Sharing your musical tastes should be fun and easy. We believe there is no reason it has to end with the shutdown of a single site, so we've created a free tool to make this possible.

Opentape's creation and design are proudly inspired by Muxtape's success and sleek interface. We were sad with it's untimely shutdown and wanted to let the web mixtape movement continue.

But wait! Are these gramatically challenged coders' motives all that altrustic? Jackson West at Valleywag wonders if this isn't a way for Muxtape fans to "get back" at the RIAA by forcing their lawyers to play the old whack-a-mole game:

The first clue is that the site is powered by the favored online publishing platform of millennial hipsters, Tumblr. Another clue is that the domain registration information points to 152 W. 57th Street in Manhattan, which just happens to be IAC CEO Barry Diller's address (Justin Ouellette, Muxtape's founder, worked at IAC site Vimeo). Then there are two small hints in the code:

The site uses a package of Javascript, Mootools, which was also used by Muxtape. And in the source code, an HTML comment reading "Liberating taste" appears where an ASCII graphic appears in the Muxtape source code.

If this is a way for Muxtape fans to get revenge, it sure does seem blockheaded. But then again, clueless hubris on the part of Internet-drunk script kiddies seems more likely than the idea—floated in the post's comments—that Opentape is actually a "honeypot," and the RIAA hopes to catch potential song-streamers by seeing who will install it on their servesr. The fact that it only took Muxtape five months to get shut down over copyright issues is a sign that the trade organization is slowly catching up with technology, but they can't be that savvy... can they?

Opentape [Official site]
Is Opentape a jab at the RIAA? [Valleywag]

First song; the bass line will change your life. Listen. The album; epic... thunderous... life changing.

One of the best albums I've ever heard.

Good songs, good new direction for the band.

had to listen to it a couple of times like a few other people.

This album will forever remind me of the first year of my relationship with my boyfriend.

Deep meaning full songs, some better than others however it deserves all the prizes it can get.

a return to form.

One of those few albums that I can enjoy from start to finish. Great brit-pop filled with catchy melodies and music that you want to sing along with.

Are you kidding me!

for good or bad, it's the sound of 2007/08!

What albums are each of those users talking about? You can go ahead and try to guess, but hey, does it even matter? I, personally, can't wait for one of the Big Three music magazines to adopt the Blippr approach tout de suite—think about how great those 160-character writeups will look on those pullquote-adorned stickers attached to CDs!

music - blippr [blippr via MSN]

Tracks
1. Britney Spears - Piece Of Me
2. Nelly Furtado - Say It Right
3. Britney Spears - Gimme More
4. Amy Winehouse - Rehab
5. Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend

Artists
1. [unknown]
2. The Beatles
3. Radiohead
4. Britney Spears
5. Avril Lavigne

The Beatles? Radiohead? Do people want their charts to be "original" so badly that they'll resort to slaughtering the most sacred cows in order for the likes of Grizzly Bear to top the charts?

More importantly, how could people not want to let the world know that they were grooving to "Say It Right"? That song is a pinnacle of tolerability as far as Nelly Furtado's career goes!

Last.fm's Playground [Last.fm via 5500]

1. Journey, "Don't Stop Believin'," 1,821,000.
2. Queen, "Bohemian Rhapsody," 1,348,000.
3. Lynyrd Skynyrd, "Sweet Home Alabama," 1,346,000.
4. Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, "Somewhere Over The Rainbow"/"What A Wonderful World," 1,339,000.
5. Guns N' Roses, "Sweet Child O' Mine," 1,267,000.
6. Survivor, "Eye Of The Tiger," 1,206,000.
7. Green Day, "Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)," 1,168,000.
8. Queen, "We Will Rock You," 1,168,000.
9. Guns N' Roses, "Welcome To The Jungle," 1,154,000.
10. Goo Goo Dolls, "Iris," 1,091,000.

Speaking of "unkillable," how about that Goo Goo Dolls song? Other million-plus-sold oldies include Bon Jovi's "Livin' On A Prayer" (1,029,000 downloads) and freaking "Hotel California" (1,008,000 downloads), both of which I think serve to show the purchasing power of the late-night, drunken iTunes foray. Not that I haven't been guilty of that myself, mind you.

