Ditch the Niche

I've always been stymied by the simple question, "What kind of music do you listen to?" The true answer is so complicated I can't think of any way to sum it up accurately---there are patterns to what I listen to, but they don't follow genre distinctions and they're constantly changing. However, with a new discovery last week, I am closer to getting a grip on this question than ever before. I tried the "Create Your Own Station" feature on Yahoo LaunchCast ($4 a month without ads), and now I'm groovin' to Eminem, John Mayer, The Dixie Chicks, and Ace of Base back to back...

The station starts you out with a group of artists who you pick as being your favorites. It plays music from those artists while also introducing other music recommended by fans of those artists. You can rate all the music you hear---artist, album, and song---and the system keeps track of your ratings and adjusts the playlist accordingly. Not only will it dig up songs that you had forgotten you liked, it will also introduce you to a lot of great new music----album cuts you haven't heard, new artists that fit your genre preferences, etc. Over time the station creates a unique database of ratings that act as a musical reflection of you, subtly nuanced and ever evolving just as you are. (Country for my smile, classical for my brain, nerd rock for my hair...)

You know looking at the big picture, I see a lot of parallels between this process and the larger cultural changes that we are experiencing as a human race. Because of the internet and huge leaps in communication technology, we now have a stunning variety of religious viewpoints, political ideas, personal stories, and world news all at our fingertips. I think that as we freely navigate the open waters of human experience, picking and choosing the voices that speak to us personally, we'll find it less and less necessary (or accurate) to place ourselves in conventional categories. Just as in my radio station, defined groups will still exist as points of reference---liberal and conservative, atheist and believer, eastern and western---but fewer people will cast their lot solely with one or the other. My hope is that as human variety becomes expressed more on an individual level than within these groups, the "us versus them" mentality that often results will begin to soften.

Well, let me briefly mention some other random news... I am a featured artist this month on the International Acoustic Music Awards website with my role model Darrell Scott! I still don't have a publishing deal offer but I do have some strong interest, the van is in North Carolina being converted to veggie power, and we're working on the artwork for the new record. My friend Suleiman is still doing well at his new job, and our Egyptian friend Mary was finally able to get an apartment of her own after sleeping on our living room floor for three months! I bet that bed feels good... And finally, The Better World Handbook rocks, and you should check it out. More on that later. Peace y'all...