I love music.
It’s an easy thing to say. Who doesn’t, in some way?
To the most casual fan, the right music is nice. It’s pleasant. It can set a mood. It can cue a memory.
But for hardcore fans like myself… they can’t imagine life without it. Get in the car to go somewhere with a hardcore fan, and they’ll spend the first 60 seconds selecting the perfect song for that drive to the grocery store. Better yet, try planning a road trip with a fan, and they’ll spend at least 10 minutes on what CDs to bring (or, more likely, creating that playlist for their iPod).
To hardcore fans, the music defines them, and it is part of every activity. But it’s not just having something on in the background. Hardcore fans will study and dissect the music. They can tell you the one note that makes a song. They can tell you that about 2:30 in to “Citizen Sane”, there are a few rhythmic claps accompanying the drums on the offbeats – on just that part – that absolutely sends them in to a joyous frenzy.
One common thread running through every hardcore fan I’ve ever known is that constant, nearly stress-inducing, search for the next song, the next band or even the next source of music recommendation.
And, at first glance, it seemed that the Internet would solve many of these problems. It sure is easy to find sites upon which you can sample or read about music you haven’t heard (or heard of). But the ease and sheer quantity actually make the situation harder. On the right hand side of this very blog, you can see a list of sites I try to frequent. In fact, there are more, but I haven’t had time to add them all, yet. And that’s the point!
There are a ton of really good and reliable sources from which you can discover and enjoy music – new and old. In fact, there are too many (including, in some ways, this one). You can search for hours, if not days, and still not exhaust all of your resources. But who has the time?
Certainly, most of us make time for our passions. But most of us also have other passions and, unfortunately, obligations. And, as my Mom has been quoted as saying, “There are only 24 hours in a day, you know.” While I could actually sit all day and scour the sites, my life, family, job, other hobbies and ultimate frisbee simply don’t allow it.
So, as a slavishly dedicated, addicted music fan, how can I speed up the process without minimizing the enjoyment?
Amazon lead with a model that many have followed – “people who purchased this, also purchased that.” But my experience is that it is purely statistic-driven. It removes the heart, the soul and the individuality of the process. It removes the number of reasons why someone may have purchased that first CD – liked a particular song, purchased as a gift, taking a shot in the dark.
As I pointed out in a recent post, I like Kylie Minogue’s “Come Into My World.” I might even purchase the CD for that song – or just purchase the song digitally. But I don’t like her other music, and I’m not a fan of female dance pop, in general. So other albums that sound like that one aren’t really of interest to me.
But, if I could find some new, unearthed or undiscovered female vocalist with a song, or better yet a full album, that sounds like that song, I’d be all about it. That’s why I’ve found a home at NewTunes.
What we’re trying to do here is speed up the process while still including the conversations and the knowledge. If NewTunes does what we are working toward, you will be able to enter a song you like into our search engine, and we will serve you up songs that sound very similar that we are confident you will like.
Technologically, we (society) have gotten to the point at which this can be done with waveform analysis. But to me, that is too sterile and takes the community, word-of-mouth aspect too entirely out of the equation.
We want to include the user in on the conversation, so we’re finishing up on a way that we think combines both man and machine and, most importantly, gets the balance right (as Martin Gore would say).
Some of you have written to ask me more about MusicStreaker. To us, it is a critical component, because we are asking for your opinion on each song’s metadata. We’re essentially giving you the power to challenge the “official” categorization. And, in the case of an unsigned musician who uploads songs to our site, you are helping to provide the service of categorizing their song to assist in how it shows up in search results.
We also want your opinion on the results themselves. If you put in a song and search, you will get results of some sort. When we launch in a few months, we will do so with great confidence in our product. But however great we think it is, we know it can be better with your help. When you get your search results, you’ll be empowered to move a song result up or down the scale of similarity – or remove it all together if you didn’t think it was close. Your grading will then be factored in to future searches.
To me, this is compelling. Again, as a hardcore fan, who hasn’t spent significant time at a party, or at school when you should have been preparing for an exam, arguing with other fans/friends about music and musicians… dissecting songs… improving upon lyrics… marveling at a new sound?
Music discovery is one of the most important activities in my life. Music moves me on a level that my more pragmatic self rarely encounters with activities. If I could spend all day on it, I would. But I can’t.
How, then, do I continue to quench my thirst for new music with new sounds without relying on cold statistics or trying to keep up with the thousands of music blogs?
It is my mission to make NewTunes the answer to that question. I sincerely appreciate your visits to this blog, and I invite you to stay tuned to see how we do.
