There is some really amazing stuff out there if you have the time to track it down, or are lucky enough to be pointed in the right direction.
Brad Sucks, is a musician who has made the most of the opportunities offered by the web to find an audience without going through the usual record industry A&R men. He has been making his music available on an open source basis, although he does have material available for purchase now, via CD or iTunes, but he does point out that it is freely downloadable, so people can certainly listen without paying. I really like his explanation, he would love to make a living from his music, but if he could not manage that, then he would prefer that people listened to his music and enjoyed it, rather than it being unheard.
I think that is a far better mindset, than commercial artists under contractual obligations to produce an album a year.
Anyway I heard his track Sick as a Dog on the GeekDad podcast, stuck Brad Sucks into google and found his website, downloaded the album, dragged it over onto my iPod, and was listening to it on the way into work the next day. Quite simple, alternative rather than lo-fi, catchy without being trashy, well put together, without any filler material. Recent favourite bands of mine have been the Mountain Goats and Throw me the Statue, and this is in the same sort of ball-park.
But the bottom line is, it is free, try it, you might like it.
The Mysterious Geographical adventures of Jasper Morello, was likewise cited in a Wired listing. It is a short animation, a sort of steam punk Noggin the Nog. Every frame is a work of art, beautiful gothic extravagances of clockwork transports, iron airships, populated with stock Victorian characters. It is all rather Edgar Allan Poe, or Jules Verne, or the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or Laputa - City in the Sky, depending on your reference points.
There is a fantastic trailer on the website, but the short film itself seemed difficult to track down, a CD for sale in Australia, or part of a US compilation. Finally, almost by accident thought to look on iTunes, and it was there for £1.99, which is a bargain in anyone's money. The first short film is number one in a short sequence, it would be amazing to track down the others somehow, or manage to persuade iTunes to distribute them.
Maybe there have always been amazing people out there, doing amazing things, but now the web lets us find them, rather than the bland homogenised entertainment that commercial channels insist on. The traditional media have lost their way, and it will take more than a website and some phone in competitions to bring the impact of web 2.0 to them.
The broadcast is dead, long live the podcast.
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