Nonetheless, there is a new website that looks to take advantage of today’s technologies and revolutionize the failing industry through the creation of an exciting new social network titled “Stereofame.”

The website combines popular social networks like MySpace with the auction functions of eBay to create a game where both listeners and artists compete for points they can cash in to receive prizes.

One area artist who is already taking advantage of the online phenomenon is Justin West. West, who records under the pseudonym Obi das, found out about the website through an obscure link he happened to come across while searching the web. The more he learned about the company and started listening to other people’s music, he admits he found the game to be a great idea.

“It will probably be around for a long, long time,” he said. “There is nothing easier when it comes to listening to new music.”

The site allows artists to gain recognition for their music through listener voting. Listeners are then able to create their own label by choosing artists that they think will be most successful. The label is then able to gain points based on the success of the artists signed to the label. Artists are also able to receive points and cash them in at the Stereofame auction house by bidding for valuable rewards.

The material that West presents on the site is from his debut album, which he worked two years to complete. His music is often classified as experimental – a title that he doesn’t have to worry about on Stereofame because there is no genres differentiating the bands on the site. West said he hopes that one day the site will catch the eye of major record labels.

“My real fantasy is that there will actually be some labels with money to spend on producing artists, but I haven’t heard of anyone actually getting picked up yet.”

West has been on the site since the end of May and is ranked fifth out of thousands of aspiring artists who have started playing the game. His success on the site has led him to accumulate an abundance of prizes, including various gift cards, an Apple TV and a Play Station 3.

 “It works as long as they can deliver the merchandise,” he said. “Musicians want food more than fame.”

Stereofame was founded in April by Ken Underwood who recognized the problems of today’s industry and the trend toward a more independently produced record industry. Underwood, who served in the Navy during the cold war, compares the music industry to that of the collapse of the Soviet Union and characterizes artists and listeners as the oppressed people living under the Soviet regime.

“For the labels, it’s like 1989 in East Berlin.  The walls are coming down and independent artists are taking advantage of this new found freedom by providing their music and merchandise directly to the consumer,” Underwood said in a press release.

Prior to the recent woes of the music industry, record executives had a strangle hold on consumers – pricing CD’s at astronomical levels. Then peer-to-peer file sharing was invented and the industry failed to take advantage of the growing technology until it was too late. The introduction of Napster led to declining record sales and the introduction of thousands of new mediums like lime wire and Apple’s iPod.

In 2006, consumers bought 588.2 million albums and last year they purchased 500.5 million albums – a 15% decline over the course of one year according to Nielsen Sound Scan. Digital sales have skyrocketed over that time with 582 digital singles sold in 2006 and 835 million sold in 2007. Since 2000, more than 5,000 record-company employees have been laid off.

“Stereofame is the world’s anti-label,” Underwood said. “Our mission is to reshape the music industry by enabling a free-market, direct-to- consumer solution for artists and listeners.  We think artists and listeners should be able to deal with each other directly - one on one - without the middleman.”
To learn more about Stereofame, visit: www.stereofame.com