Fri, December 2, 2005

For the longest time, I was not a music person. My sister liked Debbie Gibson and New Kids on the Block (in accordance with legal statutes at the time), but I just didn't really pay attention to music. I had a tape of Billy Joel's "Storm Front" because I really liked "We Didn't Start the Fire" and I think I had a Michael Bolton tape because I was fond of the gospel-ish backup on "Love is a Wonderful Thing". But that was it.

Lately, I listen to music much, much more. I wouldn't say I can't live without it, but it's a much bigger part of my life. I think MP3 was a big part of the reason – my tastes are simultaneously too eclectic and too specific. Too eclectic to sample a lot of new artists, because I have no idea how to focus in on what I'll like; too specific to buy many albums, because I usually only like one or two songs out of 20. But with MP3 you can get just the song you want, and you can try a lot of songs or artists without a major investment.

Still, I don't listen to commercial radio (can't bear the commercials, but I really can't stand the DJs), so most new music I discover is through friends, movie and commercial soundtracks, or Letterman appearances I'm too lazy to fast-forward through. There's so much music out there. Sometimes I'll hear songs on Arksie's McRace poker mix, and I'll think, "Of course! I love this song! I'd forgotten all about it!" And, most times, I immediately re-forget. So many songs.

Today, faithful reader AC tipped me off to Pandora, which is a little web-based service that will build a custom radio station based on the songs or artists you input, and then you just listen to it and it introduces you to new songs that have been specifically selected to match your tastes. It's unfuckingbelievable – and that's not a word I use lightly (except in traffic). I keep worrying I'm going to strain it with my wildly varying tastes. (They Might Be Giants + Lyle Lovett + Warren Zevon + Tenacious D, etc.) So far, though, it's holding up. It keeps playing new, fun songs. Some I've never heard of. Some I already own. Some are by bands I've heard of, but I'm completely unfamiliar with. It even recommended one song because it featured a "prominent accordion part" (which isn't one of my qualifications for liking a song, but I'm impressed that the TMBG attributes are that specific!).

It's powered by something called the Music Genome Project, which is people listening to thousands of songs and specifying their attributes. Truly amazing. And it's entirely free. (You can pay to eliminate ads, but so far the ads don't interrupt the music, they just show up on the page.) You can even save tracks to your favorites for later.

The thing is, this is something that iTunes absolutely must have. Apple should be buying this thing today. Incorporating this functionality into Party Shuffle would make it unstoppable. It would eliminate the need to input your favorite bands and songs, because they're already in iTunes. It could be linked directly to the iTunes Music Store for any songs you don't already own. And the Music Genome folks could keep adding new data all the time to make it stronger. (Plus, it could take all our thumbs-up/thumbs-down ratings and aggregate the tastes of all the listeners into even stronger recommendations.)

The difficulty with selling music to people (and the appeal of illegal downloading) is that there is so much music and it's so difficult to find new music that you like without paying up front. Adding a feature like this would drive iTunes's sales through the roof, and eliminate the motivation for a lot of illegal file-sharing. Right now, most songs sold through iTunes are popular songs that everybody knows, like Coldplay or whatever. But if they had a feature like this, publicizing unknown songs from deep in the catalogue directly to people who will appreciate them, it would be a license to print money. The trick would be getting the music companies to agree to the free full-length previews, but I'm betting the sales figures would justify it.

Anyway, my entire concept of how I listen to music has been changed by this thing. Ken Nordine would call it a "paradigm shift."

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