CDs… though I’ve been collecting them since I was in junior high, as a web designer and digital enthusiast, I’m no longer a fan of them. They’re bad for the environment, they cost struggling artists a lot of money to print, they go out of stock, they’re limited. I think they’ll soon go the way of vinyl: a novelty item.
We can all get sentimental about the tangible and tactile experience with the physical compact disc. Remember how we bemoaned the advent of CDs, crying about how album artwork was going to die with the LP? Now people are having the same “letting go” issue with digital. Digital audio is limitless. Not only can the download package contain the music, but it can also contain glorious digital booklets with as many pages as you want, bonus tracks, videos, photos, liner notes, lyrics… almost anything if an artist is willing to think outside the box.
My favorite recent examples were the releases of Autolux’s Transit Transit (sold from their own website, powered brilliantly by Topspin Media) and the iTunes deluxe version of The Rolling Stones’ remastered Exile on Main Street, which features over 2 hours of music, plus a glorious iTunes LP digital booklet. Terrific and truly 3-dimensional experiences with new (or renewed) music.
Pandora is the internet radio jukebox that enables you to create your own personalized radio “stations” based on your likes. Its inner workings are founded on something called the Music Genome Project. The Music Genome Project is a taxonomy of musical information that looks at more than 400 musical characteristics of a song. This information is used to create the Pandora radio stream custom tailored to your taste.
This past week on Studio 360 – one of my favorite NPR weeklies – Kurt Andersen got to chat with the founder of Pandora about how the whole thing works. For a geek like me, it was an interesting interview…
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Smokey chews an early morning stick in the Catskills...
I just spent an amazing weekend in Cochecton, NY in the Catskills. Smokey and I were guests of a couple of friends who have a beautiful house on 125 sprawling acres on the side of a mountain. Absolutely stunning vistas.
Sunday morning, I was up bright and early with the dogs (6:30 a.m.). As I was enjoying my coffee watching the sun rise over the mountains, I decided to describe the scene in the Voice Memo app on my iPhone. Here’s how it went…
On December 15, 2009, NPR’s Fresh Air aired this magnificent interview with Griffin Dunne about his father Dominick Dunne, who died in August of 2009 at the age of 83.
I missed this interview when it first aired on December 15, 2009, but it was re-aired as a Father’s Day show this past June. I just listened to the podcast of the interview and was very moved. It is an extremely smart, touching and funny conversation with a son talking about his father and his remarkable life.
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Top story on the George Hahn Daily http://bit.ly/bITnQY (via @FilmLinc) ▸ Venice and Telluride 2010. Scorsese and Jones's "A Letter to Elia" 22 hours ago
CDs… though I’ve been collecting them since I was in junior high, as a web designer and digital enthusiast, I’m no longer a fan of them. They’re bad for the environment, they cost struggling artists a lot of money to print, they go out of stock, they’re limited. I think they’ll soon go the way of vinyl: a novelty item.
Pandora is the internet radio jukebox that enables you to create your own personalized radio “stations” based on your likes. Its inner workings are founded on something called the 
