manage your tracks there. After I uploaded a new release I added in the album cover. The album art showed up in the Music Manager. However, it never show up in the general public area on Last.fm. I tried about 10 times, re-uploading the same album cover. Eventually I hit the help forums. Sure enough this is a known problem. How could image uploading be broken for more than two weeks? How could they not disable the uploader or put a note on the page so I didn’t waste forty minutes on this crap?

Another other thing I really don’t like about Last.fm is that you don’t have any comment control on your own artist pages. People can log on and rail you and it’s there forever. They could at least implement a comment voting system so nasty comments get greyed out using Ajax or something.

What finally ended my session yesterday on Last.fm was the events section. I wanted to add in a few upcoming live shows I have. I head to: last.fm/music/The+Horrorist/+events because that’s where the shows for The Horrorist are listed. I search for a button that says “Add Event”. Nothing! Nada! After twenty minutes of searching I find the only place to add a new event is if I go to last.fm/events. How frustrating.

Maintaining a your image and uploading fresh content on every site is impossible. Which sites deserve attention? I will always keep my own website on my own server but clearly the hearts, minds and ears are in lots of places. Do you simply cover the sites which have the most users? No matter how lame they are?

If you go to Alexa.com you can enter in the a few sites and see a comparison of how many users each site has over a time period (thanks Vergel for the tip). You maybe surprised that for example Imeem has so many users. MySpace still trumps them all by far though.

As more sites start to pay royalties for streaming and incorparate there own download stores the lines between iTunes, Beatport, Amazon and the social network sites will become blurred.

Is your head starting to hurt too?

I’ve been impressed with how well Beatport has been doing. It really is a strong contender for electronic music downloads. The web interface, designed with help from Native Instruments is snazzy. The Beatportplayer is a great way for artists with music for sale on Beatport to spread there songs on multiple websites. The company also really knows how to market itself with an affiliate program and Beatportal.com. If your a full on shopper at Beatport the Beatport SYNC player with Traktor mixing abilities is also a worthy download.

Sales from my own record label have been strong on Beatport only second to iTunes. Beatport has a good financial reporting web interface for labels called Baseware. Inside Baseware you have some good analytics, charts and info to reach your own personal account manager at Beatport.

So today Beatsource has launched. It’s exactly like Beatport but for Hip Hop and Urban music. If your producing this kind of music I suggest getting in early on. There is one section of Beatsource that has me very excited: Genres -> Old School.

In the 1980s I spent a good amount of time recording Mr. Magic and DJ Red Alert’s radio shows off Kiss and WBLS. I used my giant Conion boombox (the photo is my actual Conion in my father’s office) to record to cassettes. I have about 1000 tapes in storage but since they are all mixes I am still looking for complete versions of many of the songs. Just Ice, Mantronix, TLA Rock are some of the artists that come to mind. I will be a regular visitor at Beatsource. What I find most interesting is as I type this the #1 song on Beatsource is Jam on It by Nucleaus!

Each month on the first I make a top 10 music chart. Songs I am really into at the moment. There are a few good reasons to do this. If your a band or an artist, some of your fans will be interested in what your current tastes are. The fact that I know I need a chart each month forces me to discover and seek out new music. As a musician it’s important to be always listening to what’s out there and not get stuck completely in the past.

There are places you can post your chart other than your own website. Your MySpace, Facebook and Last.fm pages can host your chart. Slow news week but it has been a while since you sent an email newsletter? Make it look a little more meaty with a chart. If all the songs in your chart are on iTunes then turn your chart into an iMix. Likewise, if your music is entirely available on Beatport you can publish the chart on Beatportal.com. Anytime your interviewed include your current top 10 chart. If your known enough many magazines print DJ charts each month. Groove Magazine often prints my chart.

Should you put your own songs in your chart? Hell yes! If your own new material isn’t in your favorite new songs of the month then you shouldn’t be releasing it to the world! If you want to get fancy make the song titles click able links to a place where someone can hear and buy the song right away. Also consider including a photo of yourself or the album cover of the number one song on your chart. If you like you can even include a little description of your chart’s style. I add a disclaimer to my chart because I put everything on from Country to Minimal! Don’t forget to put your website next to your name and a little message somewhere saying “feel free to reprint this chart anywhere”.

With the onslaught of a million net labels charts have become an important tool to find hot songs. I like to read them and make them.

The Horrorist – Top 10 – February 2008*
www.myspace.com/oliverchesler

01 Electric Feel – MGMT
02 Washmachine – Workidz
03 Nietzche – Abstrackt Keal Agram
04 Story of an Artist – Daniel Johnston
05 You Should Tell Me So – Orilla Opry
06 13 Dobermans – The Horrorist
07 Bubbleblitzen – Miro Pajic
08 Beneath You – Mark Mendes
09 U Turn – Mark Ramsey
10 Stereos and Such – Popof

*The Horrorist chart is not your normal DJ Chart. The music here is not normal. These are songs Oliver Chesler is listening to now. If your weird and like great music then listen to these songs. If you are normal I am sorry this chart is not for you.

photo credit: phil_h.psd