A Music Lovers Crisis

Have you ever had a song stuck in your head, one that you desperately had to hear? What would happen if you couldn’t find the song or CD you were looking for. No need to panic. Pandora is here to the rescue.

Or are they.

Pandora, what many would call the “death of the radio” showed some signs of imperfection.

For those who don’t know, Pandora is a personalized internet radio service that helps you find new music based on your old and current favorites. You can create customized web playlists that attend to your listening needs. It lets you choose an artist and it picks similar artist to complete those playlist.

“OAKLAND, CA—The headquarters of personalized online music provider Pandora remained in a state of chaos Thursday as frantic workers struggled to find a song that 32-year-old Boston subscriber Dave Lipton would enjoy.

Pandora, which allows users to create virtual radio stations according to their individual tastes, confirmed its employees had spent most of the day rummaging desperately through the miles of shelves in the company's massive 700,000-CD storage facility in search of a track to appease the increasingly fickle Lipton.”

Lipton skipped and disliked almost every song he heard. Over 2,900 employees tried to please the listener. As an attempt to satisfy Lipton, Pandora brought in special weapons.

“By noon Thursday, Pandora had decided to bring in a panel of genre-bending musicians to act as consultants on the Lipton case, among them Beck, newcomer songstress Janelle Monáe, and retired avant-rock musician Don Van Vliet, better known as Captain Beefheart.”

Even then, Dave was hard to make happy. Pandora reinsures users that although the radio station has dealt with difficult users in the past, most subscribers are content to listen uncomplainingly to whatever the song-selection team chooses.

As an avid listener of Pandora, I can say, they do an outstanding job of selecting songs catered to users preference.  I have many playlist, ranging from all genres.

Read the full article here:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/desperate-pandora-employees-scrambling-to-find-son,17905/

Join Pandora:

http://www.pandora.com/

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Who's Idea Is It Really? The Truth Behind The Music

Music. Many would consider it my life. It’s been apart of me since an early age. An age so early where I was too young to buy it, an age where I had to close my ears when profanity was present. Music sculpted me into the person that I am. Music kept me sane. It kept me living.

I am a collector of music. I have devoted my whole life, buying and trading music. I respect and look up to many artists from all genres. I am a fan. I am loyal. I support local and national artist.

I respect artists who are true. I respect those who speak the truth. I respect artists who paint pictures and spread knowledge. Those are reasons why I continue to support musicians the way I do.

But wait…

What if the artist is fake? What happens when I that you thought was real turned out to be a complete lie? What if all that you believed in was a hoax?

After reading a interview with Lupe Fiasco, I now realize that the music industry is far more out of control than I imagined.

Lupe discusses his new album, Lasers; set to be released on March 8^th. Lupe states that the album isn’t him. “I hate this album”. According to Lupe, Atlantic forced him to perform songs that he had nothing to do it.  He was against the idea, but in order for Atlantic to release the cd, Lupe had to cooperate.

I am a huge fan of Lupe Fiasco, but it’s almost like he sold out. Although he did it for the fans, he still gave in. He signed his name on a project that he didn’t believe in. “Another day, another dollar”, Lupe says.

I respect Lupe knowing he went public with the issue. Record companies are taking too much control over projects. Sure, they invest a lot of money, but the money they originally invested went to Lupes ideas and raps, not someone elses.

This article boggles me. I hate knowing these companies have that much power.

Is all the music I’ve bought in the past a lie? I will truly never know.

Complete interview here:
http://www.complex.com/music/2011/02/interview-lupe-fiasco-hates-lasers?page=2

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