BigShinyThing

In a phenomena mirroring the sudden take up of Hotmail in the nineties and the weirdness that was Friendster, myspace is suddenly seems to be playing host to some of the hottest new musical talent around. Oh, and legendary acts including Sparks and Kraftwerk. And Bjork.

Both established musicians and up-and-coming talent can use the service to host their personalised websites (no more annoying webhosting fees or fiddly design) and share tracks with each other. They can also use it to keep in touch and grow their artist networks as well as showcase new track, blog and hook up with other artists (and fans) online. All this for nada — perfect for struggling musicians. It’s already getting to stage where if you want to be in the electro music scene you have to have a profile on myspace.com.

Myspace adminstrators have clearly hooked up to this trend — the main site now boasts ‘myspace music’ which showcases bands that have signed up to the site. They should probably check if the last band that played down The Cock has tipped up yet.

You can currently download legendary chanteuse Billie Ray Martin’s latest tracks from her profile.