I've been listening a lot to my 'oldies', most recently Pink Floyd (of course - pretty much all of it), Elvis Presley (natch - In the Ghetto, Always on My Mind), Pearl Jam (Uh Huh! Actually I should say Ten - In my top 10 of all time for sure), Rod Stewart (Young Turks - late seventies this guy had game. Today? Not so much, but anything in the 70s is good to go), Johnny Cash (I'm not a johnny come lately here, I own the original pressing of Folsom Prison, and it is proudly in bad shape from heavy use in the 70s), Neil Diamond (Shut-up!), The Who (Won't Get Fooled Again is the greatest Rock song of all time to this very day), Jim Croce (Time in a Bottle, please. Need anyone ever say more), Led Zeppelin (Where to start - though check out In the Evening - it's incredibly underrated, but in my top 5), Harry Chapin (One of the Best Live Album's ever recorded. It's so good I can't listen to any of his studio stuff), S&G (All of it), Joe Cocker (The Second greatest cover of all time, "with a little help from my friends": The greatest cover is of course, All Along the Watch Tower, performed by Jimi Hendrix), AC/DC: (Love it all, but damn I'm hooked on Thunderstruck - go figure.) David Bowie (Aladdin Sane), U2 (Unforgettable Fire) Audience (Haven't heard of them? Go pick up House on the Hill), but only if you also like Jethro Tull (Aqualung). Ray Charles (What'd I say), Nirvana (In Utero and Nevermind, has any other band made the impact of Nirvana has with just two albums? I know there was a third. I also wonder if Nirvana was the last great band?)

She's a nutter but I'm a hugely loving Amy Winehouse right now inserted into my oldies. However, with few exceptions I'm spending more time on the music I listened to when I was 13-23. However, the most music I purchased was from the ages of 23-33, and that music is not really factoring into my listening habits at the moment.

So, was music better in the 60s and 70s? Or am I just old? Personally I think it's because I'm old. I'm curious if others (Over 35) are finding music that they listen to more and more frequently comes from their adolescent years to early 20s.

I hypothesize that we get "filled up" with music as we discover it, and that we have little capacity for more as we age. By more, I mean storing the music mentally, emotionally, and physically (purchasing it). We like to revisit our stored favourites (that is why we store them after all) and in doing so two things result:
1. We reinforce our connection to the favourite songs, making it likely to become even more important to us, and thus require more listening.
2. We force out potential listening time to new music, making it unlikely that new music gets stored in our psyches.

Then again. Maybe it is just a phase. And soon, I'll be spinning C&C Music Factory(Yes I own it. Shut Up!)

What's your experience?

Just about to leave San Fran where I attended the Music Tech summit put on by Brian Zisk. It was the second one in 4 months and it was in fact as good if not better than the last one Brain put on. I attend many music conferences in the US and Canada (still planning on france/MIDEM one day), and this conference is one of the only one that is strictly focused on music and technology. It is not concerned with maintaining old business models, or bitching about how technology is ruining said business models. It is focused on how technology can promote new businesses models and aid creative innovation in music expression/consumption/distribution.

The conference was so successful that Brian is looking to put on another one in 4 months.

A highlight of the show for me was listening to Tim Ferriss talk about the 4 hour work week. He's a fascinating individual. Then after the show two individual found a grand piano and proceeded to play and sing The Darkside of the Moon. I loved it. Wonderful stuff.

Browsing through the flickr photos from the show, I found a pic by Island Gal of Tim with the "darkside" singer and pianist.

Be sure to check out the next MusicTech next September.

More people like Bret Taylor are talking about the need for Open Data to spur innovation.

He's exactly right. I made this exact point about music in February, as well as on Fred Wilson's post on a new music economy. I also pointed out that the stable structure of these organizations need to be as a functioning non-profit (for clarity that is not a charity).

Bret's post title "we need a wikipedia for data" is exactly correct. We need timely (meaning easy to update), rich (a wealth of content), and accurate data (natch). That is Wikipedia. Open alone is not sufficient.

