Finding Great Music You'll Love
Posted by Jeff on Aug 13th 2007, 22:12
As I mentioned in my post on social networking and online music, online music has a problem. There is too much music out there. Every single artist will have fan(s) somewhere, but connecting the fans to the artist is a hard task. For the select few mega-popular artists, finding fans will be very easy. But for the rest of the artists - the 99% - connecting them to their fans the biggest thing holding back online music.
So how do you fix it? Well, if you look at other forms of media, you can find some answers. With film, critics reviews are widely read and widely trusted. What other medium has critics who are as famous as Ebert and Roeper? And with TV, the talent pool is a lot smaller and the barrier to entry is higher. Therefore, on the whole it's easy for the average person will be able to get their head around the relatively small amount of TV shows. available.
Thanks to technology, the barrier to entry for musicians creating music is almost non existent. For about $500, I can record myself playing my guitar in my bedroom at near professional quality, and then put it on TuneShout for the world to hear. It's not that hard. As a result, the world and its music websites are full of artists, most of them you will not like. So how do you find what you want?
Well, technology and computer algorithms can help. Services like Pandora and Last.FM can understand what you like and play you things you might also like.
As much as I bash it, the radio is another way people find new artists. Most commercial radio is pretty soulless nowadays, but there are still stations like KEXP where the DJs program the shows. You'll be listening to a song you know, and the DJ will play a song you've never heard. And the funny thing is - you'll like it.
Finally, people learn about new music from human evangelicalism. I don't know how many people I've made CDs of my music I think they might like. Usually they'll discover a new artist they've never heard of before.
You should be noticing a trend here: suggestion. Whether it be from a computer, an music nerd DJ or your friend, people find new music by getting it suggested to them.
Each of the services I mentioned above does a good job at its portion of the music equation, but they're usually self contained in the online music equation. You hear a new song on LastFM, but have to go elsewhere to download/purchase it. You can have a musical journey led by a DJ, but again you have to go elsewhere to hear more. Your friend may give you a copy of your new favorite artist's CD, but where do you go to talk about it or buy it for yourself?
A service/website that combines music evangelicalism by itself and its users in the form of automatic suggestions, radio/playlists & human edited suggestions is the future of music. If you can create a self contained universe where I can go to learn more about the artists I love, and have my hand held to find similar artists where I can listen to and download their music, you'll lead the way of the online music revolution.
So how do you fix it? Well, if you look at other forms of media, you can find some answers. With film, critics reviews are widely read and widely trusted. What other medium has critics who are as famous as Ebert and Roeper? And with TV, the talent pool is a lot smaller and the barrier to entry is higher. Therefore, on the whole it's easy for the average person will be able to get their head around the relatively small amount of TV shows. available.
Thanks to technology, the barrier to entry for musicians creating music is almost non existent. For about $500, I can record myself playing my guitar in my bedroom at near professional quality, and then put it on TuneShout for the world to hear. It's not that hard. As a result, the world and its music websites are full of artists, most of them you will not like. So how do you find what you want?
Well, technology and computer algorithms can help. Services like Pandora and Last.FM can understand what you like and play you things you might also like.
As much as I bash it, the radio is another way people find new artists. Most commercial radio is pretty soulless nowadays, but there are still stations like KEXP where the DJs program the shows. You'll be listening to a song you know, and the DJ will play a song you've never heard. And the funny thing is - you'll like it.
Finally, people learn about new music from human evangelicalism. I don't know how many people I've made CDs of my music I think they might like. Usually they'll discover a new artist they've never heard of before.
You should be noticing a trend here: suggestion. Whether it be from a computer, an music nerd DJ or your friend, people find new music by getting it suggested to them.
Each of the services I mentioned above does a good job at its portion of the music equation, but they're usually self contained in the online music equation. You hear a new song on LastFM, but have to go elsewhere to download/purchase it. You can have a musical journey led by a DJ, but again you have to go elsewhere to hear more. Your friend may give you a copy of your new favorite artist's CD, but where do you go to talk about it or buy it for yourself?
A service/website that combines music evangelicalism by itself and its users in the form of automatic suggestions, radio/playlists & human edited suggestions is the future of music. If you can create a self contained universe where I can go to learn more about the artists I love, and have my hand held to find similar artists where I can listen to and download their music, you'll lead the way of the online music revolution.