One year ago today OiNK’s Pink Palace was shut down by police. It’s only appropriate to pour one out for it today.
OiNK had been in operation for a little over three years; I had joined exactly one year before it was shut down, invited to the party by CrunchGear alum Vince Veneziani, who’s now kicking about over at GearFuse. Be sure to say hi.
The thing about OiNK (and its primary successors, What.cd and Waffles.fm) is that it wasn’t really ever about getting music for free. To anyone with a job, paying $1 per song is more or less equivalent to paying $0 a song. Music is a commodity. What the labels don’t recognize, or consciously refuse to recognize, is that there was a very real community on OiNK. It was that community that made OiNK special, not being able to download some pop album a few days before it shipped to Wal-Mart.
I’m not old enough to remember the days of being able to walk into a dingy record store in the East Village and listen to The Velvet Underground & Nico for the first time, but that’s exactly what OiNK was like. At least that’s how I perceive it. You had there a group of music fans, both on the site itself and its IRC room, that would, fantastically, discuss music on a level that no amount of venture capital will be able to replicate. People genuinely and relentlessly into music—none of this Pro Tools-enhanced nonsense that passes for music on radio today—interacting, sharing their feelings and opinions on what makes that one album special to them. It was neat.
And for all the money and artificial, Techmeme-fueled buzz something like LaLa generates, it doesn’t really address that community aspect of music. Great, my music’s now in the cloud—how does that enhance my listening experience or my enjoyment of music? Compare that to What.cd, which, without millions of dollars from the latest Silicon Valley know-it-all, has developed its own codebase; launched an innovate Collage feature wherein related albums are grouped together, thereby ensuring you discover new music on a daily basis; and has an impressive collection of lossless albums that you won’t find on any of the cookie cutter online music stores.
Most importantly, What.cd has a community, and it’s one that comes very close to matching OiNK’s.
So while the record labels attempt to sue their way back into our hearts, or license their music to two-bit social media applications, the rest of us can, and should, sit back and remember OiNK today.
I was on oink for what seemed like ages, though it probably was about a year and a half to two years. I got an invite from a kind soul at a radiohead fan site. The community was great. I spent a lot of time on the forums and learned a lot about the bands and kinds of music I was listening to. I’m glad demonoid is back, but it can’t touch what oink was. I’d be curious to see how waffles and/or what.cd look like, but have not been able to score an invite as of yet.
*A moment of silent prayer*
I too miss Oink. I’ll never forget the day when my wife and I were discussing Classical Music in the forums, and some kid asked what Beethoven’s 2nd symphony was like since all he ever heard was the 5th, 6th and 9th. All I had to do was link him to an awesome Lossless quality of it. And he discovered Beethoven all over again.
*sigh*
That’s the same as the genius feature in iTunes right? So what if it suggested an American Gospel CD after i asked for something similar to Renaissance Bardic Music. That’s the same…
rip
such a sad day
What.CD offers an official way in the door for those who are interested, and either have the requisite technical knowledge, or a willingness to learn.
theres a team of people of status on What.CD who interview newcomers on their IRC, and invite those who make the cut, pointing those who do not to further reading, for their next attempt
connect to either irc.what.cd or irc.what-network.net on either port 6667 or 6697 (with SSL)
the channel is #what.cd-invites
be sure to read the topic & follow instructions once there.
good luck
i have a torrentit invite to anyone who would like to share a what.cd or waffles invite.