Sparse Random Thoughts

Well, I recently found out about the music service finetune and decided to check it out and see how it compared to my current favorite Pandora. I thoroughly enjoy the fact on Pandora that I can put in one artist or one song to start a station on it and then easily refine the station by voting for or against songs it suggests. My wife on the other hand was never a big fan of this method, she’d rather pick songs she like and then hear those songs. And I must say this is where finetune delivers.

finetune centers around being able to create and share your own playlists. A playlist is 45 songs (the minimum) that you choose. Now you can only have 3 songs per an artist (so 15 artists to meet the 45 tracks) as this helps finetune avoid paying the license for on-demand listening. This isn’t so bad for someone who knows what they like/want. They have an “I’m lazy” feature to help populate a playlist that you may be having trouble finishing, though I don’t recommend using it. It seems to finish up any artist you didn’t pick 3 songs from and then suggest off artist genre more than the sound of the songs, definitely not up to par with Pandora’s suggesting in my opinion.

Where I’ve been more impressed with finetune is in the access it provides to your playlist. They make it easy to embed your playlist on your blog, website, or MySpace profile. They have a desktop application, which apparently integrates with iTunes for those who use it. They have a widget on the SpringWidgets engine. What I was most excited about though is that they have a player accessible on the Wii.

Ok, I don’t like writing about something I haven’t used for a while, but this one I don’t I can’t wait any longer. I’ve been messing around with Pandora an Internet radio station that is aimed at helping you find new music. Sure there are other services out there doing the same thing, but I’ve been impressed with how well Pandora is doing it. This is more of a short recommendation than a check out all the details kind of post, as they do well with that at their own site.

You start out by making a station formed around a song or artist you currently like, then they’ll make suggestions based of that. With each suggestion you can see why they recommended the song and choose to give the song a thumbs up or down to help refine their understandings of your music tastes.

The best peice of advice I can offer if you choose to checkout Pandora is to make seperate stations based on genre, mood, or something like that. I started off with one mega station but soon learned that you could use a “Quick Mix” feature if I wanted to combine all my substations. Hopefully, if you haven’t yet, you will check it out.

I’m sitting here listening to OK Go’s albums wondering to myself what makes a song good. A lot of the songs are fine, but not something that catches me and makes me listen and want to listen again, this is how it is with most artists. There are a few songs per an album that really stand out, with the rest feeling like filler. The artists I end up really liking have more than the normal amount of these songs that attract my ear and those artists that I think are truly great I have trouble finding songs on their albums I don’t like.

The perplexing part is trying to figure out why I like certain songs more than other. Sometimes it’s as easy as saying the lyrics speak to me, but the other times I haven’t a clue. I wish I was able to analyze the music to the extent that I could say what in it reached me, but I can’t, I can just say I liked/loved/hated it. I’m jealous of my wife for being able to do this and wish she was here right now to help me figure out why. But it’s my luck that she’d not like the songs I do and only have criticisms. Listen on.

I recently found out about Magnatune.com and I think it's an awesome idea. I'm sad I didn't find out about it sooner. With fifty percent of any proceeds from online sales or licensing going to the artist and the ability for the buyer able to choose their own price, from US $5 to $18 per album, this rocks. I'll be spending the near future listneing to what they have available, and from the little I've heard I'm pretty sure that I'll find something I want. Oh by the way music is available in a variety of digital formats and as real CDs. I'm begining to believe that their tagline "We are not evil."

I've decided I should start sorting through all the indie artists that have some of their music out on the web for download. Then when I find that artist I connect with, buy their cd from them. That's right, I'm one more person who is tired of all the big industry. I'm tired of the rich becoming richer and poor becoming poorer.
I'm looking at the internet as a free admission concert hall. You get to here different artist and at the end of the show you buy cds from those you liked. While your at it start listing to public supported radio, and when you find a station you like support it. I had the pleasure of donating to WNKU, hopefully I can continue to support them and start supporting WGUC. If I can make a suggestion to fellow coffee drinkers, don't buy Starbucks. Instead try to find a locally owned shop to get you're fix at. Well… I'm going for now, don't worry I have plenty more to complain about.

[Listening to: ChuggaChugga - D - http://music.download.com (5:28)]