Comments on: The future of the music industry is discovery

As services from Microsoft and Apple gain enthusiasts like those of Pandora and Last.fm, the next big thing for music producers will be helping consumers find more to, well, consume.

[LewTheDu]

I'd have to disagree. There are hundreds of ways to discover new music. all of them might not be as convenient as the itunes addition but they're there and they've been concrete. Still these discovery mechanisms have little impact on what music is actually selling. There may be a rise in interest with the initial discover of this feature but i think most people are musically lazy.
(semi-off-topic)Spoon fed music through commercial entities is the real way to spread your musical seed. look at the M.I.A. record... it came out , it was praised and did ok... then it was the musical backing for the trailer of the movie Pineapple Express and it exploded. now it's all over billboard and in everyone's ipod.

[benjaminstraight]

Feed us all!

[rkminc]

I like Genius to listen to my own library. I got to Highnote (highnoteradio.com) when I want to find new stuff.

[ofmyony]

This is the golden egg for the music industry. Get the music out to sites like Pandora and Last Fm and make it easy to buy as ITunes, instant gratification is the key. Make it easy as one touch purchase on sites like Pandora or Last Fm and song sold, no need to go looking. Instant purchase like buying the candy bar at the checkout, nice!

I think people share music because they have not heard it anywhere else and someone plays it for them and they go hey why don't you send it to me. Well if the person wanting the music heard it first on Pandora or Last Fm instead of their friend they would buy it right there so they don't forget about it.

People have limited options discovering music on the net and Pandora and Last Fm are perfect options for the music industry, but instead the music industry wants to make it's money from these web sites causing them to close their doors. The music industry still does not get the future of music is on the internet and that physical compact disc are a luxury item and not the way people get most of their music today.

Ditch DRM immediately.Drm is anti consumer

[andrewkatz]

...and the next important factor is that you decide to go and see the Decemberists live, because you've just discovered a relatively small band who still plays smallish venues (500-2000) which are SO much nicer than enormous stadium shows, and then you appreciate the music so much that you buy some merch at the gig...and decide you want to go to more gigs like that.

I see the knock-on effect of music discovery (I'm addicted to last.fm) is that you rapidly get out of the mindset that only big, hyped bands are any good (apologies if you never got stuck in this rut - I did and I regret it), and then you're tempted to go and see some of the more obscure bands you've come across in tiny, intimate venues, and you become obsessed with live music, like I did. I think this explains why live music is getting so much more popular. (It doesn't follow that as live music gets more popular the venues necessarily get bigger - there are plenty of great bands to go round). And surely it's got to be good for music as a whole that there are a lot more bands who are getting a living wage, rather than a handful of bands who are getting gazillions, and the rest are starving (ok - so that's an oversimplification).

As I see it, the reshaping of the music industry in this way is one of the best things to happen - we are truly in a golden age of music at the moment. I for one have spent an order of magnitude more on music - mainly on gigs - in the last few years than I did previously, and I suspect I am not alone.

By the way, I'd love to be able to say that the Decemberists live are so much better than they are in recordings, but unfortunately I can't as Colin Meloy cancelled his last tour to the UK owing to sickness, so I never got to see them. It's also worth checking out Meloy's solo work. His cover of Morrissey's "Jack the Ripper" is truly spine tingling (and it is, or at least was, available as a free download on his website, but I can't find it now - it must be floating around on the internets somewhere).

[sadchild]

anyone know if there's a way to tag your music so it comes up when someone types a song? for example, when someone types "Alice in Chains - Rooster" i'd like for my band's song "A Simple Complex - Severance" to come up as a suggestion.

[Fire Balls]

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