The Bates Motel blog is tracking Norwegian music. The motel is looked after by Sindre Ness. Sindre writes in the dying “new-Norwegian” written language. General news, links to MP3s, streams and videos. Sindre seems to be more of a reporter than a critic. Not that it matters — I normally use something like Free Download Manager or LeechGet to scan these sites anyway.

A recent addition to my arsenal of sites, so no tracks checked out from the Bates Motel yet. But do download Hurra Torpedo’s version of Total eclipse of the Heart (video). Hurra Torpedo use white goods like cookers and freezers as their instruments. Nice.

I struggle a bit with betterPropaganda. There is no hint of the quality of the MP3s (bitrate) are before you start the download and I can’t get the site to work with Firefox (the .asp file extension is the giveaway). But worst of all: around half of the time I hit the “Free MP3” button there is no free MP3. Usability score zero for this annoyance:

Sorry, but this song is stream only. You can click the ‘Listen’ button to hear the song, but you can’t save the file on your computer.

Expect to find artists like Low, DJ Dangermouse, Quincy Jones, loads of unknown bands and speeches by Noam Chomsky. The focus is on rock, electronic and hip-hop.

A site with a decent concept, but lots of room for improvement on the usability side (shame).