Podcast of the Day: Roots Rock Radio

I've been talking a lot about internet radio recently, so I thought it might be nice to switch gears. I think I've mentioned that in the past I haven't been an avid podcast listener, though recently I have gotten into them more because they are great for finding new music. I've been checking out a bunch of different podcasts from the iTunes directory, and the title "Roots Rock Radio" appealed to me so I tuned in. DJ Richard Taylor is a mellow, folksy dude who plays "the best of indie roots rock/pop, alt country/Americana, Blues/Rockabilly, Garage/Punk, and Real Rock & Roll from around the globe."

Apparently, Roots Rock Radio has a pretty healthy listenership from around the world as this map from the homepage shows. I hadn't heard of any of the unsigned artists he plays, which included Archer Avenue, Tim Emmerick, and John Findlay, but they were all pretty high quality and if you like anything roots, rock, or country inspired, this is worth a listen. Between sets of 3 or 4 songs, Taylor reads "This Day in Rock and Roll History" factoids from Billboard.com and talks about stories in the news or his life. He also reads emails from listeners around the world. In the most recent episode, #93, he read an email from Vincent in France that said,

…I mentioned RRRadio.com on my blog with a special note on the show during which you talked to the GI based in Iraq. For us in Europe, US policy in Iraq is very unpopular. For the first time, communicating through RR radio with the soldier posted there listening to the same music, the conflict looked more human.

I thought this letter highlighted one of the great benefits of podcasts in that they are easily accessible to people around the world and they can bring together niche music communities through their ability to transcend time and place. With regular radio, perhaps this kind of connection would never have been made because the soldier might not have been able to tune into the station Vincent listened to. Moreover, traditional radio doesn't have any room for this kind of very specific, noncommercial content. The type of material Taylor is playing on Roots Rock Radio is by no means "mainstream" and I think it's really interesting that he's drawing such an international audience for such Americana based material.
The title of this podcast, Roots Rock Radio, also made me think about a question we have tackled before: does a podcast count as radio? Does the fact that people don't listen at the same time, or in a geographically focused location matter? Or do the properties of radio still exist in a podcast? Perhaps radio's goals are even furthered by podcastings ability to connect such disparate and disconnected audiences as the American GI and Vincent in France through music.

Pandora: Case Studies in Frustration

Here are some of the incidents that helped me determine the 7 Reasons Pandora Sucks.



















You can kind of figure out how they get from one selection to the next and that kind of predictability can be good, but it's also repetitive and boring. From Bruce Springsteen I get John Fogerty, Bob Seeger (obviously), Elvis Costello, Steve Miller Band, DMB, The Grateful Dead (really?) and some god-awful thing called Blessed Union of Souls that I want to skip but can't because I've exhausted my 6 song limit--again. Am I listening to a classic rock station because I thought I was listening to my own personal DJ.

From the Arcade Fire, I get to the Arctic Monkeys and some other bands that all sound kind of the same and not very interesting. Eleventeen? The Don’ts? Love Battery? A lot of these bands I would write off for their names alone. In about 40 minutes, I get 3 other listenable songs: The Arcade Fire, Stellastarr* and Guided By Voices. I’m not introduced to anything new I didn’t know I liked and I’m frustrated. Disgusted, almost.

If I make a station based on Fiona Apple or Joanna Newsom, that doesn’t mean I want to hear all female artists—quite the contrary, I rarely like listening to female singers. I like these two, though, and they are each quite unique and only they can pull off what they are doing. I don’t really want to hear Ani DiFranco, Joni Mitchell or anything else with a harp in it, either, thank you.

My most consistent complaint about Pandora was the sheer volume of absolute crap it played for me—regardless of the musician I started with. A radio is supposed to be some sort of filter and this type of filter is very limited. The problem with Pandora is they evaluate plenty of technical characteristics in a kind of objective way but there is no discernible quality control measure. Because quality in art is a subjective assessment, that makes it difficult to quantify.

One way Pandora might approach this is take into account the number of thumbs down or thumbs up ratings for the songs not just by individual user but total. Popularity measures always have their drawbacks and prevent less popular songs from rising to the top, but this might be one way to get some better songs played more. Also, one way I like to investigate bands is checking out the acts they have toured with in the past—that’s generally a good indicator. Artist's influences are also a great way expand in a historical way.

You would think that their "Quick Mix" mode might fix some of the problems of one-dimensionality but really, it just increases the types of bad songs you might hear. Maybe I’m really picky, maybe it’s the fact that I’m an avid media-consumer and I feel like I don’t have the time or patience to listen to anything I don’t like. Maybe Pandora just sucks.

