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Haterade

DEAR BANDS AND LABELS: FUCKING CUT IT OUT WITH THE EYE-BLEEDING MYSPACE DESIGNS ALREADY

 Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 at 1:30pm by

Enough is enough. If I have to scroll down 3 fucking screen-lengths in order to hear any music, it’s too much. If the MySpace page takes half a minute to load because the images are all 500k and hosted on photobucket, it’s too much. If a video player auto-loads you deserve a punch in the face. If your heavily-photoshopped band photo and use of eye-bleeding colors makes me go blind I’m assuming you’re covering up for the fact that your music sucks. All I need something simple to visually represent the band and the player itself… ya know, where the music is. Enough with the atrocious MySpace designs already. This goes for well-established signed bands too.

I’m really digging BandCamp.com lately as a vehicle for bands to have all-in-one pages. It’s so much simpler, faster, more functional, and best of all… leaves no room for bands to over-design their page and over-hype their own wares. Labels and bands, check that out. No one uses the social networking elements of MySpace anymore anyways.

Sincerely,
VN

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  • Thrashbuster

    fuckin right. that irritates the shit outta me.

  • chris

    The only reason I have a Myspace account is to check out bands. I have to agree that some of their pages have become ridiculous.

  • C Frazier

    I always liked purevolume. The myspace adds piss me off to.

  • Dilznoofus

    I couldn’t agree with you more. Myspace sucks, and Bandcamp is freaking sweet.

  • Hammer_Smashed_Hurtt

    Vince just stated the Obvious, no one social-networks on there anymore. Like CHRIS stated the only reason ( and im sure this sentiment is shared) I even check on myspace anymore is to look up bands.

  • Adam

    AKA every Sumerian band myspace

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Brendan-Snow/514886363 Brendan Snow

    last.fm is a good alternative to myspace too, though it’s more designed for watching what you and your friends are listening to than checking out bands

  • joshkid

    Hey Vince and y’all above me, check this:
    http://evolvor.com/2009/05/19/free-the-myspace-standalone-player-from-those-awful-layouts-with-this-bookmarklet/
    They give you a link with which you make a bookmark in your browser, and when you’re on a myspace page you hit it and only the music player comes up.
    It’s fuckin awesome, and I’ve been using it a lot. Oh btw I use Firefox but I’m sure it works in other browsers.

    • Jacob

      Holy fuck, how am I the only one who found this amazing enough to deserve lots of thanks?
      THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU.
      FUCK that’s awesome dude.

  • cougar party

    Almost as annoying as those drop down adds you guys having running on the site now.

    • EdSW

      You mean the ones that won’t click when you click the ‘X’ to exit them? Yeah, they fucking suck.

      • cougar party

        yes, sir. The clicking once I can handle. It’s the fact that if your mouse comes anywhere near the ad, it will drop down to cover half your screen.

        • http://www.last.fm/user/M60Patton Patton

          God bless addblock plus for Firefox! Can’t remember the last time i saw an add on the internet.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jay-See/726690352 Jay See

    I heartily agree with you, and in fact made a brief point about this on my blog the other day; pointing out that LUDICRA has, by far, the best MySpace design of any band out there: it’s simple, to the point, and isn’t overloaded with extras that nobody cares about.

    Again: http://www.myspace.com/ludicra is the BEST MySpace band page out there.

  • Dysenteric

    I’ve always said that the only good thing to come out of MySpace is the free promotion of music, where any Tom, Dick or Harry can exhibit their work. I had an account on MySpace for two weeks, the only thing I did on it was add bands to my friends list.

    Yeah, I hate when bands or designers go OTT with design. Save that stuff for official websites.

  • Don Rizzla

    ‘Done up’ Layouts are the fucking tits. Its gotten to the stage. Where, if you aren’t represented with the most ridiculous layout going. Then people literally won’t even listen and close the page faster than Paris Hilton’s sausage factory.

  • http://www.deadspacerecords.com rayray2012

    Amen! I discovered bandcamp and I now use it to host all the stuff on my record label… It’s a breath of fresh air after dealing with myspace for so long!

  • smear

    yes, more metal bands should be on bandcamp. i’ve gotten a ton of indie electronic and rock from bands who distribute via bandcamp. it’s pretty nice that you can set it up as a free download or donation or purchase.

  • gojirasaurus

    how do i veiw band pages? i can only make one

  • rancidcorpse

    Lazy

  • ferris

    Please repost this every day forever. Bands, take note.

    Do not let “Dude, this will be awesome!” factor into your web design.

  • Kuranes

    I would like to recommend bandzoogle.com as well – basically another web host that has a control panel that is geared towards making band websites.

  • Tonberry
  • JimmyB

    Everyone could just get their grandmas to make breakfast for them and take a pic of that:

    http://www.myspace.com/rightnorris

  • http://hookinmouth.net Hookinmouth.net

    I hate going to label sites and having to click through 4 pages of latest promos just to get to their main page.

  • mallows

    Amen to that.

    Iron Miaden’s masterfully basic myspace page should be used as the layout for all bands…

    • mallows

      miaden? maiden

      • http://hookinmouth.net Hookinmouth.net

        You’ve just inspired me to start a tribute band that mixes the sound of Iron Maiden with football influenced lyrics. Iron Madden has been born…

  • brandonmetal

    I was just thinking the same thing yesterday.
    I ONLY want to hear what the new fn track sounds like.
    I Do NOT want to wait 15 minutes for your fn promo/graphics to load.

  • Cameron Rhoads
  • http://www.myspace.com/monsterpop monsterpop

    yep, totally agree! though ive just signed up for Bandcamp,and spent afrustrating 15 mins tryin to upload a song, before i realised i cant add mp3s! DOH!
    i wonder why they did that?
    So, i have to convert to wav or suchlike and try again later!

    hope its worth it;-)

    cheers
    JimmyD
    http://www.soundclick.com/monsterpop