What if there was a way to determine that the music you listen to is cool beyond peer acceptance, Pitchfork reviews, blog love and style? I’m talking about a quantifiable way in which you could be confident that the next time you put on Dirty Projector’s Bitte Orca or the latest Passion Pit remix at a social event, it will be both relevant and “cool” to your guests?
I jest but music technology enthusiast Paul Lamere is attempting to do just that. Imagine each artist – from Abba to ZZ Top had a number associated with them to indicate how cool the artist currently is. Lamere’s ‘Coolness Index’ could be used for example, in playlists so that your iTunes shuffle won’t play anything deemed ‘uncool’ like Nickelback or Miley Cyrus in between Bon Iver and Blur at a party.
One of Lamere’s sources was the social music networking site like Last.FM which recently published a list of songs and artists which users had deleted from their libraries the most. ‘The Most Unwanted Chart’ included Katy Perry’s ‘I Kissed A Girl’, Lady Gaga’s ‘Pokerface’ and songs from Britney and Rihanna.
He also search for artists on Last.FM tagged with ‘Guilty Pleasure’ which identifies music people are embarrassed to listen to. The most common cross section of both lists resulted in Avril Lavigne, Britney, Katy Perry, Nelly Furtado, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Miley Cyrus and The Jonas Brothers. Mostly female. It seems there’s a lot more uncomfortable males listening to these acts than you’d imagine.
In other news, music blog aggregator The Hype Machine recently discovered that artists and their label reps were attempting to boost their own placings in the site’s popular charts through fake accounts and repeated listens. Anthony, the site owner then published the list of 40 or so artists who had attempted such cheap hacks and it included artists like Master Shortie, Weekend Warriors, Burns, Princess Superstar and Star Guitar. None are very popular artists but now they are not cool either..
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Fri, Jul 10, 2009