Digital Media is Mutating – an Interview with Head of Music at Last.fm

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Chris Price: Last.fm Knows Media – the Short Version

Discussion and interview with Chris Price: the Head of Music at Last.FM

This discussion and the videos on this page are about Last.fm, about Chris Price (the Head of Music at Last.fm), about the nature of digital and conventional media channels, and about the effects that the rapid media evolution has had and will have on your life and on Electronic Dance Music industry. But if you have no time to read… Here is how to enjoy the cool videos on this page: there are 2 vids with Chris Price below about digital media concerning Electronic Dance Music trends – one is a 6-minute interview with Chris Price of Last.fm embedded from my YouTube channel, and the other is the full 50-minute deal. You *don’t* have to be logged in to see the full Last.fm video – just scroll down and click to see it…..

The Long Version – Last.fm Is One of the Good Guys

So, digital media has a new face. This pertains to Electronic Dance Music and to everything else, by the way. I say that this face is one of a mutant (not in a bad way), because it has rapidly evolved in the past 6-7 years – under the pressures of the Internet and social marketing – but has not fully adapted to its own innovation. This sounds a bid absurd, but it makes sense because media itself isn’t fully in charge of media innovation, because a lot of innovation comes from pure technological progress and doesn’t immediately enter the channels of media distribution, so to speak.

Last.fm - the social media revolutionFor instance, and more specifically, in the Electronic Dance Music world, as well as in the world of music and entertainment in general, media has the job of sifting through trillions of gigabytes of digital data to find good content that is (a) engaging, (b) trendy, and (c) carries a promise of making money – and preferably in the long run – for the media channel. However, no TV or radio station – or any music website for that matter, regardless of its target audience, has the capacity to find the so-called “objectively best content,” or best entertainment value. Media never could do that. But in the past, it always tried. Today, trying this has become absurd. And so, I feel there are two distinct types of media channels today – those who provide tools for the public to define what is cool and then promote the resulting cool trends (songs, films, etc.), and those who don’t care what is best and simply find above-average content and then promote the f%ck out of it to make money.

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That said, people like Last.fm are cool because they give public the tools to find the cool and the glorious things that are worthwhile and because they don’t get involved in trying to make trends or to spread the “epic news” while advertising dollars are rolling in. Well, this is a simplified picture of things – a high-contrast version, so to speak. But the bottom line is this: media looks, sounds and smells cooler when (a) it is not engaged in politics and when (b) it manages to survive without selling a nickel for a dime because it provides a useful service to the public without pretending to be a big brother (MSNBS, FoxNews, the American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, and even BBC and MTV to some extent… forgive me for hurting your feelings of professional legacy, Chris!).

And so, I bring to you a couple of cool videos about a company that treats music artists and the art of music – EDM and otherwise – gracefully and respectfully and understands what people need… and lets them (the people) figure out what they want and what they love. To me, the greatest revelation from speaking with Chris is that media – whether it be radio or television or the Internet – is also a form of art and a form of entertainment. And the best thing is: companies – like Last.fm – are good at entertaining us AND give us the room to be ourselves.

Enjoy the videos and please share them with your friends: the first one is the YouTube embed of my 6-minute interview with Chris Price, and the second is his 50-minute discussion during ADE about EDM music trends in the entertainment industry as it pertains to digital music and personalization and visualization in the radio business.

Written by: Luke Kelvin (BPMstr)
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THE INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS PRICE – YOUTUBE EMBED

▼ THE 50-MINUTE VIDEO DISCUSSION – HOSTED HERE ▼

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