Slacker - Death to Ipod?

[Kenny Gioia]

This service started about a month ago.

www.Slacker.com

It certainly not going to help record sales but the consumer should love it.

The problem I've always had with the iPod was the lack of surprise factor. No new songs.

Satellite radio tried to fix this with all their specialized stations but I never found 1 that was just "me".

This may be the perfect solution.

[Brendo]

So it's like Pandora but less customizable? I'll pass.

[Bob Olhsson]

None of these idiots' bizness models include a budget for great live jocks. The cheap bastards want to invest in a clever machine that generates money fueled by our talent with no human intervention and with as little compensation to the folks who supply the "content" as is possible.

The elephant in the room when it comes to radio and music is paying for GREAT TALENT. The Wall Street/Madison Avenue crowd can't handle that concept. Whoever finally figures it out is going to leave all of these bozos in the dust.

[Kenny Gioia]

The elephant in the room when it comes to radio and music is paying for GREAT TALENT. The Wall Street/Madison Avenue crowd can't handle that concept. Whoever finally figures it out is going to leave all of these bozos in the dust.

I don't know about that.

I mean, the talented artists are signing with the huge corporations and those corporations are giving their music away (practically) to these other companies.

So in the end, the customer gets to hear great music. They're satisfied.

Are you suggesting that there's better music out there that is still completely independent?

An untapped market?

As long as bands are willing to be exploited, they will be. No?

[Bob Olhsson]

I think talented DJs have played a major role in introducing great new music. Corporations get lost in focus groups and narrowcasting.

The massive decline in sales suggests lots of customers aren't all that satisfied.

[CaptainHook]

The massive decline in sales suggests lots of customers aren't all that satisfied.

Or are they just satisfied they dont have to pay for music
anymore..?

[Comte de St Germain]

Like Bob, I miss the days when DJs would spit in the face of formats and play something just because it was good.

Pandora, although an interesting concept, can't do that in the same fearless way.

Much of the classics we know today were broken by stoned DJs with an agenda based on GOOD SHIT.

[Johnny]

Yeah, but almost any DJs people are going to actually hear anymore are CRAZY MORNING ZOO TEAMS (quack quack). AND HERE'S PEPE WITH THE TRAFFIC! "Si, Señor!"

Ugh.

[Bob Olhsson]

It isn't just the jocks' choice of what they played, it's the fact that the jocks were entertaining. They could hold an audience's attention across a diversity of music that many would probably have tuned away from without the companionship of a jock they liked.

This worked for radio because the idea was to broadcast, i.e. attract and hold as many listeners as possible. The new radio bizness model is narrowcasting where music is used to divide listeners up among a number of stations owned by the same corporation in the same market. Radio has become useless as an exposure medium for music since that began.

[Kenny Gioia]

I agree 1,000%

I lost you earlier because I thought you were talking about the music itself.

Can this guy get more REP points?

[Bob Olhsson]

When I was a kid I wanted to be a radio station board-op when I grew up. I finally got to do the job I would have died for after Motown.

[bunnerabb]

This worked for radio because the idea was to broadcast, i.e. attract and hold as many listeners as possible. The new radio bizness model is narrowcasting where music is used to divide listeners up among a number of stations owned by the same corporation in the same market.

I'm waiting for the all post-muse-garage-ska-rockabilly-metal station.

:Roll eyes:

Fucking wankers.

WIXY 1260 and Larry Morrow and Dick the Wild Child Kemp and Kid Leo at WMMS did more for music than the entire staff of Clear Channel Communications ever did or ever will.

[nobby]

None of these idiots' bizness models include a budget for great live jocks.

Bob, didn't you have a link to archived radio shows? I had it on the "favorites" of my old computer but it got lost in the switch.

[Cosmic Pig]

If the internet hits the radio waves I think you'll see some big changes. That's a big if tho. I suspect the tech will be there long before the conglomerates give up the airwaves.

Cos.

[Bob Olhsson]

There's a website called reelradio that's dedicated to top 40 jocks. http://reelradio.com/

Back in the day most of us thought these guys were complete wankers. In fact we often referred to them as "the screamers."

Still they were sooo much better than what was to come.

[nobby]

There's a website called reelradio that's dedicated to top 40 jocks. http://reelradio.com/

That's the one. Thanks, Bob :Thumbsup:

[Wilburguy]

Hi all,

Personally, I see things like Slacker, Last.FM, TheFilter as transitional technologies. I think that there is cool stuff being developed in each of these, and in a couple years the new paradigm will emerge.

Slacker, like other internet radio stuff has turned me on to stuff I never new existed. Places like Last.FM attempt to create a social community based around your listening preferences to help you discover new music. TheFilter, apparently co-developed by Peter Gabriel, consults with an online database of music listening preferences to help make custom playlists for your ITunes/IPod. I've re-discovered stuff in my collection that I forgot I had. I agree that a good jock can throw out of format curveballs and make you hear something that you would have never listened to, but I think the new database/listening pref technologies can provide similar wild cards.

This kind of stuff is the future, and even as a 48 yr old recording guy who grew up with live jocks on the radio and music on black vinyl, I find it exciting. Sure, I bought a ton of music back in the day because of amazing jocks on WNEW and WFMU. But I thinks that as professionals we can find our future if we maybe stop morning the loss of old models and start looking ahead.

