Terminology: I’ve been saying taste-maker and every else has been putting that in quotes because I guess that’s a non-PC term confused with corporate ram-crap-down-your throat. Fine, pretend like all along I’ve been saying “taste-sharer.” I don’t need someone to tell me what is good or what I like, I just need someone to find exciting music I am likely to like.
———–

Again, keeping my romantic, if un-visionary, hat on for a little longer: my ideal situation looks like what my childhood experiences were when a radio DJ’s shift was a *show*, authored by the DJ and reflecting their personalities (and ingested chemicals). They had fan followings for inventive sets with musical themes and soul.

Everybody appreciates all the good work you folks have done in enabling artists to simplify a boring part of their day and therefore indirectly cultivate their art. But I could make an argument that open music won’t have it’s break out moment through these massive online catalogs. They will break through taste sharers at which point the only services necessary for the artist are paypal and a remote host. Who is cultivating the taste-sharer? Who is enabling the next Ahmet Ertegün? (I’m aware of the many attempts at podcasting-enabling sites and I suspect many of them fell down for all the typical dot-bomb reasons).

I don’t want to put anybody on the defensive but I challenge the idea that you really see it as someone else’s job to serve as bridge between consumer and warehouse. CD Baby has ‘editor pick’ and ‘music for your mood’ ‘flavor of the month’ etc. I don’t know of an artist, upon seeing that, who would assume you are truly unbiased and uninterested in their ultimate success.

paypal is unbiased. archive.org is unbiased. you guys want a hit.