ChartWatch Extra: The 10 Most Downloaded Golden Oldies [Chart Watch via Velvet Rope]
[Photo via the International Arcade Museum]

Voting for Best Female Video and Best Male Video is open now, and given the image-heavy, clusterfuckish "design" that's been bestowed upon the nomination pages, I'd say that there will be a lot of self-fulfilling prophecizing going on. By which I mean that the "ballots" are initially organized in such a way that the most-viewed clips ("Lollipop" for the Best Male nominees, "No Air" for female, although isn't that technically a duet?) are at the top of the first page, and will thus get clicked on more than any others, save any crazy street-teaming. Which I guess makes sense, in a way. (Something that may be worth chewing on: There are seven pages of Best Male nominees to four pages of those for Best Female.)

Obviously, this is but one of many VMA-related items to come on Idolator, if only because I too am grimly "excited" to see how the producers will top last year's trainwreck of an opening. And I've actually cast a ballot for Rufus Wainwright's version of "Zing! Went The Strings Of My Heart"—because if we're going to be treated to a live re-creation of "Winemouse," the least we could do is try to make the run-up to it somewhat fun.

2008 MTV Video Music Awards [vma.mtv.com]

The two groups apparently became enraged when MTV's Buzzworthy blog posted about the word "fanboy" being added to the dictionary, citing Jonas Brothers and Tokio Hotel fanatics as possible inspirations for Merriam-Webster's decision. Angered members from both camps took to the comments section of the post for an epic war of words.

THA is the best fanclub there is. We have the best blog, and the best forum. I am not being biased :) I do have to say I am a little tired of Tokio Hotel getting compared to Jonas brothers.. because there really isn't a comparison. We have the same crazy fangirls, but JB's is an age range of 7-14, where as Tokio Hotel's fanbase ranges from 14-60+. Tokio hotel took over almost all of Europe, and the Jonas Brothers have merely one country they have made a name for themselves in, the U.S. They are not even a full band. They are just brothers that girls love because they are 'cute'. Tokio Hotel? That's real music, and best of all, they do not wear fake purity rings, but instead they are a real rock band that are not afraid to admit how many girls they banged before their interveiw. I do not see any similarities between the bands except that there are siblings in both bands, and the fans are a little crazy. Okay maybe more than a little, but, that's not in my control.

Tokio Hotel >>>>>>>> Jonas Brothers

Wow; you TH fans have *$#@~?? issues! You're seriously going to sit there and bash the Jonas Brothers when they've been around longer that TH?! LMFAO ; shows what kind of fans you really are.

JONAS BROTHERS ALL THE WAY!

But the battle didn't stop there.

But then things got out of hand ... really out of hand. Karleigh and Katie Santry, who run JonasBrothersFan.com, even say that angry Tokio Hotel fans started posting inappropriate material on their forums, including pornography and violent photos. "Morbid stuff," as the girls described it.

All this fuss for a band who look and sound like living Anime characters took music lessons from Evanescence. Sigh.

Having experienced firsthand both Jonas Brothers and Tokio Hotel fandemonium, I can confirm that both groups are essentially identical in terms of rabidness and delusion. The Jonas Brothers fans may skew a bit younger, and be more inclined to use lip gloss, but they're just one trip to Hot Topic away from the Tokio Hotel fandom. Six of one, half dozen of the other.

(Though, for the record, my official position is that the Jonas Brothers are far easier on the ears.)

Tokio Hotel Fans Wage Online War With Jonas Brothers Supporters [MTV Newsroom]
'Fanboy' Officially Added To The Dictionary; We Suspect Jonas Brothers And/Or Tokio Hotel Fans Were Partially Responsible [MTV Buzzworthy]

Mine is the 21,120,387th visit to Coldplay's MySpace page. I am not greeted warmly. The British band — which is known for giant pop hits, a sheen of fakery and the marriage of its lead singer to Gwyneth Paltrow — does not exactly rush out to greet me. The page is rudimentary and indifferently decorated, like the apartment of four couchbound soccer addicts who barely look up when a girlfriend comes in.



So Coldplay is that kind of band. I thought it might be the other kind. MySpace offers only two design choices for pop acts who create pages there, meaning every single pop act in the world (almost). You can create a lazy, placeholder, MySpace-is-idiotic page, barely shuffling your feet to the social-network tune, like a goth kid at a school dance. Or you can kick out the jams, expand the brand, offer free downloads and revel in the sound and light of multimedia narcissism. What's an attention-hungry, ridicule-averse rock band to do?

If Coldplay were really "that kind of band" —the kind to nonchalantly brush off the importance of a flashy MySpace—their page would look like Bright Eyes' standard-issue "maintained by Saddle Creek" profile, which is a lot closer to "a goth kid at a school dance" than Coldplay's slick layout.

