Calabash: Music Shop Of The World

There are an abundance of music store sites around, from giants like iTunes and Amazon Unboxed to indie sites like eMusic. Calabash is a site that offers music connoisseurs a way to get the best in music from around the world on one site. Billing itself as "easy access to hard to find music", Calabash may have found the one niche in music that no one had taken time to truly tap into yet for online sales, and they did it before anyone else.

Is Calabash the only site offering world music for sale? Absolutely not. It may be the one doing it best, though. Most sites leave world music as an afterthought, a brief category toward the bottom of the list. Calabash takes the niche to a new level, refusing to pigeonhole themselves to the category at all. Instead of referring to themselves as "world music" vendors, they let it be known that they simply find the music that touches them and moves them form around the world, whatever the genre.

This is good news for people seeking out new and unusual music not played on the mainstream stations. Even better news is how much fun it is to browse the store. If you like variety and are looking for something new, but aren't sure what, Calabash is hands down the best place for browsing and seeking out new sounds. Sure, you can browse for music just about anywhere, but the selection at Calabash has acquired quite a following (even said to include Elvis Costello, well known music junkie).

By not concentrating on the limitations of "world music" as it is commonly known elsewhere, Calabash is better able to showcase talent from a variety of genres around the world. World music as a category has been relegated to back room status at so many retailers for so long that it is refreshing to see the lively selection process and varied content on Calabash. While the content may be imported from all around the world, you don't have to pay import prices. A simple 99 cents USD will suffice per song.

One of my favorite things about Calabash is the interface. Actions from signing up to purchasing songs are simple and painless, requiring only minimal effort. Having a simple and easy to use interface frees Calabash to offer some social features like blogs, chat rooms, recommendations, social networking and more. Calabash got its start during the Web 1.0 era (often called the dot com bubble), and it has been going strong ever since. They claim to have sold mp3s before sites like iTunes were even around.

Calabash offer DRM-free music for sale for a reasonable price. It often has hard to find cuts and rare or difficult to fond songs. It has a loyal staff of music junkies who constantly fine tune and restructure the music database for Calabash for reach maximum impact. Above all else, it has selection. Calabash is definitely a go to store for me when I want to hear something completely new and different.