Jackson Miller

I have converted. I never thought it would happen. There are some things that I expected would never change. This was one of them. It shocks me that I am about about to write what I am about to write. The thing is, it is a paradigm shift so major that I can’t keep it a secret.

Ok, are you ready for this?

I am actually kind of hesitant to admit this.

Here goes.

“Owning” music is completely absurd except in the rarest of circumstances.

I am now a believer in subscription based music. Over 80% of my music listening is now done via Pandora. Sometime I will listen to the “recommended music” on the Last.FM channel. Other times I will listen to the Drum & Bass Arena Podcast. On a very rare circumstance I will listen to music that I have purchased or downloaded over the years. Usually if I am listening to music files that I have stored on my computer or ipod it is because I want to listen to music on the home stereo while making phone calls. If I could run Pandora on my Apple TV then I might never listen to music I “own”.

This conversion has not been quick. I used to think Pandora was neat, but I didn’t want to count on an internet connection for music. Two things have changed since then:

1. I am not traveling nearly as much. Until there is internet on airplanes (which is coming) travel would be a deal breaker for Pandora.
2. I bought an iPhone and downloaded Last.FM and Pandora apps.

Those two changes set the stage for…

3. Christmas. I dig Christmas music, but most of it sucks. Also, owning Christmas can screw up your iPod 11 months out of the year.

So I decided to create a Pandora station for good Christmas music. I started adding in the good stuff I already owned and then expanded to stuff I wished I had. I temporarily screwed up the channel when I added this really great song with Christina Aguilera and Dr John; the station was filled with shitty pop for about 45 minutes. Then I rated the crap down and it started getting really good. It started playing tracks that I couldn’t find anywhere else (like a McCoy Tyner Christmas song off some out of print compilation). Being able to share the station was an added bonus too.

Then, after Christmas we drove down to Disney World for a (really quick) family vacation. On the way back Sabrina wanted to listen to some Classic Rock. I am not sure if you have ever noticed, but Classic Rock stations on the radio are fucking horrible. I apologize for the profanity, but I can think of no other way to describe these stations. They play the same crap over and over again. The amazing thing isn’t really the crap that they play, but rather the amazing music they don’t play.

So, while Sabrina was in Starbucks grabbing a cup of joe I was able to fire up the Pandora iPhone app. I created a station with The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, and The Stones. We were then able to listen to some Rock that didn’t suck while driving 70 mph down the Interstate. (Ok, I will be honest. “95 miles an hour girl, it’s the speed I drive”). We down voted a few songs, but it was tons better than the crap on the radio. The added bonus was that there was no ads and that we never drove out of range of the radio tower (and luckily the Interstate system is painted prety solid with 3G from Atlanta to Nashville).

When I got home I promptly became a paying Pandora customer. It doesn’t really make the service more valuable, but I figure paying for it is the way to try and keep it around. Which gets to the interesting part.

When I was a young lad I used to spend upwards of $100/month on recorded music (most of it at Tower Records on West End). I was able to go in and browse a pretty eclectic selection of music. Then around 2001 I jumped on the Napster Bandwagon and the amount I spent on music plummeted. There were years where I may not have bought any music. Now I might spend $300/year.

It is not that I am cheap; it is that the perceived value has changed (and let’s be honest, the real cost has dropped as much if not more). I would pay for a satellite radio subscription in a heartbeat if I thought it was worth it. I have had XM in quite a few rental cars and it is almost identical to cable TV – plenty of channels playing marginally interesting material. Hardly worth the price. (We also canceled all cable and satellite TV recently).

Pandora on the other hand is a different story. If I had to, and it I knew it would be available everywhere (especially on my Apple TV), I would pay $40/month. The difference in Pandora and Satellite is that I can be in control. I know what I like. I don’t need a DJ to pick out tunes. Sure, a great DJ is great, but most DJs more of a hinderance than a help. (Note: some girl on Vanderbilt 91.1 was ON FIRE the other day. It was Tuesday or Wednesday midday.)

I used to know this really cool opera major who attended Blair School of Music. She had an incredibly well developed set of musical preferences. I will never forget her telling me about some non-music major telling her that she had horrible taste in music. Her response was (rightfully) “who the hell are you?!?”. The great part of the encounter was that her take-away was not that others should not question her taste in music but that no one’s taste in music should be questioned. Taste in music should be celebrated, not criticized.

“Owning” music limits musical taste. You become shackled to your music files. You feel guilty for not listening to them. You feel like there are some you “should” listen to. You have some that you totally regret purchasing. You worry that something might happen to them. You can only copy them to 5 devices. None of that is enjoyable.

Tonight I started with Michael Franti which took me to Bob Marley via Ben Harper and Israel Kamakawiwo’ole. I am completely enjoying it. I will keep this station and refine it. I will add it to my collection of kick ass music whose taste I own while I am unencumbered by the files.

Speaking of files. I bought a new laptop a couple of weeks ago. I started writing this post because I was just about to copy over my music files from my old computer and decided that I didn’t want them cluttering up my hard drive (which is a cavernous 320GB). How much are they really worth?

Thank you Pandora. I have seen the light.

Note: After writing this I thought I would check and see if Bob Lefsetz had written anything about this. Turns out he was on a similar page 3 days ago. He even had this beautiful gem of a quote that sums it all up: “The stations come in perfectly. The sound is great. Only the content is bad.”

And then Upside Down by Jack Johnson came through the headphones.