Finding Music

Finding enjoyable new music is hard. [Is that “is” of predication or “is” of identity?] Radio gave up the ghost years ago due to industry consolidation. Now all we have on the dial are programmed playlists driven by payola. I can drive for hours and hear the same manufactured songs over and over regardless of the city, state, or region. So let’s agree: Radio is a cultural wasteland, only slightly better than TV. Yes, there are exceptions, especially around colleges, but even then a lot of them suck.
The iTunes Music Store is a bit better, if only because I can drive my choices, and I can bail out of the 30-second preview whenever I want. Plus you get the browsing-helpful “customers who bought X also bought Y.” And, one-click instant gratification. What’s not to like? Well, Apple’s DRM I suppose, but it hasn’t gotten in my way so far, and the terms are reasonable IMO.
Today comes MusicLens a graphical dashboard which allows you to set musical parameters and then returns a list of songs that match your criteria. You can preview the songs, and I suppose there’s some way to buy them. I like this better than Pandora because I can change the settings, myself, on the fly. Worth playing with.
Update: Fred Wilson posted today about music discovery too. Must be in the air.