My Window To The World…

You have possibly noticed that I have been pretty excited about Last.FM.

If you have been using it, you will understand. If you are into music but haven’t been using it, then you should join in on the Last.FM fun asap.

The good old record shops – where you know the salesman and know that you can trust his taste – are unfortunately almost extinct. In the country where I grew up, a once great shop had to eventually start selling crap just to survive – now 95 % of its inventory belongs to said category. In the place where I now live, your CD needs will only be satisfied if you are into the worst of the worst Top 40 and “Hip Hop” stuff. To not even mention the mighty vinyl…

Vinyl… good ol’ vinyl… I do miss the days of making proper compilation tapes (cassette tapes, that is) for mates and for girlfriends. There was something magic to it. You had to actually sit down and fully concentrate on the task at hand – or start all over if you made a mistake. Well, you had to start all over if you are a perfectionist like yours truly… I remember impressing girls with many a compilation I had put together for them. Cassette tape players are out of fashion, and it has become more and more difficult to impress them. Ha ha…

Nowadays, you put together a playlist in your iTunes. Since you’re already at it and it will most likely be listened to on a computer anyways, you might as well make use of the 700 MB on the CD-R, so you put eight, nine, or even ten hours (depending on your encoding rate) of music onto the CD. While arranging the playlist, you keep checking your MySpace, reply to some emails, accept an invitation for a chat with a friend – to finally rip the CD in the background while indulging in more online madness.

What does that have to do with Last.FM? I will go into that in my next post. I will outline for you how Last.FM works and how you can use it to your advantage.

Stay tuned. Subscribe to the RSS Feed to not miss the follow-up(s).

© Patrice Schneider. No reproduction without prior written consent.

Technorati Tags: Last.FM, Record Shops, Vinyl, Compilation Tapes, Online Radio, Personal Radio, Personalized Radio, Personalized Radio Station, Online Music, MySpace

A few days ago, The New York Times featured a great article: “Sex, Drugs & Updating Your Blog”. It will not be available for free for too long, so go check it out now!

Instead of trying to find the real cause for dramatically decreasing CD sales, the record companies have been moaning about people illegaly downloading music in MP3 format, about those “criminals” ruining their business, etc. etc. etc. Have they ever considered that possibly they have been releasing too much rubbish and that their customers are getting disillusioned with the corporate music bullshit?

The record companies have been taking advantage of the record/CD-buying public for too long. When CDs first hit the market, promises were made that once the format was established, prices would be reduced drastically. Has this happened? Not really, yours truly thinks.

Well, they simply got too used to making big money ($$$), paying outrageous sums to their big name artists, splashing out on new, oftentimes untalented, bands, dropping them the second expected sales were not met (at times even before the record came out!), screwing talented bands with ridiculous contracts, totally losing interest in developing and helping promising artists.

Luckily, their system is failing. Record companies are middlemen that soon will no longer be needed. The internet has truly revolutionized the music business. Now, any artist can record and sell their own material online. Consumers usually pay less per track/album than they would in a shop, while the musician(s) still make more money than they would have, had they been backed by a record company.

Merlin Mann has recently interviewed two individuals who have been using the internet very successfully to build their careers: John Vanderslice, and Jonathan Coulton.

You can watch the videos on Merlin Mann’s The Merlin Show:

John Vanderslice Part 1 (of 3)

John Vanderslice Part 2 (of 3)

John Vanderslice Part 3 (of 3)

Jonathan Coulton Part 1 (of 2)

Jonathan Coulton Part 2 (of 2)

I will in the future definitely write more about the music industry and also Last.FM.

© Patrice Schneider. No reproduction without prior written consent.

Addendum 20 May 2007: Good and interesting article (German language only) in this weekend’s edition of Das Magazin.

Technorati Tags: Last.FM, Jonathan Coulton, John Vanderslice, MP3 Download, Online Radio, Personalized Radio, Artist Promotion, Label Promotion

After first signing up with Last.FM, I gave the Last.FM Player a try. Results were not that satisfying.

Not too long ago, I have started playing around with it again, and have been very pleasantly surprised. Last.FM have obviously put a lot more work into the algorithm behind it.

Being, amongst other styles, into 20th century classical music, as well as some “avantgarde” (what an awful term!), and nerdy metal, the best results I have had so far were by choosing “Similar Artists To: Edgard Varèse”. Some other classical stuff was generated, but also a couple of metal bands, and as a positive surprise one of the latest works, Moonchild, by John Zorn, whose music I adore.

A new discovery, even though I had heard the name before, was Glen Branca. Definitely someone whose CD(s) I will buy.

Just now listening to “Similar Artists To: Giacinto Scelsi”. Morton Feldman, Olivier Messiaen and the likes: very enjoyable.

I will soon write about promoting your music on Last.FM. Stay tuned, subscribe to the RSS Feed.

© Patrice Schneider. No reproduction without prior written consent.

Technorati Tags: Last.FM, Last.FM Player, Online Radio, Personal Radio, Personalized Radio, Personalized Radio Station, Edgard Varèse, John Zorn, John Zorn Moonchild, Glen Branca, Morton Feldman, Olivier Messiaen, Online Music, Music Download, MP3 Download, Free Music, Free Music Download, Band Promotion, Artist Promotion, Music Promotion, Label Promotion, New Music

AGLOCO.COM has been causing a bit of a stir on the blogosphere and the world wide web.

AGLOCO.COM will soon be offering a toolbar that you can install on your computer. When activated, you can earn money by simply surfing on the net. A must-have, it seems, for people like yours truly who do spend quite a bit of time on the net.

Yes, it does almost sound a bit too good to be true, but as Steve Pavlina pointed out, there is no sign-up fee, so you have nothing to lose, only to gain.

You can read Steve Pavlina’s article Earn Passive Income While Web Surfing
for further insightful information.

BTW: if you follow the link from this article and sign up to AGLOCO.COM, you will become one of my referrals, and I will possibly – if the system works out – get a financial kickback from it.

© Patrice Schneider. No reproduction without prior written consent.

Technorati Tags: Agloco, Agloco.com, Money Matters, Make Money While Surfing Web, Earn Passive Income, Steve Pavlina