Where It Ain’t in Music Discovery

I have to disagree with Fred Wilson about finding new music.

Pandora and Last.fm are absolutely, positively and without a doubt the holy grail of music discovery. I have discovered more good, new music on those sites in the past month than I have in all of my years of blog reading.

It’s not about spoonfeeding- it’s about algorithms (be they mathematical or social) that help you find music you like, but have never heard. Whether that’s music on a 20 year old record or music freshly uploaded by the artist is immaterial.

I have traditionally favored Pandora slightly over Last.fm, but with the new design and added features, Last.fm has pulled even in the two horse race for dominance in music discovery. Here’s my Last.fm page for anyone interested, and here’s Fred’s.

If you, like me, are an alternative country fan, you can add Twangville to the mix for a trifecta. If you like live classic rock, add one more site to the list: Vault Radio.

And I have to agree with Bob Lefsetz, particularly when he writes:

“I’ve got XM. I’ve got Sirius. I’m not living in the world of terrestrial. I never want to hear another commercial AGAIN! I just want music. All the time.”

and:

“Remember how you used to rush home to play your favorite records? How you needed nobody else in the room to feel joy? How you played the same track for an hour straight?”

I remember the first time I heard Paul Kennerly’s ensemble record The Legend of Jesse James. I listened to Charlie Daniels sing Northfield: The Disaster over 100 times in a row over a week or so. Not one other song entered my ears that week. It was spiritual. And it’s still one of the best songs I have ever heard.

Now back to Fred.

He says that the place to mine for new music is the mp3 blogs. He gives no link to them, because they are distributed. It’s like those cats in that commercial. They’re out there somewhere, but getting them to one place is a chore.

Yes, there’s The Hype Machine, which I think is a pretty neat web site. But unless it wants to change its name to The Next RIAA Defendant, it is going to be limited in the scope of music it can include. Don’t get me wrong, I like The Hype Machine, but Pandora it is not.

Blogs are great, and some of them feature good new music. But, in general, blogs are where it ain’t as far as discovering new music without a lot of unnecessary effort. Heck, even podcasts are far better suited for that purpose. One of the reasons we do the RanchoCasts is to help people discover new music.

New music doesn’t mean music that was just made. It means music that is new to the listener. When I became a huge blues fan a decade or so ago, a new universe of new music suddenly became available to me- little of it made after 1980.

I’m all about unsigned bands and new music that hasn’t been manufactured by the star maker machinery behind the popular song, but let’s not get carried away.

There is an almost unlimited universe of new music waiting at Pandora and Last.fm. And it doesn’t take herding cats to find it.

50 Records that Changed Music

The Guardian Observer has a list today of 50 record that changed music.

Here’s the top 20 on the list with my short take on each.

1) The Velvet Underground and Nico (1967): Venus in Furs is one of my all time favorite songs, but the most influential rock album of all time? Please.

2) Beatles/Sargent Pepper (1967): Great record, can’t argue with a number 2 rating.

3) Kraftwerk/Trans-Europe Express (1977): Never heard it.

4) NWA/Straight Outta Compton (1989): I actually had this record before I wrote off rap altogether. I’d put Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back ahead of this one. If you want to be completely accurate, it was Sugarhill Gang’s Rapper’s Delight that started the entire rap movement.

5) Robert Johnson/King of the Delta Blues Singers (1961): This record was a momentum play, fueled by the sold his soul to the devil marketing plan. I’ll take any Howlin’ Wolf or Muddy Waters record over this one any day.

6) Marvin Gaye/What’s Going On (1971): Can’t argue too much, but Johnnie Taylor and Al Green were doing the same sort of stuff just as well.

7) Patti Smith/Horses (1975): Everybody treats this record like it’s a sacred relic. It’s pretty good. Not number 7. I’d put the Sex Pistols as the top punk act.

8) Bob Dylan/Bringing it All Back Home (1965): Not my favorite Dylan record, but still a trend setter.

9) Elvis Presley/Elvis Presley (1956): Can’t argue with this, but where is Little Richard, the true creator of rock and roll?

10) The Beach Boys/Pet Sounds (1966): Absolutely a top 10 music changer. I still listen to this record regularly.

11) David Bowie/The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (1972): Glam rock that was still good music.

12) Miles Davis/Kind of Blue (1959): I’m not a jazz fan, but hard to argue.

13) Frank Sinatra/Songs for Swingin’ Lovers (1956): I’m not much of a Frank fan either, but hard to argue.

14) Joni Mitchell/Blue (1971): Sorry, but I would have to agree with the cash register and go with Carole King’s Tapestry. Court and Spark was the Joni record that changed me musically.

