Dotcom performing 'Party Amplifier' live at the Rhythm Kim Dotcom

MegaUpload and Mega founder Kim Dotcom has soft launched his long-awaited iTunes-Spotify hybrid music service Baboom, showcasing the site's functionality with a single artist's page: his own.

On that page, users can check out Dotcom's electronic dance music album Good Times, which he's been working on for many months, collaborating with producers including Printz Board from the Black Eyed Peas, Sleep Deez and JD Walker. It's available free on Baboom -- users can download tracks as MP3, FLAC and WAV and even download the stems so others can remix the music.


His album has simultaneously launched on iTunes, Amazon and the Google Play Store. He also released the album on CD (LOL) and sent out review copies to journalists.

Baboom lets artists sell directly to their fanbase and keep 90 percent of sales. It will also let artists make money even if they offer their music for free by launching a plugin that replaces the ads you'd normally see online with ads delivered from its own ad network. Each time a user views an ad, they will be paid a small amount of money that they can use to buy music (the price of which can be set by the artist). As Dotcom told Wired.co.uk in an interview last year: "It's basically rewarding the user for the ad impressions that they are exposed to every day. We estimate that users will be able to buy around ten additional albums each year without charge."

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Let's prove that my idea for the music industry works by making my album the number one! Kim Dotcom

In a video on the Baboom site, Dotcom says: "My idea is that artists should make their music available for free and fans should only pay for it if they really like it. So I'm going to lead by example and I'm making my album available for free on Baboom. Let's prove that my idea for the music industry works by making my album the number one!"


The album is filled with cheesy, catchy synth-tastic dance tracks that have been autotuned to the hilt -- it's as if they've been written with the explicit intention of being snapped up for the Geordie Shore soundtrack.

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Highlights include Beathoven, Wunderbar and


Party Electricity, but our favourite is still Dance Dance Dance, featuring vocals from the big man himself -- but we are disappointed that he's removed the swear words from the original track.

Dotcom said on Twitter that there were more than 78,000 plays of his album within the first hour of launch. The full service will launch in "late 2014", a later estimate than Dotcom told us in November.

The launch took place the day before Dotcom's 40th birthday (which is on 21 January). Happy birthday Kim! We hope you enjoy some Good Times!