So in the last several years, virtually everyone trying to sell music has found it necessary to keep a presence on MySpace. It's there that music fans and A.& R. people alike play new songs, watch music videos, check concert information and chat with cybergroupies. And no matter how intensely rock stars balk at every part of the commercial-studded site that is controlled by Rupert Murdoch, they cave in and post a page. (Oh, yes, even the musician identified as "Bob Dylan — NEW YORK, New York — Classic Rock/Folk Rock — www.myspace.com/bobdylan" has one.)

So Bob Dylan's record company set up a MySpace under his name. You don't say!

How, then, to interpret Coldplay's standoffishness? On its MySpace page, the backdrop is plain white with a close-up of red-and-black brush strokes. Then, in the collagist style that holds MySpace in a chokehold, this black-white-and-red-all-over image is overlain with orderly boxes. One box is a banner ad. It reads, in turns: "Violet Hill video," "We're playing another free concert . . . ¡Barcelona!" and "Preorder new album on iTunes." These words seem to be scratched in a streak of the red paint in essay-exam handwriting that looks somehow both rushed and forced.

What Heffernan describes as "standoffishness" is really just the work of a pro web designer looking to make the page easily accessible to the wide variety of people who tend to enjoy Coldplay—the kind of MySpace that wouldn't seem daunting to a 50-year-old mom who heard some songs from the band's new album during a feature on All Things Considered. Why this rather obvious fact isn't apparent to a professional media critic for the flipping New York Times is anyone's guess.

Two other boxes are sparsely furnished. One brings to mind the postcollegiate bedroom of a guy who keeps nothing but a futon and a clock radio. Scroll down and it frames a photo of the band, sitting (it seems) on the kind of tufted, circular sofa you might find in the waiting area of an old train station. I turn to the commentary on this photo in hopes of an ID — "Ah, Victoria Station!" — but I'm scolded in a red MySpace typeface: "You must be someone's friend to make comments about them." Hmm. Quite.

This paragraph reads as if Heffernan is a Victorian-era English gentleman who's taken a time machine to present day and, upon recognizing the couch from Victoria Station, yearned to connect with his own time period, but was cruelly denied by modern technology. Quite distasteful indeed!

Why does Martin bow and scrape in this cringing way on MySpace? (Compare Coldplay's page with that of Nas, another performer with a hit record; it's all filmic strutting, with center-stage Nas in the superhero role, the Zeus role, the Christ role, the Barack Obama role.) One explanation for Martin's assertive humility is that Coldplay's music, for all its thundering and sparkling atmospherics, is often about one man's wretched interior life. A lone individual's grandiose psyche is typically the terrain of a solo artist, not a band. The fact that Martin has deputized his bandmates to help him carry out his own schemes and self-expression — like a full mariachi band called in for a romantic serenade — is maybe a little uncomfortable for him.

Coming from my computer's built-in speakers, Coldplay's music would sound tinny if I weren't also staring at Coldplay's screen-size MySpace "environment" — the scribbles, the spare illustrations. Because it lacks the conviction of a real, florid MySpace page, the environment is obscurely embarrassing. Yet, in a straightforward way, it underscores the embarrassment of Coldplay's music — the mawkishness, suppressed arrogance, halfheartedness and squeamishness about rock stardom. When illustrated by the graphics here, embarrassment seems like an entirely worthy theme for very hard soft rock.

For the first time, staring at the bad MySpace page and listening to songs on a computer, I understand Coldplay's music.

For the record, Nas' MySpace—which takes 45 seconds to "initiate"—is the very definition of hot mess, with text spilling out all over the layout, endless video content, and header animation that sends lesser browsers like Safari into hysterics. It's not exactly the pinnacle of web design, and arguably much less user-friendly than Coldplay's page.

The one thing Heffernan seems to get right here is that Coldplay's MySpace is supposed to reflect the band's sound and personality. But it's not "mawkishness, suppressed arrogance, halfheartedness and squeamishness about rock stardom" that come through; it's bland stylishness and mass appeal—which, here, are reflected by the band's unwillingness to crash users' browsers for the sake of having an animated graphic at the top.

Coldpage [New York Times]
Coldplay [MySpace]
Bright Eyes [MySpace]
Nas [MySpace]

Look at those numbers—and how low the bar is for people like Esmee "Discovered On YouTube" Denters, whose album will probably sell 20% of that one-day view number when it drops. Somehow, I miss the innocent, and better-produced, days of Bo Benton. October 2006, were you that long ago?

Ali Lohan - All The Way Around [YouTube]

Recommendations made while browsing music stores such as iTunes or social networking applications such as I Like on Facebook proved popular for 40 per cent of respondents.