15) Brian Eno/Discreet Music (1975): To my knowledge, I have never heard a Brian Eno song.

16) Aretha Franklin/I Never Loved a Man the Way I love You (1967): Girl power, round one.

17) The Stooges/Raw Power (1973): About right for these punk pioneers.

18) The Clash/London Calling (1979): Should be much higher.

19) Mary J Blige/What’s the 411? (1992): Never heard it.

20) The Byrds/Sweetheart of the Rodeo (1968): This first marriage of rock and country should be way, way higher. Other possibilities are the Dillard and Clark records and the early Eagles.

Where in the world are The Allmans/At Fillmore East, Grateful Dead/American Beauty, and early the Who? Where is Exile on Main Street, a record that scads of artists still try to emulate?

My favorites from 21-50:

26) Stevie Wonder/Songs in the Key of Life (1976)

27) Jimi Hendrix/Are You Experienced (1967)

35) The Ramones/The Ramones (1976)

36) The Who/My Generation (1965)

42) The Smiths/The Smiths (1984)

44) Talking Heads/Fear of Music (1979)

49) De La Soul/3 Feet High and Rising (1989)

Overall, a good list chock full of good music.

Recipe for a Killer Podcast Application

While doing last night’s RanchoCast, I thought of an application that would not only bring podcasting to the masses, but would also be very useful for current podcast listeners. I’m going to tell some smart guy or gal somewhere how to put themselves on the Web 2.0 map.

I have said before and I’ll say again, that as long as podcasting is technologically or psychologically tied to iPods and other portable music players, it will never reach the mainstream. Nobody I know, either socially or professionally, uses an iPod or other portable music player. Not one person. A couple of people I know have iPods, but they tell me that after the initial thrill of having one wore off, the iPods got relegated to a drawer somewhere, rarely to see the light of day.

Granted, I’m sure lots of kids and college students have iPods, and if you don’t mind ignoring millions and millions of grownups with lots of disposable cash, then so be it.

But if you want to bring podcasting to the masses, some things are going to have to change.

First, you have to understand that grownups who listen to podcasts generally do not listen on an iPod. We have made some progress integrating computer-listening features into podcasts. The Delicious playtagger supports this (as an aside, am I the only one who noticed that all of the Delicious buzz went stone silent as soon as Yahoo bought it?), as does the new play button in Feedburner feeds.

But there is another place where grownups listen to even more of their music, talk shows and audio books- in the car. Which leads me to my recipe for a killer podcast application.

Want to be famous and actually make some money too? Then create this-

An application, online or local, that allows a user to subscribe to podcasts and organize their subscription lists.

Allow them to listen to the podcasts online or to download them into an iPod.

Here comes the new and important part…

Create an easy to implement way to have selected podcasts automatically burned to a CD-R every week or so, with each podcast to be a separate track. After it is set up, the application would simply prompt the user to insert a CD-R every so often, at which time it would burn that week’s podcasts onto a CD-R that could be listened to in the car.

The application would also create a text document with the track numbers, names, dates and descriptions of the podcasts. That document could be printed and used as a listening reference. Label maker developers could write plug-ins that would allow the automatic printing of jewel case labels or, even better, templates for applications, like my Primera printer, that print on the CD-R itself.

Have the podcast name and date burned on the CD-R as CD Text.

Most car stereos can play MP3’s now, so that would be the default setting- for more capacity. But there would also be an option to burn the CD-R in CDA format so older car stereos could also play it. CD-R’s are almost free these days, so cost is not a factor.

Plus, the CD-R’s would allow the user to create an archive of podcasts and to share good ones with friends.

People would happily pay for this product. And if you wanted to be true to the Web 2.0 mantra and get some of the allegedly infinite ad revenue, you could place ads on the application pages, if it’s an online application, or on the CD-R between the podcasts themselves. Perhaps there would be a cheaper version of the application that has brief ads between the podcasts and a full-priced version that doesn’t.

I realize that you can burn podcasts to CD-R’s now, but it’s simply more trouble than most people are willing to go to for a concept they don’t fully understand or embrace. To get to where the population and the dollars are, you have to make it easy for people to say yes.

Let me say it again, the customers we are trying to sell to are not geeks like us. They want something that is (a) easy, and (b) cool and useful, but in that order. Too many Web 2.0 developers get it backwards. You have to make it easy to say yes, because it will always be easy to say no.

Take podcasting into the cars and trucks of the masses and you’ll see podcasting really take off.

Otherwise it’s just too easy to say no.

