Music

Rdio and getting older

Jeromey Balderrama

There used to be a time where I would love change and bleeding edge.  When Microsoft or Adobe (or Macromedia for that matter) would release beta software, I was all over it.  I’ve burned a lot of midnight oil playing around with buggy software that wasn’t ready for public consumption.  New things used to excited me, change used to excite me – not so much anymore.  I’m not sure what happened in the course of time: maybe I have less time to play with new things, or maybe my work-stream can’t be disrupted by bleeding edge, maybe I’ve reached a point in my developer career that I’m intolerant of half-baked solutions. Somehow I’ve become adverse to new things.

My latest intolerance: Rdio’s pivot.

I get that in the large crowd of streaming music providers, everyone’s trying to do something to stand out.  I understand that in this cut-throat music industry streaming providers are innovating and that change is hard.  However what bugs the hell out of me is when companies leave behind the people that got them where they are.  It happened to Digg, and Foursquare. I’m wondering if it’s happening to Rdio.

I can appreciate that they want their “Stations” feature to become front and center, and the part of me who loves music discovery appreciates that.  That said, Rdio’s screwed the bread and butter that loyal customers use everyday have been cast aside: their Playlists and Collections interfaces.

Now Collections have become “Favorites”.  Somehow during the process, my “unavailable” songs are front and center, and there’s no easy way to remove them or relink them.

Rdio

The problem is that when it matched with my library it would match the song with a version on some “Top 100” compilation, or a soundtrack that’s no longer available – never mind that the album version is alive and well in their library.  If I’m lucky enough I can click into the library and unlink the song 6 clicks later, but for most of these I just get “Page not found”, so I’m stuck. I found that I can remove them in the Android app, but again it takes at least three taps for each song, with no way to do it in bulk.

Playlists – a feature I’ve made full use of – has taken a step back as well.  You used to be able to scroll through them in the navigation bar, but now in the name of simplicity they’re moved a layer deeper, taking away your ability to drag & drop a song directly into that playlist.

Lastly one of my favorite features is now deeply buried: the ability to see what your friends are currently listening to.  It used to be available on the main interface as the “People” tab, now it’s embedded and more of a snapshot.

Maybe someone at Rdio is on to something, maybe they’ve found the killer feature that is going to drive droves of new people to shell out money for Rdio subscriptions. Hopefully they’re right, because all it’s doing is making many of their longtime fans reconsider their patronage… or maybe I’m just getting older and change is passing me by.

40,000 Scrobbles & Counting

Jeromey Balderrama

Note: This is a follow-up post to a follow-up post, when I Scrobbled 29,000 songs back in May of 2010.

Back in December of 2006, I heard of this site known as Last.FM that tracked the music you listen to and offered recommendations based on those stats. While I rarely take advantage of the radio stations and streaming, I am fascinated by the data my “Scrobbles” bring.  Two years ago I jumped the gun and eagerly published my list before I reached 30,000 songs, so after patiently waiting for 40,000 I am eager to see how much musical tastes have changed over the last two years and 11,000 songs.

Dropped Off the Last List:

  • Gym Class Heroes (363 Plays, Previously Ranked #10).  This dropped all the way to #13.

#10: Pearl Jam (402 Plays, Previously not on the list). When the Pearl Jam Twenty documentary came out last fall, I binged on their music for a month straight. If I were to put together a Mt. Rushmore of albums of my teenage years, Ten would have to be on there. Top Album: rearviewmirror (greatest hits 1991-2003) Top Songs: Daughter, Given To Fly, Even Flow.

#9: OutKast (476 Plays, Previously at 7).  Andre 3000 is one of those renaissance men who seems to do anything besides what he does best.  OutKast has fallen down on my list simply because they haven’t produced anything relevant in nearly 6 years.  Top Album: Speakerboxxx/The Love Below Top Songs: Ms. Jackson, Rosa Parks, Hey Ya!

#8: Jimmy Eat World (502 Plays, Previously at 6). Not much to say here, except that this is a solid band that I still want to see live some day. Top Album: Chase This Light Top Songs: Here It Goes, Open Bar Reception, A Praise Chorus

#7: John Butler Trio (562 Plays, Previously at 9).  I think these guys haven’t even peaked when it comes to their music, each album gets better and better. Top Album: Grand National Top Songs: Daniella, One Way Road, Used To Get High

#6: O.A.R. (565 Plays, Previously at 8).  Another band on my “Need to see Live” list, their newest album King, is really good. Top Album: All Sides Top Songs: Right on Time, War Song, This Town.

#5: Red Hot Chili Peppers (594 Plays, Previously at #3).  RCHP was a band that I definitely missed these last few years, and am glad that they’re back with I’m With You, but these guys need to get their stuff together and get on Rdio, which is how I’m consuming 90% of my music today. Top Album: Stadium Arcadium Top Songs: Under the Bridge, Soul to Squeeze, Dani California.

#4: Five For Fighting (613 Plays, Previously at #5). John Ondrasik has got to be the classist musician out there. Top Album: Slice Top Songs: The Riddle, 100 Years, Slice.

