Why MusiCares and Why Music Matters

In February, Bruce Springsteen was honored by MusiCares as its Person of the Year at a ceremony in Los Angeles. There, other great artists – like Alabama Shakes, Elton John, Faith Hill, Juanes, John Legend, Mumford & Sons, Neil Young and more – performed tributes to Springsteen, while The Boss himself gave a speech about the importance of music.

“We [musicians] want to be great.  We want to be great and important in your life… because you keep us in search of the force that reignites our gifts, our ability to make you want to move, to dance, to love, to make love, to be angry, to act,” he continued before performing for the packed house there to honor him.

Springsteen’s words are a reminder of how much music matters to fans who cherish it and to artists who cherish their fans.  This symbiotic, significant relationship between artists and their fans has withstood the test of time and continues to be at music’s core.  One way that fans can recognize artists for making the music that we love and want to listen to again and again? By choosing legitimate and authorized music services online that compensate them.

That’s one important reason why we developed whymusicmatters.com.  We know that people are enjoying more music online than ever before. According to the NPD Group, 90 percent of Internet users are also active music listeners.  And since you’re reading this, we bet that you like music too.

That’s why we want fans to know about the many legitimate digital music services online today. When you choose from whymusicmatters.com/find-music options, you know that each service listed is authorized and that artists, music labels and the many other individuals involved in the music chain are being compensated.

We can also appreciate that with so many choices for getting music online also come questions about the functionality offered.  This site aims to help answer those questions by categorizing services by functionality (here) such as Music Downloads/MP3s (7digital, Amazon MP3, eMusic, iTunes, Music Hub, more), On-Demand Streaming (MOG, rara, Rdio, Rhapsody, Slacker, Spotify, Turntable.fm, more), Cloud (Google Play, iCloud, Xbox Music Pass, more), Music Videos (Hulu, MTV.com, VEVO, YouTube, more), Ringtones (Cricket, Motime, Muve Music, Sprint, T-Mobile, more), and CDs/Vinyl (Ariama, CD Universe, Hastings, Insound, more).  Additionally, each of the 60 plus authorized services has an informational description page.  See Spotify’s page, by one way of example.

We’ve also included a Statutory Services page for Internet, satellite, and cable radio services like Pandora, Last.fm, Sirius XM, and more that operate under a statutory license.

Think of whymusicmatters.com as a one-stop shopping guide for choosing where to access, listen to, and buy music online.  Like The Boss said, music is made for the fans! Get out there and enjoy it!