Tuesday 12 January 2010

BEKO DIGITAL SINGLE LABEL


It's been out on the news this week that 2009 was the year that more singles have been sold in the UK ever. Album sales have been down again though. And when they refer to singles they obviously include digital downloads, as well. Taking into account that nowadays there are websites where you can get a song for as little as 29 pence, this probably doesn't translate to money. Anyway, the purchase and release of vinyl single has gone up considerably as well and many people like to get both formats of the release, the digital for the I-Pod and the physical for home.
All these news reflect the change of consumption by the society and we could even contextualize this fact with the idea of fast consuming and wasting, with no time for the details, with the overexposing of information. Although I still love the album format and consider it the best form of recorded musical expression but always thought the single had more registers; it works as a presentation, it condenses ideas and it can even work as a dichotomy of genres between the two tracks that normally are included.
And as another celebration of this format, a really interesting website was born some weeks ago. Beko, a new online only single label, puts out every Monday a free download single. They specialized on new bands, specially the ones oriented to shoegaze and dream pop, but also covering many other genres. They are already on their 23rd release (they put out more than one a week during the Christmas weeks) and some of the bands who have put out free singles there are Memoryhouse, Moscow Olympics, Sore Eros, Tan Dollar, Million Young or Nude Beach and future releases from Idiot Glee, Sundae or Weird Era are confirmed. Mondays are always hard but thanks to Beko they are becoming a bit more pleasant as it always nice receiving things for free.
I particularly consider this initiative a great way for bands to be discovered and stand out from all the possibilities you have on the web and can sometimes get you lost between link and link.
Check them out here:
http://www.beko-dsl.com/


The Bilinda Butchers - Tulips.mp3

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