10 Great Podcasts for True Music Lovers

iTunes isn’t just a place to store and listen to all of your favorite music—it can also be a great tool to help you learn about new titles or to expand your knowledge about your existing favorites. Through podcasts you can keep up to date with the music scene and quench your thirst for the latest and greatest bands without really having to do much but sit back and listen. Here are a few that music lovers of all kinds can try out.

1. All Songs Considered: This NPR production is a great place to discover new music. Artists covered range from world music to indie artists and just about everything in between and the show not only offers insights into new music but concerts that you can download and listen to as well.
2. Gramophone: If classical music is more your style then check out this UK podcast that takes you inside the magazine of the same name, sharing reviews of the best new releases, news, and interviews with composers and musicians.
3. Above and Beyond: Trance Around the World: Those who are into dance music or clubbing will appreciate this podcast that tracks the latest developments in these tracks from all corners of the globe.
4. KEXP’s Song of the Day: The small snippets from this Seattle radio station will let you keep up with some of the latest and greatest independent artists out there.
5. Morning Becomes Electic: The podcast of this song makes it possible to listen to an assortment of creative music including jazz, indie, funk, rock, pop and even world beat artists, focusing on both new talent and established artists.
6. Sound Opinions: Listen to this podcast to hear interviews with many of Rock and Roll’s greats as well as artists who are just up and coming. You’ll find shows on everyone from Jesus Lizard to She & Him.
7. Push the Night: This podcast focuses on the best dance music out there including house, trance, techno and prog tunes.
8. Sphere of Hip-Hop: Those who love hip-hop will appreciate this podcast that brings them the latest tunes and makes keeping up with the best new artists a piece of cake.
9. indiefeed Blues Music: Here you’ll find a great collection of blues titles that mixes the old with the new so you’ll get the best of both worlds.
10. Podrunner: If you need a great workout mix then look no further than this podcast which will provide you with a wide range of tunes to listen to while you’re getting all sweaty at the gym.
11. Musicresearch.com of course! The place where you can find new music and RATE it. Help the music find its audience.

This post was contributed by Hannah Watson, who writes about the distance learning colleges. She welcomes your feedback at HannahWatson84@ yahoo.com

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FM Revolver

For sometime we have been used to music and advertising working together. In many ways, its never been subtle, from the famous Pepsi style ads, to HIp Hop acts wearing branded goods such as Nike and Reebok.

However, its never become a point of standard practise. Mainly because not all acts or all songs reach a large enough or relevant enough audience. Additionally, what with the economy being so tough at present, advertisers demand stats and feedback to deomstrate the bang they get for their buck.

A few years back, Sting’s video for Desert Rose was doubled up as the advert for a Jaguar. It was still subtle enough (in contrast to a pepsi ad) to fit around the narrative of the video but had enough shots of the car so that it could be used in a shortened form for tv and cinema adverts.

With everyone, reaching out and grasping new income models will the idea of advertiser driven content raise its head? We are already seeing how much of the tv industry is supplementing its income due to a market that has gone through huge amounts of fragmentation, and due to advert slots themselves being less effective partially attributed to the tivo style technologies that now exist. 

Shows are either being commissioned by sponsors or prexisting shows are being touted to possible sponsors who may like the concept and see a fit with their product or message.

Why not the same with music? I’m not only suggesting this for individual tracks or artists. Why not apply this approach to the great untapped ‘brand’ of the label itself? Labels have never understood brand. Even though they take great pride in their LABEL, apart from the DefJams or specialist jazz labels of this world, the ‘label’ has rarely stood for anything in the minds of the consumer. Consumers, for the large part, did not buy this or that album because it was on Universal or EMI. They followed the act.

However, if the labels can actually come up with identities (you could call them labels!) which have a very strong focus, and start to sell them as ‘channels’ being targeted at specific target groups- why then they might find that they have a platform which advertisers will want to embrace. This would help create targeted income on Utube Channels, physical product, tv slots. One can even see opportunities with regard to how their music is ‘presented’ on platforms such as Itunes, Amazon or the new mobile ‘unlimited’ music services.

Of course this could have a cynical affect on the music. However, it shouldn’t. After all, record labels have always pushed music that was appealing to an audience. Without doing that, it would not sell and hence not be supported by the label. All we are doing here is doing it in a more coordinated way and making sure the record company’s own label really means something.

We have already seen how music shows on tv are being snapped up by sponsors and ad agencies the world over. Now is the time to take that trend and make it apply to music in general and not just American idol and its copycat shows.

Recently Nokia has announced its Comes With Music range of products. This is where you get one of their handsets and can then legally download an unlimited amount of music via their service for a year onto your newly acquired phone. 

Now when we say ‘unlimited’ that always means ‘within reason’ or that which could be ‘reasonably’ listened to by an individual in a year. 

The point is, this is slowly becoming a mainstream model. Sony Music is launching its own version (it has in scandinavia already) along with Sony Ericsson. I think we can expect that a similar deal will eventually work with the PS3/PSP platforms (at least for Sony content) and EMI recently went into a joint venture with Warner Music, not tied to a piece of hardware but allowing ‘unlimited’ downloads for a one off fee. 

Now in many respects these deals with labels add REAL value to music. The labels will get paid a slice off the hardware price or package fee (as with the EMI platform). The customer values music enough to want it and pro-actively download it, but they have lost the sense that they should pay individually for each track/album. Yet this way they are still paying for it, without feeling that they are - and then the money is distributed through to the labels and appropiate artists/songwriters etc etc. 

The flip side is that it could be perceived as the nail in the coffin of the traditional value system. The system which says:

‘That an artist or collection of artists and skilled individuals spent ‘x’ amount of time on this track/album. By purchasing it you are supporting them directly (and not the label - even though must of the money used to go to the label) and making sure they can continue to make music to the same high standard.’

Also it could be a way of blocking off the long tail. I.E. if an individual or band cannot get with a content aggregator.  They may also find that these new services only push material from major labels, as by associated with material with high cache levels adds value to the hardware and is a win, win; for the labels and tech companies. 

Does this squeeze out the individual, semi-pro? If they are left to ’sell’ their music, it would put them at a perceived disadvantage in the market place compared to the labels who have their ‘price hidden’ in the cost of the phone etc etc. 

Times are a-changing as they have been non-stop for the last 10 years. However, is something fundamental happening in front our eyes? As labels panic and seek to find an income (something which is kinda important for a business) are they undermining, further, the very product they wish to make money out of? Or, are they smelling the roses and leveraging the content the best way they can, today, making sure there is money to invest into the music of tomorrow.

Also does this mean that it will impossible to have a complete music collection in the future? Might we see a situation, as with movies and Blueray, that certain acts can only be listened to on certain playback devices? I’m not too sure thats ‘bad’ as its the norm for videogames and as I said, movies. However it would be a complete change for the consumer. 

Discuss……