Question about music and Usenet

Don't know where to ask this, and whether its been answered, but I've just recently switched to using Usenet (although Im still dl torrents while I make this transition). The one thing I haven't been able to figure out is that I've heard that most torrents are released on newsgroups hours/days before they hit the torrent scene.

It seems like thats about right for most things, except for music. I'm constantly finding new releases on torrents that are either a) not available on Usenet, b) come out at the same time or after torrents, or c) are coming out before and I just don't know where to search for them.

To give a quick example, I use alt.b.sounds.mp3.complete_cd to look for CDs, and while they have stuff that doesnt appear on the front page of torrent sites, they dont have seem to have the new mainstream releases.

Am I just searching in the wrong places? Id like to use newsgroups for music purely because of the speed and safety of usenet, however it seems like all the music is to be found through torrents.

Try looking in the nzb indexes or using something like http://www.binsearch.info/ . Sometimes they might have been uploaded but not in the group you're looking in.

This site is also great for looking and nzbs.org also nzbsrus.com and nzbindex.com. Between all 4 of them you should be able to find everything you are after.

It seems that as binary usenet has become more mainstream, more popular music is getting posted.

In years past, usenet had a lot of rare, indie, and concert material, but common "radio hits" were often missing entirely, while P2P would be crammed full of those tracks.

Apparently the people posting to usenet had much different tastes in music compared to the masses who used Kazaa and Limewire.

Every network seems to cater to a different crowd. Soulseek and OpenNap are often good for finding rarer music. Youtube is by far the best for finding big-band-era music -- if you don't mind ripping out the tracks yourself. But in general, P2P seems to be declining while websites are where more and more music is getting posted these days.

Nah I found the same as you when I joined usenet. My not exactly mainstream tastes aren't catered for on newsgroups, occasionally the odd release will pop up, but I stick to private torrent trackers for music.

I find Usenet has the "most" mainstream music, but I don't go looking for music very often, it's there you just have to look around.