Urørt

NRK -the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation.  The major Radio TV Online media provider in Norway.
Urørt -translating into untouched, for those not familiar with the norwegian language, is a place where norwegian bands can upload, store, promote and distribute their music ..and where you can download it. all for free and in order to bring young “untouched” bands to the public. Urørt picks out the best of the uploads to be played on radio. There is “this weeks urørt/untouched, the untouched of the month, and untouched of the year. 
The winner gets chosen by the audience and a jury consisting of mostly music journalists. The band or artist get 25.000 NOK. (about 4.370 USD.) and playing time at norwegian music festivals (by:Larm and Norwegian Wood)

..Not to mention the hype that follows being the next big thing.

Artists winning the recent years has been  2002: Ugress  2003: Sissy Wish  2004: Side Brok  2005: Anja  2006: Heroes and Zeros  2007: Ida Maria  and  2008: Matias Tellez

Other Artists/Bands that have managed to get up and about because of Urørt are
Unknown Joe, Cranleigh, Label, Elektrofant, Jef, Tungklovn, Freakshow, Anci, x.lover, Superfamily, Mayflies, Rigmor, Fabio Matador, MUA&Shaun Bartlett, Popgun, Keem & Roma, The Beautiful People, superJupiter  Marble Arch, Bercedes Menz, Palisades, Noelle, Cam’n A-lee feat. Chicosepoy, Suzuka, Animal Alpha, BNC, Ensenada Strawberry Sadness, Bellman, The Fernets, Monomen, DonkeyBoy, Desperado, Caddy, Orangebox, Herreløse The Royalties, X-Queen of the Astronauts, Nina Nielsen, Karatkorn, Sirka Ragnar, FORK!, Rektor, The Fuel, The School Katzenjammer, Soul Theory & Keem One, Dobbelmono, Dylan Mondegreen, Simon Says No, Magnus Sinnes, Howl, The Work, Pirate Love. etc.
(Names and numbers cut and pasted from wikipedia.)

-In designing for Urørt I’ve tried the last week to go back, as an old, long lost user, to see how to possibly improve the UX of what once used to be a fantastic tool for finding up-and-coming great bands, untouched by the filthy hands of commercially thinking, marketing people. I have rediscovered my love/hate relationship with hits. I do love good music, almost as much as I hate really bad music. The search for good music, unfortunately, normally means going through a lot of ,well, crap. And here comes why I love (some) hits. They already have proven something. People have listened to them and actually liked what they heard.. and pushed forward. In very plain and simple words: The more people who likes a song, the more that song is a hit.  (and normally, the more money it generates.) 
Urørt was a place where you could find the next big thing in any genre,  though as mentioned, restricted to norwegian artists/bands.

Findings from last weeks rediscovery of Urørt.
1.It seems like they are trying to keep track with web 2.0 circus of my space, facebook and last fm, all in one.
2.It is graphically messy, and hard to find whatever you’re looking for as a download junkie. 
3.Its easy to find people who seem to spend much time there and have a similar taste in music as I do, so finding content through browsing peoples mix-tapes is pretty easy, but leaves me feeling like a stalker and someone who just copies others. 
4.They function to a great extent as a storage space for 2.0 people, just creating and dumping stuff every where. -a problem also becoming an eye soar with the new music video option launched. (as the musicians don’t have a lot of recourses, the quality is, I dare say, not very good.) 

5.I’m not sure Urørt is an attractive place to upload your music to, as I find several bands have had songs deleted by the admins. due to provocative lyrics. 

6.In typing a search word -the name of my home town, to find half decent stuff from an other, more personal point of view..basing it on location and a  point of reference where I have more patience, I find content appealing to me as it feels like I’m finding my way back home and become bias like no one before me.. I’m finding people I want to listen to because I used to know the drummer in that band or simply cant believe anything electronica can come from the tiny fisher-mans island two hours into the North Sea.. All of a sudden I’m a patriot and spending a lot of time in the Urørt site again, hitting download and even leaving comments.

My wants for Urørt, going back to their original vision; getting young untouched bands up and out.. as a launching platform into the hype and all that follows: My idea is to do this on a very narrow / small scale, making it easier to find content of special interest, and by this finding new ways of promoting for them. (to sum up; enhance findability and scale down on much of the other stuff.)