June 29, 2008, 11:25 am : Searching for New Music – Where to Look?
Filed Under: Music, UncategorizedDiscussion: C[0]mments
Editors note: This post is the first by a jeffschad.com contributor. Known as DP, my friend and colleague will be posting from time to time on the music world. A self described musicphile, DP is a hardcore music lover, with a keen interest in the business of music in today’s dynamic world. He’ll be giving us interesting takes from time to time. Enjoy, and if you have something to say, sound off with a comment.
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Welcome to my inaugural post on SurfRhythm.com. Jeff and I have been good colleagues for quite sometime and I thank him for considering my random (and occasional!) rants and diatribes concerning opinions of the music industry as “post-worthy”. Hopefully, I can consistently deliver to those expectations…
As a die hard musicphile, I am often asked where I find the tunes I choose to play. I always answer everybody with the same response:
“Well, for starters, any Clear Channel radio station will get you started. After that, You can’t go wrong with anything that’s kicked out by Sony/BMG, Warner, or any other ‘major’ music label.”
Whoops! Did I actually type that? Just kidding – we all know what mind-numbing, disposable swill those outlets are responsible for. Follow them, and they’ll have you believing if John Lennon were alive today, he’d do a duet album of “Greatest Hits from the 90s” featuring Britney, J Lo, and JT. No, the continuing insistence by mass media that people prefer their music in Cheese Doodle format is best left for a later rant…
So where do I stop and linger to find new artists and titles that feed my addiction? The proliferation of some really great online places has made the act almost effortless. This is great, because the experience becomes less of a laborious chore of digging through a bunch of lukewarm hits to find the one gem, and more about exploring lesser known artists and their interpretations of a particular genre. So, let’s review what proverbial couch cushions I search under for my musical windfalls:
Pandora. I have been a member ever since the site was in Beta (testing). Pandora, which is the product of the Music Genome Project (MGP), is still my primary way of uncovering new artists, music, and relationships that exist beyond my experiences. The science that goes on behind how music is related, combined with the site founders’ hardcore dedication to human ears that work for the MGP project being the ultimate end authority in what kicks out of their system’s analysis makes the site my continuing favorite. Its limitations – licensing. Only so many songs can be skipped (six to be precise) in an hour due to some compromise I’m sure the Pandora folks had to come to with the archaic big labels’ dedication that we should all still be paying $15 or more for CDs that cost pennies per unit to create and distribute. Because of this, it could be tough if you want to skip through things you don’t want to hear…
Best find I have uncovered from Pandora? Chris Thile’s Bluegrass cover of The White Stripes’s Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground. Check the site out – you won’t regret it.
iTunes. OK, I know what you’re thinking. Wow – iTunes. Thank you, Captain Obvious. Bear with me here… If Pandora is good in guiding me on the scientifically-driven relationships between similar sounding music, iTunes gives me flat out, raw informational groupings of artists and music that can make my perusals more enjoyable. The program does this by allowing anybody to create and propagate playlists that relate songs and artists together based on a variety of possibilities. For instance, searching iTunes for songs by Joy Division not only nets the songs it has available for purchase, but also two playlist groups. One is for Goth (big surprise there), but the other – get this – is a list of songs by artists who are from Manchester, UK. The list is surprising with New Order, Morrissey, and Herman’s Hermits (!) all making the cut.
You can’t beat that kind of service for $.99/track. It’s limitation? Like Pandora, licensing factors into the product’s reach. You may find it surprising, but you can’t buy anything by AC/DC from it. Yet.
Last.fm. My last major source comes in the form of a streaming service that bills itself as a combination of YouTube and Legitimate Media Outlet for things ranging from Jakob Dylan’s newest music to SXSW featured artists. To add to it, the site has incredibly detailed information about the artists and links to videos as well. For me, I have not found the site be strong in relating artists and music via something like the MGP’s pure science, but it is good for stringing general relationships that make empirical sense (wow – if I like the Wallflowers, I might like Bob Dylan? Who’s he? Ha ha ha.).
And there you have it. I am sure there are other locations you can look for uncovering the unknown, but these are a start. Drop some feedback my way with your suggestions!
DP