RanchoCast – July 15, 2006 Edition

I did a new podcast last night.

The theme was the Joe Show. I played songs by all sorts of Joes, including Ely, Cocker, Tex, Henry and many more. I ended with a blues jam by Big Joe Williams.

Definitely one of our best podcasts so far.

Kings

jesusbillboard

It seems that this is an actual billboard that allegedly got hijacked right here in Houston.

Pimp My Vader

This is hilarious.

Link for feeds.

Reaping What You Sow: Generosity in the Blogosphere

Steve Rubel has an interesting post about generosity in the blogosphere. It seems that Steve had lunch recently with Keith Ferrazzi, author of the bestselling book Never Eat Alone. Keith made the comment that to build a network (the business and social kind), you have to be generous. That got Steve thinking about the blogosphere and the importance of generosity there.

Steve concluded, and I agree, that the generous bloggers are the most influential. Steve identifies Robert Scoble and Mark Cuban as generous bloggers- blogger who create great content and generously link to others. I’d add Steve (for sure- remember the day he took off to visit with podcasters on a first come, first served basis), Doc Searls and Guy Kawasaki to that list.

All of those guys are flat earth guys who welcome new voices and want to use the blogosphere- and their position in it- for the common good. I won’t get on my soapbox again, other than to say that blogs are nothing more than extensions of our pens and our words. Anyone who isn’t kind and generous on the internet probably isn’t all that kind and generous in real life.

Blogs are like cars- they create a false sense of invincability that releases your inner asshole.

Yet the same forces that make people good networkers in life make them good and influential bloggers in the blogosphere. The reasons why Robert, Steve, Doc and Guy have so many friends in the blogosphere are the same reasons why Keith Ferrazzi became the youngest partner in Deloitte Consulting’s history.

Contrast that to the ones Steve describes thustly:

“Then there are others – and I won’t name them – who are not generous. In fact, even worse, they are grievous. They syndicate snippets rather than publish full text RSS feeds. They don’t credit other bloggers who they clearly steal content from. They are filled with just nasty criticism, rather than a balance of ideas and constructive advice. They focus solely on themselves and not an iota on others.”

I don’t know who Steve is referring to, and it doesn’t matter. But when I think of people who are not generous in the blogosphere, I think of guys like Steve Gillmor who spend much of their time trying to separate themselves from other bloggers- via artificial paradigm shifts and country-club tactics. The greatest irony of 2006 so far was when Steve referred to those who dare to disagree with him as trolls. Most of us think of people who disagree with us as great candidates for a conversation. But that’s just it- inward looking people don’t want conversation.

And then there are the pseudo-intellectuals like Andrew Keen (who is the blogosphere’s version of the party guest who can’t stop talking about how smart he is long enough to notice the PhD’s shaking their heads as the walk away). Or the Nick Carr types whose many thoughtful posts get lost in the flood of Mary, Mary posts made in the name of fame or traffic.

All of those guys are well known. But so is the blustery guy at the party. You know them, but you are not influenced by them.

You are influenced by the people who realize that being generous is a win win proposition.

It’s good for us, and, as it turns out, it’s good for them too.

Something to think about.

Another Mom Takes It to the RIAA

riaa An Oklahoma mom has successfully defended a lawsuit by the RIAA.

The better news is that the mom might be able to collect her attorneys’ fees from them.

Maybe the RIAA should go back to suing dead grannies. At least they don’t fight back.

The way to stop the RIAA’s unchecked madness is to keep defending these suits aggressively and make it difficult for them to intimidate their customers.

Joe Jobbed

Last night through this morning, my server got joe jobbed. I got bombarded with thousands and thousands of spam bounces. Last night I was getting about 3 bounces a second.

The message was a bunch of randomly generated prose, sometimes with a random photo that appreared to be an ad, but wasn’t a real ad.

Fortunately, my server host was able to get things fixed and more or less back to normal by this afternoon.

This is yet another example of the chat room, message board, etc. mentality that I have written about before, where a certain percentage of the population is compelled to try to screw things up for the rest of us.

Anyway, if you got spam from me last night or today, it was not from me. Check the headers.

Here’s the story of the first joe job.

AOL & the Myth of Infinite Advertising

toomanyads

I mentioned the other day that I thought AOL’s decision to drop its subscription fees in exchange for the faint hope of more and more advertising dollars was a bad idea- and wondered why so many people have bought into the myth of infinite advertising.

Henry Blodget explains exactly why it is an act of desperation that is doomed to fail.

If you want a primer on the myth of infinite advertising, read Henry’s post.