Does it?

7 Reasons Pandora Sucks

Since Tim Westergern, the founder of Pandora, has been in the press for the battle to save internet radio these days, it seems appropriate to write up his project--one of the best known and most popular internet radio experiments. Pandora's capstone, called the Music Genome Project, has the ambitious/foolish purpose of mapping the musical "genes" of every song in the history of the world--ridiculous, in my estimation, and impossible at that. They also more modestly claim to help people find music they like. While the service offers a lot of benefits (free streaming in the U.S.) and may be improving (if it survives those proposed royalty hikes), Pandora's whole premise is flawed. Here are 7 of the reasons Pandora sucks:

1. Songs are not scientific specimens. So far Pandora has analyzed over 10,000 songs on the basis of over 2000 "focus traits" which include 400 technical attributes like rhythm syncopation, vocal counterpoint, and key tonality. All the problems with Pandora stem from their focus on this method because songs are not scientific specimens readily dissected by "technicians"—they are art. I don’t think there is a good reason behind "objectively" evaluating these songs on technical traits because they are valued for their subjective appeal

2. DJing is an art that “musical genes” couldn't possibly inform and Pandora feels randomized. Early free-form DJs and the best of today’s performer-DJ blend the element of surprise and rewarding anticipation in making a playlist. They play off subtle qualities or themes to make seamless transitions and perfect matches. Susan Douglas talks about this in her book Listening In and I will expand on her theories in a future post. If a machine merely replicates the genre you're interested in, as Pandora does, you may be comfortable, but you're not breaking any new ground or in for a mind-expanding song from left-field.

3. The catalog is excessive in some areas and deficient in others. You could stumble upon thousands of terrible bands or singer-songwriters (hello Modern English, Buckcherry) but there's no classical music and few selections from abroad. The amount you can hear from selected artists is also limited. This directly results in my biggest issue with Pandora...

4. Pandora plays a lot of crap because there is no discernible quality control mechanism. And I tested this theory with a wide range of artists, so it’s not MY taste that is to blame here. Because Pandora’s engine finds artists with similar technical attributes, they often find copyists who sound terrible because the style they are trying to emulate is unique and hard to pull off well. This brings me to my next issue….

5. You can only skip 6 times an hour. When I shuffle on my iPod, which includes songs I should like since they're on my iPod, I might skip 6 times in 1 minute trying to find the song I want to hear. When there is all this bad music thrown in that I don't know and won't like, of course I'm going to want to skip more than 6 times.

6. I cannot and will not be programmed by Clear Channel, Pandora, or any other computer program! This may just be a personal issue because I am a picky, avid music consumer. Just like I hate Clear Channel for using computer-generated playlists, I don't like the idea that my diverse interests can similarly be dissected and summarized so easily by a computer program, even if it is supposedly designed specifically for me. Sure, there are personalization mechanisms with Pandora: you can thumbs up or thumbs down songs to try to narrow the “station” more to your liking, but that’s time consuming and you only get those measley 6 skips an hour. Kids have always defined themselves by their musical tastes. It's one way to create an identity, and if that identity can be imposed from without by a computer, that doesn't make you unique. There's something enterprising about today's music hunters--they go out there and they find their music and stake their claim to that hard-earned musical property. "This is my band" or "I found this band before MTV did." With this program, it feels like it's all out there for anyone to randomly stumble upon.

7. Pandora is insulting. There is an assumption implicit in the program that a listener’s tastes are limited to songs that sound just like the artist they choose. And the simple fact that Pandora plays me such hideous crap means they think I might like it. When I somehow get played Creed or Nickleback, I don't only feel offended. I feel aurally assaulted.

What has your experience been like with Pandora? Am I missing something here?

Posting for Prizes!

It is now time for a shameless self-promotion and an attempt to purchase you as my audience. Blogging, contrary to some popular opinion, is hard work and extremely time-consuming! You have to be on top of the news, post frequently to get and keep an audience, you have to condense a massive amount of information into bite-sized posts, and try to keep some semblance of a theme or narrative in mind. Participation and audience is key and it is probably the hardest thing to attract. I know: "boo hoo." SO, in exchange for your participation in my blog, my favorite set of posts (this would imply there might be more than one) will be awarded some ice cream. Everyone loves ice cream but if you are lactose intolerant or don't, I'm sure we could work something else out like a Meeting Street cookie or a pen or shot glass. Or something. So post, take the polls, help me out please. Pretty please. I'll buy you a cone! This is your opportunity to tell me that I have terrible taste in music, can't express myself with the written word and probably shouldn't have elected to write a blog for my final project because they are stupid and annoying. Or you could offer insight into some of the topics and the future of radio--especially with your new found expertise from your own projects. Plus, at this point I will be buying Professor Smulyan a treat which is probably less ethically sound (considering she will be grading this) than trying to bribe an audience with ice cream.

