When it comes to music, there is no better place to keep up “with it” than in a big city. Due to the Internet completely influencing, shaking up and diversifying the music industry, more and more bands come out on a day-to-day basis. And unless you live in the thick of it, as in within an urban, metropolitan area, it is pretty much impossible to keep up with all of the current trends and new tunes. That is, however, until satellite Internet came out, providing high-speed connections to the masses living in the rural and mountainous areas of the country.

Look, it is easy to attribute the rising popularity of indie music to the Internet. Since the Napster era, the entire music industry has pretty much been torn apart. CD stores and chains have closed down or gone bankrupt and big name stars are selling less and less albums, all while small, independent, unsigned bands are utilizing social networking and media to slowly grow in popularity and break into the mainstream. And although keeping up with all of the gossip and rising stars is quite easy with a cable or DSL connection, people living outside of their infrastructures were without luck for quite some time. Dial-up and 56K connections did not suffice.

Now, however, satellite broadband has provided these “out of the loop” music lovers with the fast connection they need to keep up with the current pace of the new music industry. And no sites are better to keep up with all things indie than Pitchfork.com, Metacritic.com and Legalsounds.com.

Pitchfork.com – Although Rollingstone Magazine has traditionally been the bread and butter with regards to music related news, Pitchfork.com has slowly chipped away at the indie audience of its rival publication. Focusing on all things indie, the online music news Web site provides all necessary information for satellite Internet broadband users, including current news, album reviews, upcoming CD releases and concert listings. In fact, they even have exclusive recordings and videos from the “rising stars” of the genre, such as England’s The XX or Beach House.

Metacritic.com – Granted, when it comes to reading up on music reviews and monitoring their sales for the last week, Billboard pretty much has the competition beat. They’ve been doing it for more than half a century. But when it comes to overall reviews, Metacritic.com is the best place to check out. Acting as the Rottentomatoes.com for music, the Web site compiles the reviews of multiple publications and esteemed critics while interweaving user opinions as well. For satellite broadband subscribers, this means that no matter where you live you can keep up with the current opinions on specific music and even contribute your own thoughts to the overall ranking of a group’s new release.

Legalsounds.com – Downloading music has always been a questionable practice ever since the United States Government shut down Napster and other related music sites. Bit torrent Web sites exist, but they exist in the same illegal category as Limewire and Kazaa. Granted, iTunes is by far the largest online music download site, but a full CD can cost around $10, which in today’s economy is more than people want to spend. Well, thanks to the Internet and a grey line within international online law, Legalsounds.com provides all the music you crave at a cheap price – only 9 cents a song. The sound quality is actually better than the iTunes store and since the site is located in Russia, where copyright laws do not exist, there has yet to be any legal issues pertaining to United States users who utilize it – besides, the site has the word legal in it. With a high-speed satellite Internet connection, users are “legally” and quickly growing their music libraries and keeping up with the up-and-coming bands of this new, online indie generation.