Music

Digital marketing / Music — No Comments
25
Jul 13

Podcasts Killed The Radio Song

A while back I tried something a little bit different. Instead of listening to the radio on the way to work, or a CD, I downloaded a few episodes of a podcast on a topic I found interesting and listened to that instead. Wow – what a different experience. I actually tuned into what was playing through the car stereo, my driving frustration (PC term for road rage) disappeared and I may even have learned something. I don’t think I ever had those 3 things happen to me at the same time in the car before in my life.

So how did this happen? On reflection I realised:

  • I controlled the topic I was listening to – so I enjoyed the content
  • No ads – so I didn’t switch off
  • Nothing repetitive – IE. When you get to the end of the track you move to the next episode rather than starting again
  • No annoying talk back or ignorant opinions – don’t they drive you nuts!
  • No news – which tends to cause a low level of anxiety on issues nothing to do with us

Since that day, I pretty much do not listen to the radio anymore. I have found all manner of podcasts I either really enjoy, find relaxing or help with my professional development. Note – the relaxing ones are not the “close your eyes and take some deep breaths” ones – I haven’t tried them while driving yet – rather on topics I find relaxing.

Podcasts, iPhones and bluetooth – what an amazing world we live in. I still remember the days when the tape in my cassettes unravelled, tangled and blocked the cassette deck I was using. Just another phenomenon that will and is changing the way effective marketing and advertising work.

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Leisure / Music — No Comments
08
Jul 13

Has iTunes Spoiled Your Favorite Song

No, I’m not talking about your old favorite song, nor your current favorite song. It won’t be iTunes spoiling these for you, it will be your ringtone. (Yes – I strongly recommend you change your ringtone back to something that resembles the sound of a phone) I’m talking about your future favorite song.

I look at the songs I have purchased on iTunes, and there are two categories:

  1. My old favorite songs
  2. My current favorite songs

Now, despite these two categories of song seeming very similar, on review they are actually very different. All my current favorite songs are pretty good songs. They tend to be quite popular, the songs I heard on radio or on a reality tv show that resonated with me. They are the songs I bought on impulse, or if I missed the impulse, they are the songs I bought after radio repetition finally convinced me they were great songs.

I also have to say that already at least 30% of these purchases no longer feature on any of my playlists…

My old favorite songs are very different though. These are those little pearls I found as song number 9, or 13, or 11 on an album.  The ones I only ever heard because back then, we pretty much had to listen to the whole LP, (remember them…) cassette or CD. Back then we just put them in and let them go so we listened to it all, loving some songs immediately, others being allowed to grow on us over time.

I don’t think any of the popularist songs of these old albums (the ones that made radio and were undoubtedly the reason I purchased the album in the first place) feature in My Old Favorite songs, but despite that, the ones that do never seem to get dropped from my playlists. They are the timeless pieces I take with me forever.

Today though, we don’t buy the whole album do we, we only buy the song. So we will never hear that song #9, 13 or 11. Even if we take time to browse, we certainly won’t get the opportunity to appreciate it enough to purchase it. So we will never get the opportunity to find, appreciate, purchase and favorite our future favorite songs.

How sad – I feel like I’ve just been told I’ll never meet my soulmate.

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