What do you think about the fact that blogs are dependent upon audience and feedback to be interactive, yet this is the hardest factor to capture, especially in the beginning? Is audience dependent upon the material, the writing quality, the reader's interest, the blogger's networks or something else?

Poll of the Day: Pandora

Pandora and founder Tim Westergren have been in the news lately for the SaveNetRadio campaign. Seems appropriate to see where people stand on this service so here's the poll:

Up Next: What I think about Pandora.

Save Net Radio

You may have heard that Internet Radio is dying. To get you up to date, here are the facts:

The Facts:

• IR webcasters currently pay a performance fee of 1.17 cents per listener-hour (or about .076 cents per song streamed to each listener) that terrestrial radio does not pay and satellite radio pays at a much lower rate
• Artists on terrestrial radio get no royalty payments at all; composers and publishers are paid through ASCAP or BMI publishing agencies
• The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) is the agency charged by Congress with overseeing royalty disputes
• The CRB proposed to raise the royalty rates for internet webcasters based on the recommendations of Sound Exchange, a non-profit set up by record labels and musician unions
• The ruling will increase fees to .08 cents per song per listener, with incremental increases over the next 5 years until the fee reaches .19 cents per song per listener
  
• The increases are 30 to 300% of what stations currently pay and makes internet radio economically impossible for almost all internet radio stations
  
• The proposed royalty hikes are to begin payment May 15th and the fees are retroactive to January 2006
• The CRB denied a stay and rehearing
  
• The Internet Radio Equality Act is a recently introduced bipartisan act that would make the fees in line with what satellite radio pays: 7.5% of revenues
  

The Sides:

• Supporters of the proposed royalty rate hike argue that the music industry needs to shift it's focus in the new digital age and this is one way for artists to collect money they are rightfully owed (and not getting from CD sales).
  

• Opponents, which include many artists, believe the rates are far too high and will kill off most internet radio stations. The promotion and services provided by Internet radio are a wonderful tool for artists and listeners and these misguided, increased rates will kill the medium entirely.

For further reading:

"Radio's Tangled Web" (via Newsweek)

"The End of Internet Radio?" including an interview with Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora, which is leading the fight against this ruling. (via Alternet)

"Congress to rescue the Internet radio star" (via CNNMoney.com)

The official (115 page) proceedings for the Determination of Rates and Terms by the CRB (via CRB)

SaveNetRadio.Org

Can anyone tell me about the symbolism of this slice of bread? I don't get it.

Three A Days

1 Podcast + 1 Internet Radio Station + 1 Music Blog = A Musical Work-Out

• Podcast: KEXP Song of the Day
• This podcast is a great way to start the day, like a shot of espresso, only it's indie music from a wonderful college station in Seattle. As the title hints, this podcast offers one song a day from independent artists--sometimes it's a live in-studio performance, sometimes a better known artist's single and sometimes a new band selected by the DJs at this nationally renowned University of Washington station. The range of artists includes The Arcade Fire, Grizzly Bear, !!!, Junior Boys, Beirut, and Okkerville River. This podcast is a great way to get introduced to new bands in a very unobtrusive way: it's one song, with no DJ intro and if you don't like it, you can just skip to the next or turn it off. If you do like, it, you have one free song now!

• Internet Radio: Live365 Internet Radio
• Live365 is the largest network of free internet radio stations. With a user-friendly search engine, forums, recommendations, customization options, and the ability to DJ your own IR station, Radio 365 is like iTunes for Internet Radio.
  

• Music Blog: Fluxblog
• Matthew Perpetua's Fluxblog was a pioneer in the mp3 blog world, beginning in 2002 as one of the firsts. Still a great source for mp3s, this blog posts 3 or 4 a day with brief reviews of the tracks, as well as concert reviews and music industry updates. Great diversity if you have the patience to sift through and find what you want. Some recent posts include Ellen Allien, Spoon, Hillary Duff and Jarvis Cocker songs. For a laugh, here is the Wiki entry referring to Fluxblog as a burrito, illustrating the wonders of user-generated content and editing.