With respect for the old school, looking forward,

[Bob Olhsson]

I just don't think replacing "old school" with what amounts to a tricked out even older school represents progress!

We music people tend to be very self-centered. We've ignored the value of a popular master of ceremonies for exposing new talent just like we've ignored the value of packaging that adds value to our recordings. I think we're now paying dearly for both of these oversights.

People love to make the excuse that it's all the major labels' fault or we have an "old" business model. The bottom line is that what we are doing is failing to engage the public to the extent that they are willing to go out of their way to acquire a recording.

There are only two real business models for music:

1. the listener pays the money and gets to listen to the music of their choice

2. a patron pays the money and the listener gets to listen only to the music of the patron's choice.

The latter is old old school. The former is the "new school" that produced the modern popular music most of us love.

[imagineaudio]

slightly off topic, but I heard Last.fm was bought by cbs for something like $125M....

[neilio]

I think talented DJs have played a major role in introducing great new music. Corporations get lost in focus groups and narrowcasting.

The massive decline in sales suggests lots of customers aren't all that satisfied.


kind of the forgotten part of the decline of music sales,record industry, etc.

here is not too distant example; sublime was an unknown little band from long beach that had been around for like 4 or 5 years and had released a full length album and a coupla e.p.'s.

the album "sublime"(i think) had been out on the shelves for like two years,with no interest, until i think, jed the fish, of kroq in los angeles, started by putting "date rape" in his rotation heavily. this was the early nineties, before slick willies greatest blunder(clear channel,etc)and dj's could actually play music they liked.

anyway,as the story goes,the band went on to become huge,and still very popular amongst kids today all because of one deejay in la playing a quirky little song that he liked.

deejay's as nefarious and pompous and snobbish as they can be really are music connouissers and the types of people that would spend thier days off looking in record bins and what have you,and would have the means to introduce cool new music to the masses.

[Bob Olhsson]

I realize I'm repeating myself but I think this is really important to understand. I think DJs do something far more important than picking music.

They provide enough entertainment that people will listen through a song they don't particularly like in order to hear what the DJ is going to do next.

This allows a much more diverse selection of music to be exposed. Many, if not most truly great records have been somewhat controversial with a lot of people either loving or hating them. Without entertaining DJs, inoffensive mediocrity tends to be what rises to the top.

[MacGregor]

They provide enough entertainment that people will listen through a song they don't particularly like in order to hear what the DJ is going to do next.


I think that's a very good point.
I remember listening each Sunday to one show just because of the
DJ, no matter what music was played (for the people from my neck
of the woods, it was the 'Elmi Radio Show' from German station
SWR3).

Nowadays I'm happy when the DJ just shut up as long as possible.

Mac

[eagan]

Please, Bob, by all means, repeat yourself on this. Whenever and wherever possible.

I think you're absolutely dead center on target right, and this, at least I think so, is right at the center of any present day discussions about "what's wrong with music and the music business, why does it suck so bad?".

There's much more than whether there's a lack of good people making good music.

One thing that sticks out in a painfully obvious way is this.

At least in the US, in 2007, almost all of radio is a big stupid centralized corporate chain operation where everything is packaged up in regimented categories and packaged up in canned for distribution all over the same everywhere.

Contrast this to times when radio stations were not all identical everywhere, and in the best of times, which I would say was from around the beginning of the seventies to around the mid seventies or so, in American FM radio, there were people on air who actually played what they chose. There were people doing this who spent nearly every waking moment listening to piles of music, they had their own sense of taste and, even if you didn't share one person's sense of taste, you could trust their sense of quality, and they sifted through everything and would direct people's attention, based on what they thought was good. Here, listen to this, check this out.


JLE

[neilio]

Please, Bob, by all means, repeat yourself on this. Whenever and wherever possible.

I think you're absolutely dead center on target right, and this, at least I think so, is right at the center of any present day discussions about "what's wrong with music and the music business, why does it suck so bad?".

There's much more than whether there's a lack of good people making good music.

One thing that sticks out in a painfully obvious way is this.

At least in the US, in 2007, almost all of radio is a big stupid centralized corporate chain operation where everything is packaged up in regimented categories and packaged up in canned for distribution all over the same everywhere.

Contrast this to times when radio stations were not all identical everywhere, and in the best of times, which I would say was from around the beginning of the seventies to around the mid seventies or so, in American FM radio, there were people on air who actually played what they chose. There were people doing this who spent nearly every waking moment listening to piles of music, they had their own sense of taste and, even if you didn't share one person's sense of taste, you could trust their sense of quality, and they sifted through everything and would direct people's attention, based on what they thought was good. Here, listen to this, check this out.


JLE

well played sir, that was my point in the sublime anecdote above, im not a huge sublime fan either, but it is a real world example of a band that became seminal for an entire generation based on one dj in the right market,on the right station,maybe even with the "right" pd,kevin weatherly.

[Bob Olhsson]

A lot of the problem is that radio is now dominated by national advertisers whereas it used to be funded by local advertisers.

How about encouraging LOCAL net radio that is supported by local advertisers? Maybe a high school program? Time to bring on creativity in exposing music.