Two posts in a week officially qualifies me for a prolificacy award. Go fish.

I wanted to take a moment to introduce a couple new websites that recently launched: EarsCollective and The Music Shrink. Both sites are from the brain trust of Minty Fresh Records founder, Jim Powers. In addition to the many successes of Chicago-based Minty Fresh, Jim also worked A&R for Geffen Records and signed some amazing bands (think Grammy nods and gold records). He’s got a keen ear and a dearth of knowledge to share.

EarsCollective is a music rating service where the staff chooses from their submissions and presents us with five songs a week to listen to and rate from favorite to least favorite. They tout it as an “entertaining game” which makes sense as there’s no money involved and it is entertaining to see how your tastes match up with others when the voting closes. But they also claim it’s an “insightful tool” which also makes sense because I’m sure that some industry-types could definitely find benefit in checking out the weekly ratings. Maybe there’s a licensing deal or record contract on the horizon. Submit your music (MP3 links preferred) to songsubmission@earscollective.com.

The Music Shrink is Jim’s blog geared toward giving advice and sharing wisdom about the entertainment industry. Though in its infancy, there are already a few insightful entries posted. Jim’s taking questions at jim@musicshrink.com, so if there’s anything on your mind I’d suggest shooting him an email – it just might get addressed in a future post.