We are putting our money where our mouth is and trying to build this for music, we are keen to work with anyone who has similar interests - money or bodies are welcome. We've made amazing progress, and will be demoing where we are at SanFran MusicTech Summit

Mathew Ingram is bringing up important considerations with regard to Jim Griffin's plan to Tax ISPs for music data on their networks. I have talked with Jim about this at SxSW, and he hates the term tax, he calls it (I'll paraphrase) "an agreed upon and negotiated fee (without government intervention) with an ISP, which will eliminate the threat of being sued by the RIAA et al." In this sense Mike Arrington is correct in calling it "Protection Money". However, as the courts have determined ISPs are NOT liable for the data transmitting through their lines. So unless the government legislates away this protection, what exactly is the incentive for an ISP?

It is either a tax:
If government does legislate away the ISPs' protection ordered by the courts to support this initiative, then I would say it MUST be a tax.
If so Mathew rightly points out that this a slipper slope for all cultural industries:

"What about the movie companies, and other media companies? What about photographers who claim their work is being stolen?"

And I would add what about other digital content, including software?
Not only do we need to ask, how much is a poem I read on the Net. But how much does Yahoo get for me using Flickr?

Or it's collusion, and quite possibly extortion:
With all major record companies teaming together there is obviously a serious anti-trust issue here.

The fact that Jim has mentioned that he would go after the Universities first, and then the ISPs gets my back up a bit. Why not the ISPs? Well they have no incentive as per above. But Universities are not ISPs, and this at least on the surface has the danger of sounding extortionist (please excuse the inflammatory language, I'm trying to make a point not accuse or imply that anyone is a crook.) Universities are probably the most concerned about students and the institution being sued (successful or not). As such going after the most 'fearful' wether they are in the right or not, certainly would sound like 'protection money' would it not?

An ISP Music Tax, taxes the WRONG people

I have brought this up before, and I said it to Jim directly. The biggest issue I have with this scheme is that it taxes the wrong people. Jim is trying to recover money from the declining sale of CDs, but he is not targeting the people who buy CDs, he's targeting everyone. When he talks he talks about music being purchased now or in the 1990s he always talks about "the average" (or mean) and consumers only being charged about 3-5 dollars per month. However, looking at the average is a red-herring. The fact is MOST people (Mode not Mean) spend 0 (ZERO aka NOTHING) on music in any given month or YEAR. In fact the Median spent on music is also ZERO. The vast majority of the North American population does not spend money directly on music. Jim's plan in effect forces the majority of the population to subsidize a small group of people like me who do buy music. Forcing anyone to subsidize my hobby and entertainment preferences is misguided. Should I subsidize people to play golf? I know a few people who would like that. ;) (Joey!)

Now although I do not agree with Jim's approach to this issue, I have never met a man so open in discussing his plan - especially one so controversial. He will talk to anyone about it - in detail. You won't sway Jim's opinion, but he will listen to you and give respectful responses. You will either be swayed to Jim's way of thinking, which I admit is seductive, or you will reach an impasse where Jim understands your view, and will offer a respectful "we disagree", which is exactly correct. We disagree.

Music on the radio (and later MTV) has always been free for fans. Advertisers paid for it on the fans behalf. In fact the record labels were willing and eager to actually pay to have their songs playing for “free” on the radio, but that was deemed illegal.

Record company execs monetized those free plays by selling packages of convenience in the form of discs and tapes so that fans could have, on demand, the music that they liked. Those packages also had collection and connection value to fans, which the industry has all but forgotten. Not surprising, I guess, since the industry is predominantly run by lawyers. (See Rule #1)

The MP3 is now the most convenient medium for music rendering the convenience of tape and disc packages irrelevant. The problem I see is that the industry is trying to treat MP3s as the replacement for the packages they once sold. They want to now sell MP3s: just the audio files, but they have never sold audio files. They gave audio files away for free on the radio. Record companies and performers sold packages. It should not be surprising when people view these naked MP3s as FREE. It's just a type of radio. It's not what fans buy.