Internet Radio and the Social Music Revolution

Last.fm, an Internet radio station, is the self-proclaimed social music revolution. Their reasoning for such a grandiose title? It blends features from other networking sites like MySpace with Internet radio (similar to Pandora), while allowing its users to share music with other users. This is made possible by each users' individual profile, dedicated solely to music listening, that is created by listening to personal music collections or the radio service on the website. Music charts are created according to the number of plays of each song and artist, and these charts are made viewable to all users. Primarily used as a way to discover new music by browsing other users' profiles and listening to the Last.fm personalized radio, which is similar to Pandora's in the sense that it creates a station of similar sounding artists based around one artist, this social network is a great way for music lovers to discover new artists and for artists and labels to promote their products. It may not be THE social music revolution, but it is certainly a part of it. It is a great music recommendation tool and, undoubtedly, previously unknown artists are discovered everyday. But there are other means of finding music.

The aforementioned Pandora online radio service is a similar online device. What is lacking is the ability to create profiles and interact with other users. The goal of the Pandora service, according to the website, is "To help you discover new music you'll love." That is a noble mission. It is impossible to imagine a world without music, even a day without one's ears being tickled by melodic or percussive patterns, arousing emotions from the very depths of our being. I am listening to Pandora right now, as I have created several different radio stations based on some of my favorite artists, including: Coheed and Cambria, Ben Harper, Matt Pond PA, 311, and Death Cab for Cutie. It is on the Death Cab station right now and just played a song by Wolf Colonel, an artist I have never heard of before. It wasn't a bad song and it had qualities reminiscent of Death Cab, though it wasn't a rip-off of their sound. This is what Pandora aims to do: Analyze musical qualities of songs and artist and find similar artists. While this may not seem like an intelligent way to branch out and find new music, it really can be. If one is interested in hearing new music from a certain musical genre, then a station created from a prominent band or artist representing the sound of that genre can be created and alike artists and bands will be heard.

Of course, there are limitations to Pandora's radio service. One being the presentation of bad music. Not all new music will be liked by the listener, and I have experienced this on many occasions. Luckily, one is allowed to skip to the next song in the lineup, however, only six song skips are allowed per hour. This is not surprising given the amount of legal restrictions surrounding the service. Ah! As I am writing this they are playing a song that, so far, I really don't like. It is by a band called El Toro. Check them out, you may like them. I may too if I hear other songs. That is one of the great things of this type of music service. If I like a song, or even if I dislike a song, I can quickly find a link to one of the artist's websites and listen to more of their music to get a more solidified opinion and form a coherent judgment. Wonderful! Don't you just love the Internet? I do! It is amazing how easy it is to discover new things.

Supported by advertisements, Last.fm and Pandora are free services. However, there are optional fee-based subscriptions that subsequently get rid of the advertisements. So if these seemingly sophisticated and hip music recommendation networks and personalized radios are free to the public to take advantage of, what is the point in listening to terrestrial radio or even satellite radio? While there certainly are limitations to these online music listening services, I feel that the possibilities and ease of finding new music outweigh the limitations and restrictions that may be encountered. While there may be the occasional great song that is played on terrestrial or satellite radio, it seems far more likely that the frequency of good music played will be heard on personalized online radio stations and music social networking sites. Whether the music is discovered through personalized radio or recommended by another user who may be thousands of miles from your location does not really matter. What matters is that there are multiple ways to find new material and enrich one's musical palette. It sure beats having to put up with annoying radio personalities and mainstream repetition. Can radio survive? We shall soon see. As discussed by my professor's most recent blog, probably not once WiFi connectivity is universal, as people may opt to listen to radio online.

It is easy to predict that Internet radio and music social networks will trump other forms of radio but only time will tell. It is possible that Internet radio will remain a luxury side item but what is most important here is that the option exists. Variety, among other things, helps make the world a sometimes, actually very rarely but seemingly normal, functioning place. For now I take comfort in knowing that there are many different ways to find new music. As Michael Franti said,

"I don't know if music can change the world overnight but I know music can help us make it through a difficult night. Sometimes that's all any of us need, to make it into tomorrow."

How true it is. Music is so important to everyone's life, and life in general. It is necessary to realize that sometimes it doesn't matter what the source for new music is, but that one is able to find new music at all.