autopsy of a trend

Of the two of us, I am the marketing guru. For those of you keeping score at home, i’m Ari and he’s Tyler. As such, my mantra for preposer is simplicity. And for that, I invite you to follow me on an allegorical journey through the kind of thing I hope preposer will facilitate.

I, like anyone with eyes and ears, love Leslie Feist. The lead singer for Broken Social Scene (the amalgam of talent from Canadian label Arts & Crafts) and, most surprisingly, Peaches, Feist is currently blowing up in her own right thanks to the irrefutably catchy “Mushaboom.” I came across the song some time last year on the fantastic mp3 blog stereogum and was immediately infatuated. “That’s it…,” I thought. “Everyone I know must learn to love Feist.”
And soon, everyone did. After making it into my inaugural mix on the opposite of rent, I got comments left and right from friends and strangers who asked me to tell them more about Ms. Feist. Angelica was hooked after I suggested buying Let it Die for her mother as a Christmas present. Melissa loved her soulful vocal stylings and rockin’ out guitar. Ed played it for his co-workers, and it was an instant success.

A couple of weeks ago, as part of an Arts & Crafts showcase throughout the month of February, Feist came to Webster Hall to perform with her band. Because I am a severe procrastinator, I told everyone about the show but forgot to buy tickets. But Melissa went with her friend Erin, and loved the show.

So how should we make preposer work for this story? Let’s figure it out:

• Feist (Singer, songwriter, Feist, Broken Social Scene, Peaches): 84%
  • Feist: 91%
  • Broken Social Scene: 86%
  • Peaches: 69%
• Webster Hall (Small venue, New York, NY, Eletronica/Dance, Indie Rock): 73%
  • Ambience: 79%
  • Bookings: 58%
  • Location: 96%
  • Ticket Prices: 88%
  • Availability of tickets: 1% (sorry, I’m bitter)
• Feist @ Webster Hall, 2.14.06:
  • Opening band: Mates of State: n/a (Melissa was late)
  • Sound quality: 94%
  • Crowd: 100%
  • Setlist: 95%

So now what? What should go? What should stay? What needs to be added? What do people want to see?

ready to rock those shows all the way to Rio.

There’s been a large debate on the Internet about last.fm v. pandora. What ever happened to good old-fashioned “hearing about music from friends?”

I remember how I heard about 2 Skinnee J’s [rip], but I have no measurement for how little satisfaction I received for being Dane Cook’s 457,232nd friend on myspace [no hyperlink required].

Anyway, there are tools you can use to show what you are listening to, but I think algorithmically determining what else you might like based on melody, lyrics, harmony are not nearly as cool as seeing what music other people want & like to listen to.
In other news, I realize you don’t know much about who we are yet. We’ll introduce ourselves, don’t fear, in the meantime, please subscribe to our feed. or even drop some feedback. I’ll tell you this, we have an incredibly diverse team of music heads working across the country. (/globe) and we’ll be hiring more soon…

schindler’s list 2: let’s get this party started

I was reading an interesting article about some research done at Columbia about why certain music is popular. Turns out people are more likely to like music that is popular. Why are we willing to trust popular opinion in certain fields. I’ll admit that I read the Most E-mailed Items NYT feed, but I also read the Obituaries feed, so who am I to say…

I don’t believe that I’m likely to like something that is popular, nor something ‘tagged’ similarly to other interests of mine.

I still rely on good old fashioned recommendations. It’s more interesting to hear the story of how a friend heard about a band. You’re a jackass if you’ve tagged David Bowie and The Killers.

We’re trying to accomplish that.. and on the internet no less.