This was just pipped by the opinion of family, friends and other shoppers at 41 per cent of respondents.

Although the internet is proving a popular place for sharing music tastes, many are still divided on its effectiveness as a delivery platform.

Some 51 per cent of those surveyed said that they prefer to purchase CDs, compared with 25 per cent who opt for digital downloads.

No statistics on "turning away," no numbers regarding people thinking less of critics (if they're thought of at all). And the headline is "Music fans looking online for guidance," but who are some of the people giving those recommendations on "social networking applications such as I Like"? Why, the same friends and family who make up that less-wired—and therefore non-lede-worthy—41%. So basically, from these numbers, you learn that Jane Record Buyer is looking to the opinions of her friends, and not the 75-word blurbs in Blender, for opinions on music that's coming out. Wow, what will Avail think of next? I hope it's a cutting look at how people are more likely to communicate online with people they know than with strangers!

Music fans looking online for guidance [VNUNet]

The argument presented by The Independent doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, especially since Ben Harper's Live From Mars is somehow an example of the good old days. But let's summarize it anyway: Why buy a live album when you can watch shaky footage from a camera phone uploaded on YouTube?

There are countless current acts who are brilliant live, but who haven't released non-studio sets - Amy Winehouse, Kaiser Chiefs, Arcade Fire, The Raconteurs, and Arctic Monkeys for starters. Why not? Perhaps it's the web, which, in recent years has become an outlet for live sets. There is, of course, the MySpace mush of segments of poorly recorded gigs. And there are also live webcasts, but these are effectively radio, not records. But the big outlet for live recordings today, other than DVDs, is YouTube.

Amy Winehouse may not have released a live album, but there are more than 1,500 clips of her live to view on YouTube. It's a similar number for Arcade Fire and the Kaiser Chiefs. Search for the Arctic Monkeys, and you turn up more than twice as many. Even Duffy comes up with several hundred. For fans, the clips may work, but most are scratchy grabs from TV or mobile-phone footage that do little to communicate the musical and emotional power of the artist. It's not only the quality of the clip, either; the quality of the video and audio stream is thin and gutless and chokes the music. Can you imagine if all we had of Johnny Cash in San Quentin was a YouTube clip? One of the pivotal moments in pop music would have been reduced to an internet viral.

Frankly, I'm not sure what the problem is here. Every single act mentioned as being a "brilliant" live act has two albums to its name, and while I'm sure there are a number of Arcade Fire fans who would describe the band's live show as "great," what would be the point of releasing a live album? I doubt the band is trying to work their way out of its deal with Merge by dumping a throwaway album on to the racks. And what, exactly, would be added by hearing slightly yelpier versions of their songs on a disc? Not much, even for the diehards.

There's a big difference between the Arctic Monkeys live in Manchester and Johnny Cash performing for a bunch of rowdy prisoners. Not that lack of ingenuity has stopped bands before, but it helps to have some twist on your studio material ready if you're going to ask people to pay twice for the same songs. YouTube clips suffice when you just want a hint of what an act sounds like live (hint: in most cases, not much different), but if someone truly has a can't-miss live show with the music presented in an entirely different way, they'll never serve as a replacement. Erykah Badu's live album, for example, is worth a listen in part because the songs are barely recognizable from their original versions. The problem might be that many bands The Independent is hungering to hear live albums from just aren't as willing to experiment with their songs in a live setting.

Live albums are dead, and music is the loser [Independent]

Girlfriend currently has 88,068,719 views and the #1 video Evolution of Dance has 89,046,834 views. Which means we're just until 1 million views away from taking #1 and 12 million views from hitting the 100,000,000 mark. So what we're attempting won't be easy but.... Bahh who am I kidding? Of course it will be easy because we have a secret weapon

Check out http://www.avrilbandaids.com/youtubeviewer.html - This page has been specially designed to kick some serious YouTube butt.

Every 15 seconds this page will automaticallly refresh adding 1 view to Girlfriend's YouTube total each time it does. Keep this page open while you browse the internet, study for exams, or even sleep. For extra viewing power, open up two or more browser windows at this page!

The views will start to add up faster than you can even imagine. If we had 86 people keeping two windows open for 10 days straight, we would already be at 10,000,000 views.

The official, Sony BMG-posted version of the clip on YouTube has embedding disabled, so how exactly are the kids upping Avril's view count? By putting the video's YouTube page in a frame that's set to auto-reload. (In the time it took me to type those two sentences, the damn thing reloaded five times.) I mean, I'm all for dethroning the chronically dumb "Evolution Of Dance" from the top spot, but really, is allowing the next generation to manipulate HTML in order to get the result they want a healthy thing? Have the political events of the recent past really soured the concepts of "democracy" and "honesty" that much? As if I didn't have enough reason to fear for the future these days.

