chasw Posted February 2, 2008 at 02:33 PM Report Posted February 2, 2008 at 02:33 PM John Daniel Winters, avant garde guitarist and composer, has a web site where his unreleased music is available for free download. For some reason, the majority of downloads, about 2,000 per week and growing, start as referrals from links in Baidu.com and Soso.com. Can anyone comment on the role these music websites have in China's popular music culture? I'm imagining university students in their dormitories downloading music and trading John's music for their parties and mp3 players. thanks - CW for Esoteric Productions, Seattle USA Quote
Xiao Kui Posted February 2, 2008 at 03:17 PM Report Posted February 2, 2008 at 03:17 PM Wow that's very interesting. Some of my theories are: 1. it's a guitarist subculture thing. Some guitarists like Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, and Eric Johnson are way more popular in China than they are in the States. Some like Slash and Dimebag Darrell are more popular than the bands they are in with the guitarist crowd. (also the Metallica and Megadeth lead guitarists, but I'm not a heavy metal fan so I don't know - I just know guitarist friends in China idolize these guys and say if they ever came to China to do a concert how many millions of people would want to go.) In China there are a lot of good career guitarists and a lot of wannabe guitarists, so there is a little guitarist subculture. 2. Just Chinese interest and curiosity abt Western music and culture 3. More sinister theory- they are downloading and burning the music and selling CDs for profit. Quote
cwmccabe Posted February 3, 2008 at 08:23 AM Report Posted February 3, 2008 at 08:23 AM Another theory is this... Baidu has this: http://mp3.baidu.com Google does not have this: http://mp3.google.com Try searching for John Winters on Baidu and see where the resulting mp3s are hosted (hint: johnwinters.biz). I don't know about soso.com Quote
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