Before the advent of mp3s and media downloads I spent hours discovering music at record stores like Academy in NYC, Normal's in Baltimore, and Fat Beats in LA. Now it's possible to do the foraging from any place with a decent internet connection.
Stones Throw Records is the most ambitious and savvy independent label in the country, so no surprise that Peanut Butter Wolf and crew have successfully taken the next step to distributing their music through a great new web store – Their fellow Angelenos over at Turntable Lab have a well-curated selection of digital downloads and a ton of cool gear – The catalogue of Soul Jazz Records offers a one-stop schooling in the history of funk, soul, world, reggae and avant jazz – A blog with a serious purpose, Loronix is singlehandedly digitizing a huge chunk of the nearly-lost recorded musical history of Brazil – I'm not totally sure that Dusty Groove belongs in this post [no downloads] but how could I leave it out?
Finally, from the conductor in me – One of the complaints about online outlets like iTunes is that they make a mess of categorizing, tagging and selling classical music, but not so for the classy folks at Deutsche Grammophon.