Hey, Hey, YouTube [Goldenfiddle via New Music Tip Sheet]

So, some good news: Idolator HQ has finally hooked up its turntable post-move (hey, it only took a few months!), and as a result I've been listening to more vinyl. And having to change over the sides of LPs or singles has seemingly resulted in me being more engaged with what I'm listening to than, say, just putting iTunes on shuffle or even putting five CDs in a changer. It made me realize how the download-then-import model wasn't always successful as far as getting people to remember everything lurking within their music library, although truth be told I'd also forget that I owned certain albums, too. Maybe it's just the idea of too much stuff being out there, and the resultant data smog, that results in people hearing less, whether the "stuff" in question is on vinyl or streaming from a MySpace page.

(This quote, I thought, was also notable given my recent chafing against the tunnel-vision of music blogs: Barry Schwartz, who wrote The Paradox Of Choice, told the Phoenix New Times "Less album listening means that people aren't forced to listen to things that don't turn them on right away, and as a result, tastes change less." Which certainly dovetails nicely with the thesis of the book he's still flogging, but could it be true? I know that if I'm in the mood for background noise, I'm certainly more likely to put on Music Choice's classic-jams-heavy R & B Hits station than something I have to really listen to. And one can't help but wonder if that sort of comfort-listening spills over to matters of taste in newer music, etc.)

The whole "could more be less?" idea sort of dovetails, I think, with the cover story in the most recent Atlantic Monthly about the Internet's seemingly endless capacity for shortening attention spans (not online yet, ho ho irony), which would certainly help explain the "intellectualism is so 20th-century" attitude that's been creeping out of certain quarters. Part of me thinks it boils down to the fact that despite the promise of the Internet—which I do believe in, to a point—society as a whole is quite stressed out, exhausted, and agitated. But that could also be my "hey, it's been a long, cranky Friday and I'm still trying to gut out a post at 6 p.m." feeling talking. I'd love to hear the Idolator assemblage's feelings on this, as I've found that you all are really good at helping me flesh out the half-formed thoughts that fill up my brain while I'm looking for hilarious headline fodder. (But get outside this weekend! Seriously.)

When every song ever recorded fits on your MP3 player, will you listen to any of them? [Phoenix New Times via Velvet Rope]
[Photo: Valerie Loiseleux]

My Live Nation is a robust suite of tools which enable fans to customize their Live Nation search pages to receive a personalized touring calendar tailored to their specific musical tastes. With just a few clicks, users are able to sync their music library with their My Live Nation account, enabling music fans to receive concert updates on their favorite artists automatically. By integrating with Facebook, Live Nation is taking concert information and online ticket box office directly to music fans where they live on the web.

Whoa there! That's a lot of assumptions for such a short paragraph in a press release. For one, are people really stampeding to sign up for My Live Nation accounts, given that the company's long-rumored ticketing application hasn't even launched yet. And have any of the developers or people who wrote the above bit of bloviation actually used Facebook? "A few clicks" when installing an application is one too many for even the most patient user (sorry, everyone who's tried to get me to install Lil' Green Patch). The application's userbase is somewhere in the 500s at present, while 81 people have so far declared themselves "fans" of the company.

I guess what "impresses" me most about this idea is the hubris on behalf of the company, the idea that normal everyday users will want to become fans of a brand that facilitates shows that are generally overpriced and unpleasant, that's merely an obstacle between the people and what they're really fans of—you know, the musicians? It's a very old-media idea ("you will take what we will give you, for we are the self-appointed keepers of the gate, and you will like it so much that you will become a fan of the company as a way of saying thanks") brought into the new-media world with a thud that's almost as loud as The Fillmore New York's dayglo awning.

Live Nation [Facebook]

"I think it's a complete disrespect of the artist — what they've lowered us to, to get entertainer of the year. ... Because of that, it really diminishes the integrity of the music that we're making and how much work goes into it. That's what really matters. That's what entertainer of the year really is. It's not about flying somebody to some shows and giving free songs away — and giving this and that — and seeing how hard you can push people's buttons on the Internet. As much as I love the ACMs and what they've done for my life, that's how I really feel about it.. And I can say that because I won tonight."

In being named entertainer of the year four times in a row, he ties Brooks' ACM record of four consecutive wins by a solo artist. Alabama won the award five straight years.

