Music is the food of marketing, so play on

And as music becomes a means to an end — pushing a separate product, whether it’s a concert ticket or a clothing line, a movie scene or a Web ad — a tectonic shift is under way. Record sales channeled the taste of the broad, volatile public into a performer’s paycheck. As music sales dwindle, licensers become a far more influential target audience. Unlike nonprofessional music fans who might immerse themselves in a song or album they love, music licensers want a track that’s attractive but not too distracting — just a tease, not a revelation.

But does this model work for any other creative content? I fear this is going to be a bad year for books. From the NYT.

Robin’s, which says it is the oldest bookstore in Philadelphia, will close next month.

More book horror here. In the new year I'm looking for the positives: E-books in particular.

Facebook the Music and dance

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg talks to Techcrunch.

Mark confirmed that Facebook was investigating the possibility of launching a music application.

To make a really good music application you have to have access to music. We felt that because we are operating at a much larger scale than any of the developers at this point, right now at least, we felt like we had a good chance of helping someone negotiate to get access to the music necessary to create a good music application. That is the theory as to why we were exploring this.

From Techcrunch.

Building the Music Archive - a new history

This is (part one) of a really interesting series of articles about music collections, and technology - by Martin Belam.

When you used to talk about 'volume control' in the sense of music, it was associated with how loudly you could annoy your parents or neighbours. Nowadays it is more likely to refer to the sheer volume of digital media in your possession.

At the end of March 2007 I had 15,741 tracks in the iTunes library on my PC, of which I had played 4,084 at least once. That represents 25.9% of the titles, or just a shade over a quarter of the tracks. Meaning that, according to iTunes, I had never listened to around three-quarters of my collection.

I'd taken the time to rate 2,680 tracks. Yet, again, according to iTunes, of the tracks that I had rated, I had never played 38% of them.

Rating has become the new "volume control" for music consumption. With a library that large, rating songs allows us to narrow down what we actually want to hear, rather than what we simply want to have.

For the whole 12 part series in PDF, go here.

I just feel sad about letting you know

It's hard enough trying to write songs, without having to design Chinos as well.

Billy Bragg on paying the Man, via the @Econ conference.

The Man Who Fell to Earth?

Is heavy metal making us stupid?


Nicholas Carr's "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" was one of the biggest summer hits this year on the dancefloor, with remixes by Andrew Sullivan, John Battelle, and Bryan Appleyard amongst others.



But who or what does Nicholas Carr trust? In auteur theory a movie maker's worst film is said to often reveal much. Here is Carr writing on the album-a-year-meme choices of Amazon's chief technology officer, Werner Vogels.

...you bet your ass I'd entrust my mission-critical data and apps to this guy. I mean, he even ranks Made in Japan, that ridiculous double-record Deep Purple live album with the 20-minute version of Space Truckin', as the best LP of '72.

Here are some of Vogels' picks.


1969: Rolling Stones, Let it Bleed
1970: The Who, Live at Leads
1971: Marvin Gaye, What's going on
1972: Deep Purple, Made in Japan
1973: Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon
1974: Genesis, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
1975: Led Zeppelin, Physical Graffiti
1976: Eagles, Hotel California
1977: The Stranglers, Rattus Norvegicus
1978: Herman Brood and his Wild Romance, Shpritsz
1979: The Clash, London Calling


Full list from 1958 onwards here.


And some of Nicholas Carr's choices:


1977: The Sex Pistols, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols
1978: Wire, Pink Flag
1979: The Undertones, The Undertones
1980: X, Los Angeles
1981: Squeeze, East Side Story
1982: Richard and Linda Thompson, Shoot Out the Lights
1983: REM, Murmur
1984: The Replacements, Let It Be
1985: Husker Du, New Day Rising
1986: Elvis Costello, King of America

Full list here.


Another question: Is Wikipedia making us reinvent our pasts?