If you aren’t using Pandora Radio, you are missing an amazing chance to share your music with new fans.

Pandora is the largest and fastest growing radio platform in the world with 45 million registered listeners and growing in the United States.

Pandora offers a unique opportunity to independent musicians – Pandora prides itself on selecting music using a level playing field, where music is considered for inclusion solely based on quality.

Once music is selected for inclusion, the unique musical identity of a song is analyzed through the Music Genome Project. Those attributes are then used to create personalized stations for each listener based on their musical tastes.

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I had the opportunity to ask Pandora founder Tim Westergren some questions about the role of independent music at Pandora. Here’s what he had to say:

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London’s The Independent published an interesting interview with Tony Wadsworth, former EMI chief when Radiohead left EMI.  His view of the industry is worth a read.
An excerpt:
“The industry is moving from a transaction based business to a usage and licensing business,” says Wadsworth. He cites the interactive computer games Guitar Hero and Rock Band as [...]

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MTV recently accounced that they will enable any artist-unsigned emerging act, indie cult fave or major-label superstar-to submit songs for possible inclusion in the Rock Band game.

The plan isn’t as simple as uploading a song to iTunes or anything like that. Rather, artists and labels will submit songs to a community of trained freelance game developers and other interested programmers who will prepare the tracks for Rock Band. Additionally, labels can either hire trained developers or school their existing employees to do the work in-house.

Songs submitted through this process must then be reviewed by other developers to check for playability, inappropriate lyrics, copyright infringement and so on. Then approved tracks will be posted to an in-game download store separate from its existing “Rock Band” store where creators can set their own price (50 cents to $3 per song) and receive 30% of any resulting sales. Gamers will also be able to demo 30-second samples of each track.

If this process works and allows for any musician to have a fair chance of getting their music uploaded for games, it could obviously be a great way to attract new fans, as well as allow fans to add some individuality to their game playing experience.

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Some interesting tidbits from a recent LA Times Interview with Napster founder Shawn Fanning:
Since Napster came out in 1999, the music industry has undergone a seismic shift. How do you think that industry is doing now?
I definitely think it’s in rough shape. The margins for digital music are awful for everyone other than the record [...]

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I was able to track down the ubiquitous Brian Zisk, Executive Producer of the upcoming SF MusicTech Summit IV (Monday, May 18, 2009 in San Francisco), and Shoshana Zisk, co-producer of the event.

An excerpt:

What motivated you to begin producing the SF Music Tech conferences?

Brian: I love getting people together, and there is a plethora of music/technology talent in the San Francisco Bay Area. …. Plus our conference is different. Many shows are all about just the CEOs and VPs of marketing. They tend to leave their tech guys at home, not wanting to let others even know who the developers/creators are. Our event specifically brings together the developers and CTOs to share knowledge and promote synergies and innovation. Then the business execs, press, and investors all want to get in with these great creators.

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This is such a practical and smart idea from Bob Baker’s site that I wanted to be sure more people were exposed to this.
Podcasts are nice, but are frankly slow moving for many quick-paced internet folks.
Many fans crave more information to better relate to your music, but most sites don’t have enough of this.  Any [...]

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I recently read two quotes from guitarist Rich Robinson of the Black Crowes about record labels and why the Black Crowes chose to use their own label, Siver Arrow Records, for distribution of their upcoming new album Warpaint:

From the March 2008 Paste Magazine: “… these assholes who are sitting on this sinking ship – and have caused the ship to sink – still don’t even understand why it’s sinking.

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