"I'm honored to be up here for four years in a row to tie Garth's record, believe me," Chesney said. "I may not ever win it again, but I know I've achieved this. I just think we all need to be careful how we give this award away in the future. ... If somebody stands up here in the future, they should do it because they sacrificed a tremendous amount."

Might this be a slam at none other than the noxious Rascal Flatts, who gave free live MP3s to people who voted in the Entertainer Of The Year category for a day last week—and still lost thanks to the ACM higher-ups discounting said bribed ballots? God, I hope so.

To promote participation among its fan base, Rascal Flatts last week offered a free MP3 download — a previously unreleased live version of "Winner at a Losing Game" — to those voting for the band in the entertainer category. Although Rascal Flatts did not violate any of the ACM's guidelines, the offer was removed from the group's Web site after just one day. According to The Tennessean newspaper, the ACM identified those online votes and did not count them in the final tally.

Asked about his attitude about the MP3 campaign, Chesney said, "My first reaction to it wasn't anything towards the act that put out the MP3 offer because I love them boys. And they deserve to be up here at some point. No doubt about it. It's just an example of how they [the industry] have made us conduct ourselves to stand up here. I could talk about it all night, but it should be about the music, and it should be about the integrity of it and how much work goes into making it. That's all I thought about. ... It wasn't anything directed towards anybody. It was just the whole thing. I don't think I'm wrong."

Ah, Kenny. "About the music"? In 2008! Gosh, you make it all sound so... quaint.

href="http://www.cmt.com/news/country-music/1587688/kenny-chesney-criticizes-acm-for-fan-voting-in-entertainer-category.jhtml">Kenny Chesney Criticizes ACM for Fan Voting in Entertainer Category [CMT; HT to all our awesome commenters]

While none of the Web companies involved would comment on the judge's decision, a source close to the three sounded like the players on a baseball team after the other side just hit a walk-off home run.

"This wasn't good for us, to say the least," the source said, adding that the judge's order isn't yet final and that the three companies plan to continue fighting.

If the final fee structure looks anything like what is prescribed in the judge's written opinion, RealNetworks, Yahoo, and AOL would likely have to raise prices. It may also mean that the cost of doing business for anyone streaming music over the Web just went up.

"What this means to other licensees is, they now see what a standard benchmark fee should look like," [ASCAP CEO John] LoFrumento said. "They now know what to expect from the rate court."

Somehow no online-music services announced that they'd be closing today, but I guess part of that is because the fees were retroactive to 2002 so they'd be in for paying up anyway.
What the ASCAP decision means for consumers [news.com]
Court Sets Royalty Fees To Be Paid To ASCAP [WSJ]

[People] don't seek to discover new music - it just happens. They don't listen to the radio, watch TV or talk to friends for the purpose of discovering new music. This is a byproduct of the intended object of the interaction. The Internet music discovery sites, even with their social networking skins, assume the primary object of interaction to be music discovery. This misunderstanding of consumer behavior will be fatal.

Speaking as the proprietor of a music blog whose traffic numbers are laid bare for all the world to see, I think Marc is spot-on here; look at the pageviews for the intermittent posts we do on new MP3s and videos, and compare their traffic to that of, say, our American Idol posts. Some may say that putting new bands side-by-side with one of the biggest TV juggernauts of the decade is a sorta-fair comparison—but is it really? After all, Idol is about "new music" at the very least in terms of the artists who are fronting the performances, although that of course takes a back seat to the televised competition.

As "pop music" becomes more of a shattered concept and music gets further relegated to background noise, discovery for most people is going to happen more and more by accident, or via already-existing social frameworks. (Look at the decreasing sales/profile returns of bands featured on MTV's "52 Bands/52 Weeks" series; you can plaster Beth Ditto all over ads for The Hills, but you can't necessarily get those Heidi Montag fans to listen further.) But putting sites that have music discovery as their primary goal in social-networking drag is ultimately a losing game, unless you're trying to recreate a dot-com version of The Producers.

Cohen then goes on to talk a little bit about radio:

The second conclusion I draw is that historically the number one source for music discovery - terrestrial radio - is a type of ad-supported music. The extent to which music discovery becomes a successful Internet business is wholly dependent on the success of streaming ad-supported music, as it is the on-line equivalent of terrestrial radio.

Since downloaded music provides a superior user experience to streaming radio, I will argue that downloaded ad-supported music will be the superior vehicle for music discovery.

