I give Nickelback a lot of crap, I know. I also know that 3.7 gazillion people love that band. I hold up acts like Nickelback and Miley Cyrus as shining examples of boring, tepid major label waste product (which they are). Is it because they’re not edgy enough for me? No, there are plenty of bands that are edgy to the point where I can’t listen to them. The entire punk genre, for example, or some of Ben Folds‘ earlier work. Just because something is too misshapen to fit in the focus-group approval box doesn’t mean it’s good either.

I propose that music is like any other recipe; there are main ingredients and there are accents. A plain lump of chicken breast (Nickelback) is not, by itself, a meal. If all you ate were plain chicken breasts your taste buds would most likely atrophy and fall off your tongue. On the other hand, a diet consisting entirely of black peppercorns (punk) would burn your mouth and leave you starving to death.

This, I believe, is an oversight on the part of most major labels and some indie artists. So that mellow, 90-bpm rock song sold 20 million round discs. It’s a good cut of meat, sure, but it’s only one part of the meal. You don’t want the entire album (or the band’s entire catalog) to sound like that one market-ready radio-friendly überhit ’cause the fans will get bored.

Here’s a secret: The artists will too. Most artists (songwriters at least) have a diverse range of output. This is what drives guys like Garth Brooks to become Chris Gaines or George Carlin to be Mr. Conductor. An artist’s output should reflect their humanity as a whole, not just the radio-friendly side or the dirty underground side. An album, especially, should sound like a well-balanced meal tastes.

If you don’t believe me, open up a restaurant that serves only unflavored pasta and chicken. Let me know how that goes for you.

If you remember me asking you via email to bug the folks over at Pandora, I’d like to thank you for your efforts. Even though one representative said they couldn’t find the CD’s I sent them months ago, it seems they must’ve found one. Goodbye Planet Earth is now available on the most cutting edge internet radio station, ready to stream!

(By the way, if you don’t remember me asking you about this, you’re not signed up for my email list yet.)

Why is this a slice of awesome pie? Two reasons: First, Pandora pays its BMI licensing fees like any other radio station, so the more my music plays on their system the more likely I’ll actually see a royalty payment (and, therefore, eat). Since the stations are built around a recommendation engine, my tunes will be played any time someone searches for someone famous like Ben Folds or Keane. They don’t even have to specifically search for my obscure name.

Second, since a lot of people will hear my music because I’m similar to the artists they’re searching for, there’s a good chance some of them might become fans of mine. I know more than a few people who have discovered new artists they like because of Pandora. As much as the RIAA likes to ignore it, people do in fact buy albums via iTunes and Amazon from Pandora recommendations.

So thank you, all of you, who helped raise the awareness! Hopefully some more of my albums will appear in their system soon, but for now you’ve really helped me break into a new playing field!

Every music site I sign up for has the same Influences field. To say that an artist influenced me is rather trivial… I may not like 50 Cent, but his work has influenced me (in the “dear God don’t ever let me sound like that” kind of way).

There are a certain number of acts, however, that throughout my development have made me want to play better, write better, entertain better, and be better. They are the ones that made me ask, “why can’t I do that?” And then I asked, “what can I do to be like that?” It’s the line between influence and inspiration, and there’s 7 on my list that cross that line.
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I get to go see [tag]Ben Folds[/tag] tonight at an in-studio performance. I think it’s at the Sony Tree studio where I helped cut a demo for a friend a couple years back, so I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a very intimate venue.

Ben’s one of those piano-rock icons that everybody’s heard, but not many people really recognize. And he’s arguably the best producer this town has ever seen. I can’t wait to finally see him in person, especially at a show without a huge noisy crowd or a giant ampitheatre PA system.