Big Update! We've added audio, new profiles and more.
Where indie fans decides what music is worth listening to… not journalists

Collective recommendations from people who love indie music. How it Works »

About

Why do we rely on "professional" music critics to filter the good music from the bad?
Let's give the control back to the fans and recommend music as a community.

How it Works:
1 · Anyone can submit their favorite indie albums
2 · Users vote on the albums they like (hype/drop)
3 · Albums getting the most love from the community are featured on the front page

Each album gets its own page with everything you need to decide whether its worth your time.
You can hear an MP3, watch a music video, and discuss the album. Collectivegraphic
Reviews

Albums Considered
Pretension

Intentions

Will you Agree?
Answers the simple questions: is it worth your time or not?
No Limit

Very little this is fans sharing the music they love
To let everyone know what music their enjoying
Many voices, brought together, increases likelihood
In-depth analysis going into detail about influences, history etc
Selective amount per month
(average 30/month)
High coming from "experts" trying to make a career out of writing
Entertain and sell papers / magazines

One sided view
















How it Works

Albums can rise through the ranks by being hyped (voted) on by users. Albums getting the most attention will appear on the front page in front of all of our users.

You can also add a micro-review to explain why you would recommend this album in 2-3 sentances. Plus anyone can submit an album (sorry labels there's no extra privileges).
contraband + mainstream = contrastream

Why Contrastream was Founded

Independent music has seen a flood of new albums as it becomes easier to create and distribute music. Technology has cut down the barriers of independent music but the fans won't benefit unless they know what's worth their time. Contrastream is not limited in the way traditional review magazines/sites by allowing more people to contribute, no limits on the amount of albums, and hearing it straight for the indie fans.

Everyone now has a voice in filtering the good from the bad and by leveraging the power of crowds we can improve the standard of music we listen too. We believe the success of albums should be measured by the quality of the music not marketing budgets.

The best way to find music is from word of mouth and this is a way to hear those collective recommendations.

Site

Any questions please email us at team[at]contrastream.com

The site was made with open source technology and run independently.
Designed and developed by Dan McGrady using Ruby on Rails and hosted on Linux servers.

Icons by famfamfam