It has been years since I bought a music CD. And although iTunes has made it a breeze to purchase music online, I can’t really claim I’ve jumped on the digital bandwagon…until now.
What has turned me into a music consumer again is Rich Terfry (aka Buck 65), who hosts the afternoon drive show on CBC Radio 2. As a musician with a deep and wonderful knowledge of artists and a variety of musical genre, Terfry puts on a show with excellent music, featuring artists that otherwise wouldn’t be exposed on the national stage.
It may be that Terfry’s musical taste match my own or that he’s simply highlighting great music but I’ve found myself over the past few weeks listening to a song, and then flipping over to iTunes to buy it. I haven’t purchased a huge amount of music but the fact I’m buying music again is significant given I’ve been a non-consumer recently.
The question is why Terfry’s show has inspired the consumer in me when there are services around like Pandora and Jango. I guess it comes down to being able to trust/believe the recommendations you’re given.
Given Terfry’s background, I have faith in his selections whereas Jango is using some kind of algorithm to generate playlists. It’s not that Jango’s technology isn’t great but there’s something to be said for personal recommendations.
More: Speaking of iTunes, the New York Times reports that Apple will remove anti-copying restrictions on all songs within iTunes. That’s a huge move given iTunes has been a walled garden with hard-core DRM technology. Apple also said it will let music labels set a range of prices for songs, which means the 99 cents/song standard will disappear.
Technorati Tags: Apple, iTunes, rich terfry
2 Comments
Great post! I haven’t heard Rich on CBC2 very often, but I enjoy his music and I can only imagine the kind of journey he takes people on every afternoon.
Good to have you back into music Mark. I also posted on my blog a while back about my new found fondness for Radio 2. Interesting note on why radio seems to drive some of our music choices over other non-personal channels.
I actually just finished reading The Tipping Point and in the updated afterword, Gladwell provides thoughts on impacts of technologies on The Law of the Few: Connectors, Mavens, and Salesman. It seems that we may be building an immunity to the huge volume of data we receive through new tech channels.
I’d like to hear Malcolm’s thoughts on the smaller community focus of web 2.0 being a better chance at building more valuable connections online.
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[...] the CD I wanted to, so it will have to wait until next week. In the meantime, please enjoy this well-written article about the powers of Buck 65 on CBC Radio 2 (well, his power to inspire a fellow blogger to buy [...]