Hmm. It took me 17 months add 1000 songs which is rather disappointing since I scored over 150 releases for 2009; I’m nowhere close to being done too, I think my stream will be bringing in material from 2009 well into April 2010. That may work out though. New releases for every year starts off pretty thin and doesn’t pick up until SXSW concludes; the “festival” which gives the SCLM its marching orders on who is supposed to be the big deal for the remainder of the year.
On a more positive note, my 2009 “problem” has a silver lining. I don’t mind having the material spill over into 2010, as long as I run out of them by April, the month I really consider the beginning of the year. It’s why I’m always late on my picks versus the two Chicago blowhards, Pitchfork, The Onion‘s AV Club and everybody else who thinks that the awful (Lily Allen), obscure (take your pick), overrated (Dead Weather) and overhyped (Phoenix) are the best albums you should spend your money on. My main concert buddy Mark and I hope to do a podcast for 2010, I think it’s a great way to start the decade.
So…KMAG broke through the 8000 song mark. It doesn’t sound impressive in an era with iPods capable of holding 40,000 (the old 160 GB, hard drive style) or 14,000 (the newer, better 64 GB Touch). True. But in this era of Podcasts, TV shows, movies and other content, does anybody really have that music on them anymore? I can only think of two people other than me who own this much digital music legitimately too.
I only wanted to bring up the factoids for trivial reasons. If I made the stream play from its first song (now A Camp’s “Boys Keep Swinging”) to its last (continues to be the Zutons’ “Pressure Point.”), it would take over 534 hours or 22 days to achieve. Not bad, I gained two and a half days from the last milestone.
Remember this too, commercial radio only works from 1000 or fewer songs, including those Bob, Fred and Jack setups, aka radio stations which are just iPods full of crap. It’s the awful legacy of Lee Abrams and his ilk. If you still listen to the radio at all, be prepared for more stations starting to sound alike courtesy of Arbitron’s latest measuring tool, the Portable People Meter, finally coming to Austin next year.
The upsides of the PPMs, based upon their initial results in the bigger markets :
- It confirmed what advertisers suspected, people change the channel during commercials.
- It confirmed what I always felt, most people change the channel when the DJs or morning shows do their self-indulgent blathering, ergo “comedy” or trying to be topical. Hopefully it will spell the end of boring egomaniacs Howard Stern, Bob & Tom (losers syndicated from India-no-place) and Austin’s own, not funny, Dudley & Bob Show (aka the Austin bitch and moan show) and 101x’s low-brow jibber-jabber fest.
- Talk radio isn’t as popular as once thought, at least not with people who have IQs over 100.
- This proved that many diary keepers only wrote down stations out of loyalty, again, this explains Howard Stern’s career.
The downsides and oddities the PPMs have found:
- The Bob, Fred and Jack stations have much improved ratings because these turn up often when people are channel surfing. Their content doesn’t please everyone all the time, just long enough to get Arbitron points.
- Spanish-speaking stations didn’t fare well. I think this will shift when the PPMs are implemented more in the Southwest like Austin, Houston, Phoenix, and San Antonio. It would deflate all the bluster the Hispanics made the night I went to meet FCC Commissioner Adelstein. Those jerks monopolized the whole evening as if they were the only people who mattered, never mind Austin’s numerous other ethnic groups.
- Count on hearing the same, awful songs on every radio station. Austin already received a sample of the future to come courtesy of ACL having Kings of Leon as a major headliner.
I think the future will continue to look bright for NPR stations.
Meanwhile, I am really looking forward to us buying a new car because its radio will have either an audio jack or USB connection for an iPod Nano or Shuffle we’ll buy to avoid listening to the radio. It will probably be filled with KMAG’s entire playlist.
On to 9000.