The announcement of Last.fm’s music discovery tool just pushed me over the edge. It’s supposed to cull and compare the music you listen to with other users and come up with other artists you might like. I’m not blaming Last.fm. I’m sure this could be helpful, and it’s not the first to try and figure out what band you might like – that’s the foundation of companies like Pandora. Even Spotify is getting into the recommendation game.
There’s probably a band out there that, through crowd sourcing and complicated algorithms, I might go ga-ga for. But I’ve got an iTunes library loaded with 74.5 days worth of songs staring at me, and I probably couldn’t tell you who half of those songs are by. I’m not even counting the five-shelf bookcase of vinyl LPs I’ve been rediscovering lately. Besides me being old and crabby, the point is that I need to take a breath. Slow down, enjoy what I have without worrying about missing what the next big thing. That’s OK, right?
I just hit shuffle in iTunes. David Bowie. The Man Who Sold the World. There we go. 74.499 days to go.
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