Free != Bad
It seems to me that a lot of people are of the perception that if something’s either free or cheap, it’s nothing worth wasting your time on. On the contrary, I’ve found that some of the best things in life are free.
We’ve already established that I’m an Ubuntu user, and that I’m a strong advocate of free software.
I recently discovered (Nick led the way) an artist called Josh Woodward, who, according to his self-written Last.fm wiki page, “Taking the musical road less traveled, he’s chosen to freely offer his entire collection of over 100 songs on his website.”, which is exactly what he has.
I’m not someone who likes to sort music by genre, but his music can be described as happy folk/rock/pop rock music, and I’m loving it.
Other than releasing his music as mp3s, Josh also releases the guitar tabs and lyrics to his songs, making it easy for anyone to play his music and share it. You can also buy 3 of his albums at a mere $10 each—every penny goes to him. How awesome is that?
I definitely plan on shelling out $30 when I come back from the UK and get those babies in the mail; Josh’s music is inspiring, happy and plain awesome if you ask me.
I suggest you check out his website, download his music and check out the songs I like the best.
Lasse Havelund on July 7th, 2007
Tags: free, independent music, Josh Woodward, linux, Miscellaneous, Ubuntu
Joey Brooks responded on July 9th, 2007 at 5:25 pm | permalink
A band called Machinae Supremacy (http://www.machinaesupremacy.com) has done this for YEARS. They offer OGG, too.
Lasse Havelund responded on July 20th, 2007 at 12:46 pm | permalink
@Joey: Well, yes, but so has Josh.
Robert Day responded on August 7th, 2007 at 12:30 am | permalink
Happy Birthday!
brett responded on August 18th, 2007 at 8:37 am | permalink
I already like this guy, and I’ve only read this post.
Also, it might just be me and my non-free OS(Windows.. Can’t run a *nix box because I need some Windows features. Yes, I feel dirty.. but not so much because all my other boxes(File server, mail server, print server, firewall run *nix.)but the link to his page on the last.fm wiki has an incorrect URL. The link has two HTTP entries. Might want to fix that.. not an urgent problem, but inconvenient because someone else or me needs to delete it, and I don’t like having to reach to my keyboard to delete it.
Anyways, thanks for telling us about this!
Lasse Havelund responded on August 19th, 2007 at 12:08 am | permalink
Fixed; thanks!
Josh Woodward. He’s good. « Just Like Intelligence responded on August 21st, 2007 at 10:53 pm | permalink
[…] to check out some stuff on Random Shapes. Through it, I got to MenZa’s blog, and found this post. Free music? The concept had occurred to me, but I had never thought that it would be possible to […]