An Unreserved Endorsement for Zunior

I've said before, many times, that a new deal has to be struck between artists and fans. Thanks to the internet we've graduated from a system where big record labels screwed artists and fans to a system where everyone screws artists. Whether you pay for music downloads, or download them for free the artists still get screwed.

While this website doesn't do paid advertising, I will wholeheartedly support, endorse and recommend Zunior.com. The "Little" (Toronto) "Digital Music Store" which bills itself (apparently rightly) as "The Source for Independent Digital Music in Canada" sells both MP3 and CD Quality lossless Flac formats. Most for 8.88 (10.88 for Flac). Best of all, from a consumer perspective "All albums come with complete artwork 
All music is completely unrestricted and uses no DRM - All music plays on your iPod or any MP3 player - Own your music and play it wherever you want"

But the real draw for Zunior and the reason that they get the endorsement is that they don't screw the artists. From their FAQ:

Artists on the Zunior.com label pay a small administrative fee to be part of the Zunior.com digital label. The majority of this goes towards the merchant account, hosting, and bandwidth fees. We provide the best way to enjoy music from your favourite artist right away, knowing you are supporting independent music in the most direct way possible.

We also act as a digital distributor for several independent labels. These labels are all fully independent and completely artist-focused.

We subscribe to the manifesto of Peter Gabriel's MUDDA initiative - the Magnificent Union of Digitally Downloading Artists. Read more about his goal of creating a network of digitally distributing artists worldwide.

You can read the whole Zunior Manifesto Here.

They also have the selection. I've been to some 'artist friendly download sites' that featured alot of (I'm sure very fine) artists that I'd never heard of. Zunior has pretty much everything I'm interested in. If it's Canadian and Independent (and increasingly from elsewhere and independent) they probably have it. From Feist, Cuff the Duke and the New Pornographers to Henry Faberge and the Adorables, the Bicycles and the Phonemes.

In addition to selling music they offer free compilations, have a live video stream, a podcast, online radio, An RSS Feed of New Releases.

So, basically everyone gets what they want. Fans get DRM free music at reasonable prices and artists get paid.

This, I think, is the beginning of the new deal I talked about in the beginning. So, if you see links for them (and they will start to appear) or you hear me plug them from time to time it is not because they are paying me (anymore than "The Good Life" from WWF or the Kiva.com people are paying me. I have always, on this blog, endorsed things I believe in and Zunior is now on that list.

Again, this is not an advertisement. Just a wholehearted, enthusiastic endorsement. These, however, are ads pretty clever ones too.