CBS has notified its paid last.fm users that it will go dead on April 28th. The music business is changing and that product no longer makes sense for CBS to operate.
In slightly related news, BIA/Kelsey announced today that based on their projections in the rapid growth of paid digital service income, total radio business revenue could return to 2008 levels as soon as 2018.
Bye bye, Miss American Pie… Drove my Chevy Volt to the levee until the battery charge went dry…
When I saw this post, I checked my last.fm page in time to see that I had just “scrobbled” my 1 millionth song to last.fm (and its predecessor Audioscrobbler) since February 2005. The last.fm streaming service is the service that’s being shut down. The streaming service came along well after last.fm began and I never used it. The “scrobbling” service will continue, for the time being at least. Scrobbling is basically the reporting of information about the songs you play on your computer or mobile device. The site keeps ongoing stats about your music and enables you to meet others who like the same music as you, which I suppose is only helpful if you like a lot of non-mainstream music. (I’m WNR-TJD at last.fm if anyone is interested in checking that out.)
A million scrobs is a lot. That’s like 300 a day – basically non stop every day for 9 years. Sounds even more addictive than SRGuide volunteer points.
Yes but those volunteer points seemed to accumulate much faster than the scrobbles!
Art, When you live in Connecticut, ever go just over the southwest border and visit Rye, New York for a hard drink?
http://rock.rapgenius.com/Don-mclean-american-pie-lyrics#note-519088
I have driven through Rye a couple times. It appeared to be a bare knuckles kind of place. US 1 is a road that might make Thomas Jefferson uncomfortable.
“McLean’s lyrics in this verse reflect the music of the 1950s with sock hops, slow dancing with girls and making out in pickup trucks. Then it all ended on the day Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and J.P. Richardson died. In the chorus, American Pie represents rock and roll music. His Chevy represents America. McLean and his friends used to drink at a bar called the Levee in New Rochelle. When it closed, McLean and his friends moved on to Rye, New York drinking away their sadness at the loss of Buddy Holly. The final reference is to Holly’s That’ll Be the Day lyric, that’ll be the day that I die.” http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/239719-james-quinn/32460-american-pie
Wow, just burst my bubble.
How about leaving the cake out in the rain in McArthur Park and all the green icing running down?
A Brit on holiday visited and made his video tribute ” in Macarthur Park, Los Angeles early one May morning whilst on holiday in 2007″
Whilst indeed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHS8hj4TdT8
If is funny. McLean would never talk about the meaning of the lyrics to that song despite so many questions from so many people. One time when he was asked decades ago what the song means, he did reply “it means I will never have to work another day in my life if I don’t want to.” lol
Everyone knows the song was written to give radio DJs a bathroom break.
I like the story being “Horse with No Name” being a because of a bet.
If your icing flowing down is green, go to a doctor and get some autibiotics.
I worked at my college radio station, WNYU, in the days before it moved to the FM dial (anyone remember ‘carrier current’?) A record company promo guy came in with another fellow one afternoon during my show and they sat down on our control room couch. Our music director, David Vanderheyden, wandered in and the record company guy asked Dave what he thought of the new and unusually long single he’d sent over a week or so before. “It sucks,” Dave said. The promo guy motioned toward his colleague on the couch and said, “Dave, I’d like you to meet Don McLean.” Dave was somewhat nonplussed but went on to become music director of the legendary progressive rock station WNEW-FM for about 25 years, during which time ‘American Pie’ was undoubtedly played several thousand times. Don McLean went on to become Don McLean and to the best of my knowledge, has never needed to work another day in his life.
As an aside, Martha Quinn went to NYU- one of the nation’s best universities.