This Week's Free Downloads (2/15/10)

Everyone loves free stuff. Check out these amazing free goodies that we know you'll be sure to love! NOTE: These free offers don't last forever. Get them while they last!

Single of the Week
Easton Corbin: A Little More Country

 

Easton Corbin is a native of Trenton, Florida. He lived on his grandparents' farm following his parents' divorce, and was introduced to country music-themed television programs such as Hee Haw. After taking guitar lessons from session musician Pee Wee Melton at age fifteen, Corbin joined a band, which won an opening slot at a music festival, followed by opening slots for Janie Fricke and Mel McDaniel.

Corbin later attended University of Florida and earned a business degree, before marrying his wife, Briann, in 2006. He and Briann then moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 2006, where he worked at an Ace Hardware store and performed at writer's nights. A distant cousin, who is a professor of music management, recommended Corbin to contacts in Nashville, Tennessee. Joe Fisher, senior director of A&R at Universal Music Group Nashville, signed Corbin to the Mercury Nashville label in 2009. He released his debut single, "A Little More Country Than That", in July of that same year. Rory Lee Feek of Joey + Rory wrote the song with Don Poythress and Wynn Varble. The label released a four-song digital extended play entitled A Little More Country Than That on August 18, 2009, shortly before the single entered Top 40 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts. Corbin's self-titled debut album will be released in March 2010, under the production of Carson Chamberlain.

Discovery Download
Jets Overhead: Heading for Nowhere

Jets Overhead provide their debut self-titled EP and their first album, Bridges, for free download on their website as it is their view that in the current day and age, with pirating and illegal peer to peer (P2P) networks for downloading music free of charge, it is easier to provide the music in a free form themselves (though the option is given to buy the album at the regular price or make a voluntary donation). They appear to be one of the first bands to have addressed the difficulties of modern day music and what they call the "digital revolution", employing the voluntary purchase and download model a year and a half before the British rock group Radiohead more famously did it in October 2007 with their album In Rainbows.

After discovering that their most recent album, No Nations, had leaked onto certain file-sharing websites, lead singer Adam Kittredge responded in a positive way, saying, “We aren’t that concerned about it, because at our level, it’s kind of actually flattering to think that people think it’s worthwhile to so-called ‘steal’ our record before it’s released. It really doesn’t matter to us at this level of the game and maybe it won’t ever – maybe it shouldn’t.”

The band has not repeated its original voluntary purchase model for the 2009 release of No Nations. However elements of the album have been made available through the band's website under a Creative Commons license.

Music Video of the Week
Mariah Carey: Up Out My Face (ft. Nicki Minaj)

Mariah Carey (born March 27, 1970) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer and actress. She made her recording debut in 1990 under the guidance of Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola, and became the first recording artist to have her first five singles top the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. Following her marriage to Mottola in 1993, a series of hit records established her position as Columbia's highest-selling act. According to Billboard magazine, she was the most successful artist of the 1990s in the United States. 

Following her separation from Mottola in 1997, Carey introduced elements of hip hop into her album work, to much initial success, but her popularity was in decline when she left Columbia in 2001. She signed to Virgin Records but was dropped from the label and bought out of her contract the following year after a highly publicized physical and emotional breakdown, as well as the poor reception given to Glitter, her film and soundtrack project. In 2002, Carey signed with Island Records, and after a relatively unsuccessful period, she returned to the top of pop music in 2005.

Carey has sold more than 175 million albums, singles and videos worldwide. She was named the best-selling female pop artist of the millennium at the 2000 World Music Awards. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, she is the third best-selling female artist and sixteenth overall recording artist with shipments of over 62.5 million albums in the US. She is also ranked as the best-selling female artist of the U.S. Nielsen SoundScan era (third best-selling artist overall). She has the most number-one singles for a solo artist in the United States (eighteen; second artist overall behind The Beatles). In 2008, Billboard Magazine ranked her at number six on "The Billboard Hot 100 Top All-Time Artists", making Carey as the second most successful female artist, in the history of Billboard Hot 100 chart. In addition to her commercial accomplishments, Carey has earned five Grammy Awards, and is well-known for her five-octave vocal range, power, melismatic style, and use of the whistle register.