Doren re: music discovery
The key to a good music app isn't to listen to what the record companies want. It's providing avenues to let listeners find music like the stuff they already like, and then the music like that, and then the music like THAT. It's providing easy-to-follow but not necessarily structured paths. It's reading what reviewers (Curators! DJs! Critics! Musicians!) have to say about what the music reminds them of, and then what they have to say about what THAT music reminds them of.
It's to show what inspired the artists you like, and then what inspired THOSE artists. It's not formula, it's the opposite. Because musicians listen to *a lot* of different stuff. It inspires them across predefined genres, which often *are* defined by record labels, but many musicians are not happy being stuffed into any single one of them, though some can sometimes be grateful that their eclectic music can sometimes be classified into a category that has a defined audience. I've heard Randy Newman and Dave Alvin both express gratitude to certain radio programmers, both before and during the Internet age, for deciding that their music fit into a given category and *playing* it, because it otherwise wasn't being heard, and wouldn't be supporting the life they'd chosen to follow. But that doesn't mean they were comfortable in those pigeonholes.
A good music app doesn't just let record companies dictate what listeners should listen to, or buy. It provides links that allow listeners to explore. To LEARN. Apple can build one, but hasn't built good a music exploration capability as they could, or that other companies have. I hope Apple will. They won't need Beats to tell them how, but they should listen when Beats tells them what's needed. Hopefully Beats knows.
Check out Radio Paradise if you haven't already, either from iTunes or its own site You might be surprised what a great DJ can teach. |
