Find And Share Rare Music At Gabba

Gabba is an online community for sharing music that uses a merit-based system to sift the wheat from the chaff. Members are awarded points based on the strength of their contributions -- commenting, "plugging" tracks, adding links, voting and downloading. This creates a forum perfect for unearthing obscure treasures that you never knew existed. It's crate digging without the dust and hassle of leaving your chair! So far I have found a Soft Cell b-side that I'm pretty sure I used to have on a 7" back in the day (No. 1023), a goofy ska cover of the Coronation Street Theme (No. 1032), and, much to my surprise, a wonderful Italo Disco track called "Disco Clown" (No. 998), complete with a hilarious spoken-word breakdown and an irresistible, vocoded chorus ("Oh girl, don't be down, I'll be your disco clown...").

The best aspect of the site is the push and pull of the members' differing tastes. They have created a community that makes it remarkably easy to find good music that is very different from your usual listening. I'm rocking the Italo Disco today -- not really what I expected to be doing when I woke up this morning.

Membership is free. If your ears are itching for something new to hear, and you've got a little time to kill, check out Gabba. For the genre-spotters out there, no, they do not seem to specialize in 250 bpm hardcore techno. I haven't been able to figure out where the name comes from.