Podcast coming soon, probably

For a while I’ve wanted to find a way to talk about musicians and bands that I love.

Well, there are dozens and probably hundreds of music related podcasts. Everyone has a podcast. I didn’t want to start one until I had a “unique value prop”. It had to be something not offered by others. I couldn’t just monologue about my favorite music, or even music that was widely popular. They’ve been covered, in all media formats. And that would be boring to everyone but myself.

I had wanted to make 1 great music podcast, but as I began sketching out themes and episode ideas, I couldn’t narrow the ideas down into just 1 podcast. It took a while, but I’ve narrowed down 2 unique ideas, so Instead of 1 podcast, I’m making 2. And at the time of writing this, I haven’t had a chance to redesign the art for it, so you’ll notice the title of the podcast in the image above isn’t listed below…

Podcast 1 - Miss or Masterpiece?

I would dive into musicians that are well known, but only their works that were flops. I would only review albums that were badly received at the time they came out and have been all but forgotten. The question I want to answer at the end of each album review would be:

Was this album a miss, or masterpiece? In other words, has it been forgotten for good reason, or was it unlucky or wrongfully judged?

I’ll dive into the world and conditions surrounding the album’s release as well as the musicians who made it. Sometimes, something good is looked at poorly due to the circumstances surrounding it. I’ve written 3 episodes so far, and have sketched out many others. I’ll give a tease of the first episode, which gives a great explanation of the types of albums I’ll be reviewing:

The Bee Gees were on top of the world with some of their disco themed hits in the late 70’s, but almost overnight, disco became uncool, and so the Bee Gee’s popularity died with it. The subsequent album they made after all this went down couldn’t get airplay and was poorly received by critics and fans alike. But, was this due to the music itself being bad? Or was it due to the anti-disco (and unfortunately anti-Bee Gees) feeling in the air at the time?

It would also be great to have different guests on and have them react to hearing some of these albums for the first time, of bands they are very much aware of. The goal would be to look at these works with fresh ears and and eyes, without any of the circumstance of years ago, and just judge them on the merit of the music itself, and nothing else.

Podcast 2 - Songs In The Key Of Life

Spotify, Apple Music, and others all provide great methods to discover new music. They analyze everything you listen to, the genres, the year, the popularity, the sounds, and even what your friends are listening to. All of this goes into an engine that curates specific things it’s confident you will like, based on what you and your friends like.

There’s one problem with this however. These streaming services recommend music that is similar to what you already like, because there is a high chance you’ll like it. So how will you ever music that is NOT like anything you already listen to, but that you will enjoy just as much?

Spotify and Apple can’t do that. If you only listen to rap, the algorithms will recommend rap songs you haven’t heard, and possibly some popular songs from adjacent categories like R&B or hip hop. But what if, unknown to you, that you would REALLY love 1960’s Motown music? How would these streaming services every know to recommend it to you if you and none of your friends listen to 60’s Motown?

Most of everyone has music that life has recommended to you. It’s a song that you heard in a grocery store, it’s music that only your dad listened to on road trips when you where a kid, it’s that song from that one video game you played with your best friend, or that track from a TV show you saw that wasn’t very popular but you just stumbled upon it.

Those are the songs and artists I want to share with everyone. It’s the music that I would have never heard if I was looking for it, or even asking to find it. It’s the musicians and bands that absolutely NOTHING like any of the other bands I listen to, and that no friends or family listen to. I just stumbled upon them organically. Do they have a following, of course, but they aren’t “hit makers” most of the time. These are songs that I want more people to know about and enjoy.

It would be great to have guests on who get to also share the songs and artists that have been organically found in their life, purely at random.