Jamendo has always had two great things going for it: awesome Free (mostly CC-licensed) music, and a really usable, slick Web2.0 website. There’s a staggering amount of information on Jamendo, but it’s always been relatively easy to navigate.
Jamendo’s large amounts of awesome & win had a couple of high points:
- OGG downloads by default!
- BitTorrent in two clicks
- Really slick type-ahead dropdown search feature – made it easy to search for artist names or album titles.
- Nice obvious “If you like these guys, try…” box to the right of every album page. I’ve found all sorts of cool things this way!
The new “Orange” Jamendo seems to be missing ALL of my short list of favourite features, except the BitTorrent-in-two-clicks one – but it’s only for the MP3 files, not OGG…
Thankfully for my continued quest to stuff my hard drive with awesome Free music, the old “Blue” Jamendo is still available, and I’ve left a comment on the Jamendo Blog asking about the missing features in “Orange”.
If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, compare Mac Lomig – The Celtronic Project in “Orange” and the same (really cool!) album’s page in the old, superior “Blue” Jamendo, and review my short ‘cool things’ list above.
I’m hoping the “Orange” Jamendo is still being rolled out and will eventually have just as much awesome as the site’s always had, but in the meantime I’m happy the Blue version is still around. I’m also really curious as to what feedback the Jamendo crew will offer, either here or on their own blog.
While we’re waiting, go torrent some good music!
