There is a new player in the vast landscape of streaming services. EARBITS, a US based startup, is designed to discover new music in a radio like environment. Most important: It’s free, has no ads and offers only hand picked music. Sorted by channels and subgenres you can discover bands, get to their social profiles and buy merchandise. Sounds also like a great support for upcoming bands.
As with all those platforms, several questions arise: Does it remain free? Who are the players in the background (big labels etc.) and how do I integrate it in my already highly branched music organization, wandering between itunes, spotify, radio, TV, soundcloud and so on. So far, none of those questions arose any serious doubt that this could be a great tool for dedicated music discoverers.
Backed by a significant funding, the company additionally counts on artists who are willing to pay for better representation on the platform. However, it’s not necessary to pay. Artists are handpicked by the EARBITS team and they ensure that it is mainly independent music, apart from top 40 mainstream. As the service also relies on paying artists, it will be seen how they resist the big labels with the high budgets. Another question is, how the music selection is working and which criteria apart from taste are in the decision. In any case is some selection necessary in order to prevent badly recorded wanna be artists and give the listener a smooth radio experience. Up to now, the company seems to be confident to hold up the level of idealism and support new music. EARBITS welcomes the listener with a neat design and a well-programmed platform making it easy to discover bands.
However you think about the several streaming opportunities and their motives, one thing is sure for us music lovers: the more the better. More variety in services is important to prevent a monopoly the commercial radio stations had in the past. And more good artists with low budgets are getting a stage.