I’ll Say It: I Still Like MySpace–At Least for Music

I was a defender of MySpace for a long time.  Yes, the interface could get really, really ugly.  But when it came to music, it was very good.

The music player was–and still is–rock-solid.  It’s easy to operate.  Audio quality is good.  And when it was The Thing, there was no better place to search for free streams of cool music.

But then News Corp bought the site, ignored it and let it be ground to dust by Facebook and other sites. It was declare uncool and users abandoned the place.

MySpace is now little more than a punchline, the butt of jokes, even though the music side of it still works very well.  At least by the artists who still use it.

And I’m not alone.  Check out this blog post from LA Weekly.  The dude makes a great point about band Facebook pages:  they all look pretty much the same.  They have to follow FB’s rigid template rules.  That wasn’t a problem with the ultra-customizable MySpace.  Okay, so that ratcheted up the ugly factor, but still, if it was done right…

Yes, artists need to have a Facebook page. The 850 million + users expect everyone else to be on Facebook, including every band they ever hear about.  As an artist, you have to fish where the fish are.

But the music experience on Facebook doesn’t do anything for me.  Actually, there’s little about Facebook that I like.  Don’t get me started.

So I’ll say it.  I still like MySpace when it comes to what it can do with and for music.  Is it too late for a resurrection?