ahem…

“And if I say to you tomorrow. Take my hand, child, come with me.
It’s to a castle I will take you, where what’s to be, they say will be.”

What is and What Should Never Be–Led Zeppelin

They never had a number one hit. Initial reaction to their forming and their music led to their self-depreciating name (given to them by skeptical members of The Who). Everyone doubted that they would be successful with an unknown singer and drummer. Initial reviews called them blues rip-offs. No one wanted to believe in Led Zeppelin

The same can be said about Qtrax. Except for the number one hits. Qtrax has lots of number one hits. Check it out, you’ll see.  This ambitious music download project, which aims to revolutionize how music fans obtain and keep their music, has been fighting the good fight since the early days of file sharing. The arduous task of trying to legitimize file sharing and prove that you need to embrace consumer demand has taken a long time, and was certainly not easy. We’ve got more than our share of doubters and haters. I’m not trying to say that Qtrax is exactly like Led Zeppelin, I’m just saying that sometimes first impressions are not always correct. We hope you’ll give us a chance.

Let’s step back for a moment. I mean, you can put your own spin on recent digital music history, but the fact is, Qtrax exists for a reason. It’s a pretty simple reason, really. It’s the absolute will of the people. It has been for quite some time. It wasn’t necessarily the will of the labels. If it were up to them, you’d still be buying CDs at ridiculously high margins. In addition, only a few select artists actually embraced file sharing (which we’ll discuss later). The fact remains, however, that every day for the past 10 years, more and more music is transferred illegally through unregulated, virus-laden and doomed file sharing services. The numbers are staggering. The record industry legally sold $3.7 billion worth of digital music in 2008. The conservative estimates are that this accounts for less than 5% of all music downloaded last year. This has been going on for years, all the while CD sales have pretty much evaporated. I still see them in the stores, but I don’t know who’s buying them. Apple says that there are plenty of people out there who want to pay for digital music. True, but the numbers don’t lie. The people have spoken. Qtrax has listened. Free and legal is where the future is.

So what’s so unique about Qtrax? Why will it succeed where others have failed? Those are good questions which we hope to answer in a creative, funny and musically relevant way on a daily basis. We’re not going to try and beat you to death with Qtrax propaganda, and we hope you find this blog informative and enjoyable to read. To briefly answer the question, Qtrax is unique because for the first time a company spent the time, money and effort to clear licenses with all the major label groups to bring the largest catalog of music available directly to the people. Pay attention now, Qtrax is the worlds only free music download service with licenses and publishing rights from all the major label groups.  We spent years convincing the artists and labels that an ad-supported model was the way to help make up for lost revenue that occurs from illegal music downloading and file sharing. Even more, we built a fast, easy-to-use interface which comes complete with a browser, so you never have to stop downloading or listening to your tunes while surfing the web.  We’ll talk about more of this in future posts.

Who’s paying for all this? Advertisers. So if you like the music on Qtrax, feel free to thank the advertisers by visiting their sites and buying their stuff when it makes sense. After all, this needs to work for everyone (fans, bands and brands) in order to survive. It’s up to you.

“So if you wake up with the sunrise, and all your dreams are still as new,
And happiness is what you need so bad, girl, the answer lies with you.”

What is and What Should Never Be–Led Zeppelin