#3: Michael Franti & Spearhead (728 Plays, Previously at #4).  When I last wrote about them, I was hoping that their next album would be like their earlier stuff. Sound of Sunshine is as good as you can get, producing one of my favorite songs in Hey Hey Hey.  Top Album: Stay Human Top Songs: One Step Closer To You, Hey Hey Hey, People in tha Middle.

#2: Muse (842 Plays, Previously at #2). Whether it’s working out, coding or having a party, Muse is a great soundtrack to life. Top Album: Origin of Symmetry Top Songs: New Born, Hyper Music, Time Is Running Out

#1: Dave Matthews Band (2011 Plays, Previously at #1). 2012 looks like to be a big year for them, with an album supposedly coming out sometime before December. Now if they would just come back to Denver… Top Album: Big Whiskey and the Googrux King Top Songs: Two Step, #41, Crash Into Me

Thanks for indulging me in the vanity of looking at my listening habits.  If you’d like to check out some of my statistically favorite songs, I’ve created an Rdio playlist.

Why Coldplay and Adele are being idiots

Jeromey Balderrama

Read: Why Coldplay and Adele Aren’t Bringing New Albums to Spotify

If you haven’t used a streaming music service like Spotify or Rdio yet, you’re missing out on where music consumption is heading. The industry is shifting, just like it did at the turn of the century when recording artists had to come to grips with the fact that people weren’t buying complete albums and getting singles – either through Napster and eventually through more legitimate channels like iTunes.

Now a decade into the digital music age, people are moving away from the “ownership paradigm”, where instead of being limited to the songs on your iPod, you can just pay a flat fee or stream whatever you want.  When Pandora first came around, people became happy with having new music to stream – now with services like Spotify you can go a step further and choose a specific song or album.   Personally I’ve come around to this.  Those who know me personally can attest to the level of effort I’ve put towards developing my personal collection, but even I find the appeal in the ability to have any song stream straight to my phone any time I want.

Just like a decade ago, when we had artists who refused to join us in the 21st century (Metallica), you know have artists that are kicking and screaming their way into the streaming era: Coldplay and Adele, who feel that their new albums are too good to simply be streamed.  They can hide behind the notion that their album should be experienced in a certain format or fidelity, but this boils down to one of two things: greed or ignorance.  They think that people should pay more for new music – not unlike how the movie industry is delusional enough to think people are happy to pay full price for a new release rather than rent it.  For their sake, I hope they’re just being ignorant about where the music industry is going and won’t deal with the vitriol people still hold for Metallica.

Adele and Coldplay are kidding themselves if they think the purchase model is competing with streaming models.  The people who don’t purchase their music will do one of two things: steal it or worse – not even listen to it.  In terms of music discovery, people will continue to turn away from the radio and use these streaming services to find something new.  Musicians need to temporarily take themselves out of the “artist” shoes and place their feet in the entrepreneurial shoes.  More and more, recorded music is transitioning from being a product and more towards being a marketing tool to get fans further engaged.  As an entrepreneur, you need to be where your consumers are – and if you’re consciously choosing not to be where people are, they’ll either resent you or ignore you.

Turntable.fm has taken away hours of my life

Jeromey Balderrama

A few weeks ago when I first heard about Turntable.fm, I thought it was it was the kind of professional-style DJ site where you re-mix songs and come up with your own trance beats.  As I listened to tech pundits first talk about it, they hyped it up but never really explained what it actually was.

turntable

I’ll try to describe it, but you really just need to go see if for your self: Imagine having a listening party. You sit in a circle with 4 other people and go around and each pick out the next song you’re going to play. Meanwhile, there could be a room full of people listening to the music you’re picking out. If they like the song you get brownie points, if they hate the song it gets skipped. That’s essentially Turntable.fm. In an era where people walk around with ear buds, this is a great way to socially experience music and discover new songs.

You can simply go to listen and vote, and for many it’s a human-Pandora streaming experience.  Different rooms have different genres, but the ones I’ve loved the best are the “anything as long as it’s good” rooms. Secretly I think many of believe ourselves to be music connoisseurs and experience joy in sharing new music with friends. There’s also joy in invoking great music memories by playing a classic song. At the same time you don’t want to disrupt the musical flow.  I don’t like listening to the radio, but I still desire the discovery of new bands and songs – this site gives a great social element to doing just that.

Simply said: you need to try out this site. Come join me! If you’re friends with me on Facebook, you’ll see when I’m logged in and we can DJ together! Fair warning though: you’re going to lose hours and nights to this site!

Band Name Announcement

Jeromey Balderrama

It occurred to me that in my blogging absence I neglected to announce that we had come up with a band name. Back in April I posted the list of finalists we came up with and after everyone’s feedback and some more deliberation, we decided to move forward with Ken & the Action Figures. The decision was pretty hard, as both KATAF and Eden’s Favorite Apple had their fair share of fans.  Thank you to everyone who provided blog comments, Facebook feedback and advice in conversations.

I’m really excited about some of the marketing opportunities that Ken & the Action Figures will be able to provide.  One thing we want to convey with our band is that if you come check us out, you’ll have a good time and forget your worries.

ComingSoon

We have gone ahead and created our placeholder web site, as we are working on getting a logo and graphics package put together.  In the meantime, I’d love for you to sign up for our mailing list, Like us on Facebook, and Follow us on Twitter.