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Peter Gabriel

(Credit: Martin Klimek)

Peter Gabriel, the Grammy award-winning performer, this week applauded attempts by some artists to experiment with new ways to sell music.

Since October, the bands Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have generated plenty of notoriety after distributing their own albums--without the backing of any music label--through heavy use of the Internet.

"I think it's fantastic that these new models are appearing," said Gabriel, one of the founders of the band Genesis, told me on Monday. "You don't need very many people to make a project economically viable if you're distributing yourself."

When it comes to musicians knitting together musical and technological interests, Gabriel was one of the pioneers. In 1999, he cofounded one of the first music download stores in Europe, On Demand Distribution, which was later sold to Loudeye.

On Tuesday, The Filter, a company that Gabriel has invested in, went into beta and is due to open to the public next month. The Filter is a recommendation engine designed to help improve people's chances of finding digital music, video, film and literature they like on the Web.

Gabriel says he's working on a couple of new tech projects. "They could be quite interesting if we get them right," he said. "One has something to do with a visual language...tech is fun as long as it doesn't bankrupt me in the meantime."

As for the changes in the music industry, Gabriel also was intrigued about Live Nation, the concert-promotion company that is agreeing to pay huge upfront money to sign marquee artists, such as Jay-Z and Madonna. In exchange, Live Nation shares in the profits from sales of records, concerts, downloads, and merchandise.

"I'm not someone who really is out to destroy the record business," Gabriel said. "But I think it has to reinvent itself as a service industry and be competitive with other entities...what I don't like is the old model where (the labels) own you and can ignore you and you're just put up on a shelf. That model is gone or should be...unless you get that big Live Nation-type deal where they are paying you so much that it's a very comfortable prison that you're in."

Peter Gabriel wants to save Internet users from drowning in information

(Credit: Petergabriel.com)

Internet users are awash in information every time they search for new videos, music, or books online, says rocker Peter Gabriel.

One of the founders of the rock group Genesis and the creator of the iconic solo album So, is an investor in The Filter, a recommendation engine that now offers to help users cut through clutter on the Web and find the kind of content that will appeal to them.

Until now, The Filter has operated mostly in Europe as a music discovery service. A redesigned site is now offering to find a much wider array of content, Gabriel told CNET News.com on Monday. On Tuesday, the service is scheduled to begin allowing invitees to help test the site, which will be opened to the public sometime next month.

"When you drown people in an ocean of information, you've got to give them navigation tools," Gabriel said. "I know that there is better stuff out there than what I generally am exposed to...So if I have a sort of intelligent ally working with me 24 hours a day, I think I have a much better chance of getting the stuff that will entertain, excite, and inspire me."

When it comes to improving the experience of searching the Web for music and other entertainment content, technology has mostly come up short. Despite a plethora of specially designed search engines, it's still not easy to find material that appeals to you. Certainly, few search engines, if any, provide better results than Google.

According to Gabriel, The Filter's system sizes up a lot of information before spitting out suggestions.

It runs a person's past searches, purchases, and site visits through a new set of filters that may include the opinions of friends, favorite critics or reviewers--whatever the user wants. Executives at The Filter also say their algorithm can make recommendations that cut across different entertainment platforms.

Say, for example, you like film director Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. The Filter can use that to suggest certain songs.

"At the moment, there is nothing in Google that I know of that allows me to put in my taste and get recommendations," Gabriel said. "I can research and go quite deep in one direction. One great navigation tool is your taste. We allow you to integrate your taste and choices with your friend, your favorite musician, film director, or whatever."

Freedom from choice
Gabriel isn't slumming it in the tech sector.

Sure, the 58-year-old is famous for his stands on social issues, in addition to churning out hit songs for more than 40 years. (Ask yourself if we would love Lloyd Dobler or boom boxes as much without Gabriel's help in the cult film Say Anything).

He co-founded On Demand Distribution, once the largest digital-music service in Europe, before selling it in 2000 to Loudeye, a company acquired by Nokia in 2006 that provided music delivery platforms. Gabriel also helped develop games on CD-ROM.

The son of an electrical engineer, Gabriel said he has never written any code, but he loves kicking ideas around with creative people.

"I inherited my father's enthusiasm for technology, but not his skills," he quipped.

Gabriel wants to combine his music and tech passions. He says being bombarded by data only serves to discourage people from hunting for what they want.

He remembers a conversation he had years ago with a friend about how much freedom the Internet provided. His friend said something that stuck with him: "Maybe there is a deeper yearning out there for freedom from choice."

Correction: Representatives of the The Filter say the April 9 launch date in their correspondence to CNET News.com was inaccurate. The site is due to launch later in the April.

UPDATE 1:45 P.M.: Peter Gabriel, the Grammy-winning recording artist and technology innovator, is scheduled to help launch The Filter, a music-discovery service in April.

Peter Gabriel will help launch The Filter

(Credit: Petergabriel.com)

The Filter, Gabriel and the company's CEO, David Roberts, will meet with members of the press in San Francisco on April 9th as part of the run up to the launch later that month. The company says that the site will launch with features that go beyond music discovery.

The Filter is designed to filter irrelevant material and deliver content that reflects an individual's tastes. The company started in the UK as a music discovery service, but a representative said what is being launched next month is a very different platform, which she labeled an "online discovery experience."

The service will recommended songs, videos, literature, and news based on a user's existing digital library. Gabriel will unveil more details about the new iteration of The Filter closer to the launch next month.

Executives at The Filter also say their algorithm can make recommendations that cut across different entertainment platforms. Say, for example, you like film director Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, The Filter can suggest certain music based on that.

Gabriel and Eden Ventures invested $5 million in The Filter in August. According to an August story in the British publication The Independent, The Filter, developed by U.K.-based company Exabre, can identify about 5 million songs.

A former member of Genesis, Gabriel is perhaps best known for his classic album So. He has also been an innovator in digital media, developing multimedia CD-ROM-based games, including Xplora.