If that downloaded ad-supported music is easy to acquire, that is. But the radio analogy made me also want to note that more and more stations are moving to formats where finding out about genuinely new music is nigh impossible—you've got your stations devoted to music from the '80s and back, not to mention the glacial movement of music on the adult contemporary and country charts. If "the number one source for music discovery" isn't so interested in helping its listeners, y'know, discover music, what does that mean for the medium as a whole? Is this another sign that this era of popular music is agonizingly grinding to a halt?

The Myth of Music Discovery [Ad-Supported Music Central]

GetBack president Chris Dominguez, a former executive at MTV Networks and iFilm, said there's an opportunity to create a destination for people over 35 who might not be enamored of the younger-skewing MySpace and Facebook.

"We found that demographic was coming online with full broadband and using social networking," Dominguez said. "But there wasn't anything created typically for them."

A clear difference between GetBack and the social networking giants is that the site comes with content. Instead of a user having to go out and find a U2 video to put on their page, for example, the site already has that content available.

The site features movie trailers through an agreement with ScreenPlay, a service that has deals with all the major studios, and the pages feature 30-second samples of 750,000 songs through an agreement with All Media Guide.

Getback.com also has deals with Amazon, Itunes, Hulu and numerous record companies so that all your nostalgia-inspired purchasing needs are just a click away. And you don't have to worry about accidently wandering across an aging Flavor Flav or Miley Cyrus' bra. It's strictly Public Enemy and Debbie Gibson.

Check out the current "GetBack Picks!"

• Retro Minute
•Armor Battle
•Twiggy FlipBook
•Eurythmics
•River Raid
•Raising Arizona
•Beatles Live! FlipBook
•Mel Brooks
•Rows of 'Fros FlipBook
•U2 "Mysterious Ways"

Wait a second, "Mysterious Ways?" That happened in the nineties! What's that doing here? What's next, a Fall Out Boy? Some teenage girl in a tank top trying to be my friend? Why is my full name on my page? My boss might see that! Oh no, a sex pop-up! Son, help! I just wanted to tell people I like the trailer for Major League!

Getback.com [Official site]
New Social Network targets older music fans [Reuters]

No music editors here - the Vibe is simply a place where music fans collectively determine the value of the content. We display the best stuff as determined by the browsing activity of our users — what they watch, save, rate, and more. If something catches fire, it's displayed on the Vibe page for the community to see.

Ah, a world without music editors. What a paradise, right guys? Anyway, so far the site's most popular videos are U2's "Pride (In The Name Of Love)" and Afroman's "Because I Got High," with the U2 video being the only one that's broken the thousand-plays mark so far. Apparently there are more features on the way, although the fact that said features were previewed on the site's official blog with a Jerry Garcia quote makes me wonder just how forward-thinking they could possibly be.

PluggedIn [Official site]
Music-Video Pros Challenge YouTube [WSJ]

The social networking component gives fans a reason to hang out on a site and visit more often than they would a standard Web site. And artists can sell advertisements on their sites and offer downloads and merchandise for sale — options they don't have on MySpace or Facebook. Plus, they own the content and data on how fans use their site, which they don't get on other social networks.



"The thing that separates Thisis50 from MySpace is we control the e-mail database," says Chris "Broadway" Romero, director for new media at G-Unit Records, which handles Thisis50. "We can e-mail members if we want to."



Thisis50 isn't meant to be a fan club, but rather a platform for 50 Cent to showcase his music and music he likes, and comment on news and user profile pages. Ludacris' WeMix.com, on the other hand, is more of a hub for aspiring artists to upload their music.



The artist networks aren't meant to replace MySpace or Facebook, which tend to attract a broader audience and more users.



"(Artists) think about MySpace and Facebook as funnels for their own social networks," says Gina Bianchini, CEO of Ning, a company that provides social networking tools for Thisis50, Sara Bareilles and others. "They take and use services where they don't know the users, don't have access and don't have full control, and funnel those fans to something they do control."

With the idea supposedly being that those fans will eventually only want to hang out in those artist-controlled spaces, at least until the promotional cycle for the artist's current album ends. (Can you imagine what the Sara Bareilles social network will look like once November rolls around?) But I have to question the long-term viability of these sites for the simple reason that people only have so many hours in their day—wouldn't they want to be in a space where they can interact with as many people as possible? (And in the case of Radiohead, don't they already have a thriving fan community, albeit an unofficial one?) It just seems like "branded social networks" is the Web 2.0 iteration of the "official site with message boards and chat rooms and free e-mail," and if anything it's giving some programmers and "community managers" a chance to keep their jobs for another couple of months, which I guess isn't a bad thing given that the economy's in the crapper right now. But I wouldn't bet on them for anything resembling a long-term strategy for keeping music fans engaged (that's code for "spending money") on a long-term basis.

