riverscuomo.com demos

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A collage of photos from throughout Cuomo's life. This was the splash page of the website as of November 2020.

Rivers Cuomo launched a demo storefront on his website, riverscuomo.com, in 2020, as an assignment for an online web programming class. To date, thousands of demos have since been distributed through the website. The demos were later also made available for purchase through the mobile music streaming application Weezify.

Background

On October 14, 2020, Rivers Cuomo added a (work-in-progress) storefront to his personal website, later confirming it to be his final assignment for CS50W, an online web programming class taught by Harvard. Cuomo eventually explained the storefront in detail:

This web store is my final project for cs50 web Programming.

I'll let you guys know if and when it is functional. It's going to take some time.

If you see any demos that have been previously released or leaked, let me know so I can remove them. If you see any demos that have another person on it, either as a writer or performer, let me know.

This is just the first installment. These should be songs that have no co-writers or other performers. For any demo: It might have silence. It might be wildly inappropriate. It might have super low sound quality. It might just be me rambling, talking, making sounds. It may have already been shared or leaked. It might be just a drum beat. It might not have vocals. It might be a duplicate of another demo. It might be an inferior version of another demo. The information provided, such as year and description, might be incorrect.

All the data is dummy data for now.

Any demos you buy will show up on your account page. You can listen there.

And you can check whether or not to make them visible to everyone else. You can also select to make them playable by your friends there.

Or you can keep them hidden.

After you purchase, the demos will be listed as 'already purchased' or 'unavailable' in the store.

I will also send you mp3s. Save the mp3s because I can't guarantee how long I'll maintain this website.

Over the next few weeks, thousands of demo filenames appeared as dummy data on the page as Cuomo worked on coding the storefront.

Leak/first wave

See 2020 riverscuomo.com leak

On November 7, 2020, fans noticed hundreds of Dropbox links to demos viewable in the storefront's source code, which were quickly shared among fans. Cuomo was notified of the error the following morning, giving an update on his wiki on November 9, stating: "I'm hurt that someone downloaded and distributed the demos. I wish everyone would help me when I make mistakes in my code, rather than take advantage of me."

Despite the leak, Cuomo proceeded to launch the demo storefront on November 11, featuring over 300 of the nearly 500 songs that leaked initially, along with additional demos of "If I Fell", "Make Me a Pallet", and "Happy Trails". The storefront gave purchasers the option to share the purchased songs freely with other users by making them appear on the purchasing user's profile page. The songs sold out in less than two hours.

Alone series

See Alone (series)

On November 18, 2020, Cuomo listed two new sets on the storefront, titled "The Mother Lode" and "The Mother Lode II", listing dozens of songs not previously featured on the store. After receiving feedback from fans, however, Cuomo decided to delineate the batches of demos by album cycle. On November 20, he listed Alone IV: The EWBAITE Years (later renamed Alone XI) to users for the price of $9. Users who purchased the bundle received an e-mail containing a link to a Dropbox folder assembled by Cuomo, consisting of demos and voice notes recorded in the years leading up to the release of Everything Will Be Alright in the End. Cuomo has continued to occasionally add or remove demos in the years since.

On November 21, 2020, Cuomo listed several additional compilations on the demo storefront:

Additional demo collections

Master Sessions

On December 10, 2020, Cuomo began releasing "Master Sessions" for $9.00 apiece, each consisting of a specific demo's project files for use with the music software Ableton.

Weezify

See Weezify

Weezify is an audio streaming website and mobile app (for iOS and Android) created by Rivers Cuomo in 2021. Weezify allows users to stream demos previously purchased through the "Market" (demo storefront) on riverscuomo.com or purchase them in-app. The app also permits the streaming of music created by users of Cuomo's official Discord server.

See also