Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Well this just sucks....

Currently Listening to:
last.fm >Similar Artists To Sufjan Stevens

I just came across this article online and if what it says is true, good music may become harder to find. Basically the recording industry is trying to shut down (or grab profits from) all those great internet radio stations.
In my experience, the best one is last.fm. I have also tried iceberg radio and yahoo's launchcast. Iceberg was decent in the early days i guess but it is more for the mainstream crowd. Still, Launchcast is even better for mainstream stuff plus its rating system which works amazingly well throws new music at you based on similar artists, other users ratings and similar genres. I have worked up my ratings to the 'Fanatic' level. Ah yes, good 'ol college all nighters. Since college I have switched to Last.fm which, although it has a tendency to crash, it has the best music selection and a pretty good listener community. One of the features I really love is that it tells you what bands are doing shows in your area.
Anyway, the point is, all these sites will probably die when the U.S. starts this new legislation. Even though the music industry probably makes more money this way they don't like it because they can't control it. I think the record labels would shut down Pitchfork if they could. Even though the website indirectly sells millions of cds because of it's reviews the labels don't like it because the reviews were not endorsed by them. There are actually only 4 record labels in the world that basically control the world's popular music. It sometimes feels very Orwellian so thats why I try to stay away from mainstream pop music.

Ok I am stopping the rant here before it dissolves into conspiracy theories.

4 comments:

D_Hummel said...

main problem for launchcast as far as people like myself are concerned, is that I like something of every style. So when I say I like some rap song by a good rap artist, I then get a Fiddie Cent crappola tune too. Oh well, nothings perfect right?

Reuben said...

Yeah, thats why last.fm is better. It works in a similar way but is better for finding new stuff.
Either way, both are better than listening to the actual radio with all those idiotic djs.

Anonymous said...

ain't that right Humble?

Lawren said...

too bad our internet sucks too much for any of these...
oh by the way, what artists are you gettin that are similar to sufjan?