Musicians start social networking sites [Reuters]
Waste Central [Official site]
Friends Or Enemies [Official site]
This Is 50 [Official site]
KylieKonnect [Official site]

Yesterday Dan Gibson and I were wondering if we should even post about the site, because we didn't want too much attention to be drawn its way. But according to its terms of service, Muxtape is a totally self-policing community! Or at least it should be:

Muxtape is a service for creating mixtapes. Users may not upload multiple songs from the same album or artist, or songs they do not have permission to let Muxtape use. Individual users may not create multiple muxtapes. Accounts not meeting these restrictions are subject to termination without notice. Muxtape will never reveal your email address to a third party. Muxtape is alive.

Hmm, that seems a little bit passing-the-buck to me, no? "You get the rights, we'll host the streams. Everybody wins! Especially us when we start selling ads." Have the creators of Muxtape not been following the saga of imeem, or the whole Internet radio thing? Even artists that aren't on the oh-so-evil major labels may want the money that they're owed for each stream—and I find it hard to believe that the Muxtape creators weren't at least somewhat aware of the current battle over Internet radio royalties. But then again, throwing up their hands and saying "Uh, I dunno!" when asked about the nuts and bolts of legal issues surrounding the idea of copyright seems to be par for the course for a lot of these music-tech startups, which are more focused on getting their code to market than pesky things like paying musicians. And I'm not the only person who sees this as something of a copout:

What is the definition of Muxtape? It isn't a download and it isn't peer-to-peer file sharing. It's basically a watered down internet radio or streaming. And yes, these configurations still require licensing and payment of royalties. (streaming rates yet to be determined) Either through a performance license or mechanical license depending on if the medium is classified as programmed radio or on-demand streaming. This goes back to the terms of use. This is a commonly used disclaimer in the latest up and coming websites. It attempts to put the responsibility of licensing on the user instead of the person behind the scenes.

Something tells me that my pals who have set up these "tapes" so far haven't gotten in touch with the artists they're featuring—although maybe Travis can pay himself if he ever decides to include one of his own tracks.

Muxtape [Official site]
Users may not upload songs... [something creative will go here]
[Image via My Chemical Toilet]

1. Visit My MP3 Tumblelog page on Yahoo! Pipes
2. Enter your Last.fm user name and click "Run Pipe". If no tracks appear, that means the tool was unable to find matching MP3's from the web. You need to wait until some appear in order to post them to Tumblr.
3. Once some tracks appear in Pipes, select "More Options > Get as RSS" and copy the RSS URL.
4. Login to your new Tumblr account and select "Account > Feeds" from the tab at the top of the page.
5. Add the Pipes RSS feed as "links with summaries" to start importing your music.
6. Copy the embed code from section "B" on the Yahoo! Media Player page and paste that line of code into the "description" field on your new Tumblr's theme Customize page.
7. There is no step 7. You're done!

Last.fm will track your listening habits. Pipes will find MP3's from the web matching the new songs you listen to. Tumblr will import the songs. People can play the songs on your page using the Yahoo! Media Player. The only issue I've noticed is that the sites hosting the MP3's might eventually remove the MP3 file that your site links to. Fortunately, the Yahoo! Media Player handles this gracefully. If you try to play a MP3 that's no longer available, the player will skip to the next song after a few seconds.

Some enterprising guy has already figured out a way to monetize this sucker! And yes, I used the word "monetize" because its ickiness is pretty appropriate to this whole enterprise.

It's genius is how it turns the (mostly) passive activity of listening to music into a content creating endeavor (albeit, an automated endeavor). The newest version of the Yahoo player even has a 'buy' button, that lets you link in your own Amazon affiliate code. ...

So every time someone buys a track after listening to it on my Tumblr blog, I get something like a nice shiny nickle. In theory, this means one could get paid to listen to music - truly my dream job. All I need is more traffic, and better taste in music ;)

Passive endeavors meet passive endeavors! Just think, this means that there will be more music blogs out there, only this time, instead of the delusion that they're "tastemaking"—which at least implies something in the way of expended effort—they'll sit around dreaming about the riches they'll make from just listening to music, which, as we all know, is a very lucrative enterprise. Here's hoping that the blogger above isn't expecting much more than "nickles" to start rolling his way.

How To Make Your Own Music Site In 10 Minutes [joelaz.com]
Music Blogs Made Easy [Mixed Content]