Last.fm is a music streaming service.  It is most interesting (to me) as a music discovery service.  And it’s completely free.  To discover music, type an artist that interstests you into the “Listen to Last.fm Radio” search box.  The service will play random songs from that artist and any other artist with similar tags, many of which you’ve probably never heard.  You can also search by tag (alternative, rock, Celtic, 80s, classical, etc.)  Just type in a tag and sit back and listen.

Last.fm also keeps track of the types of music you listen to, and there is a social aspect to the service as well, but I don’t use that.  It just makes a very convenient radio when I find myself without my own music collection, or when I’m in the mood for something new.

Finally, in my search for ever-increasing control over my online persona (yeah, I’m still not over that facebook thing), I came across chi.mp today.  In light of facebook’s recent content ownership and terms of service controversy, this site interests me.  It is currently in closed beta, and available by invitation only, so if anyone’s got an invitation code, please share the love!

Some select quotes from their website…

“Chi.mp lets you own and define ‘digital you’ and to share different versions of ‘digital you’ with your selected contacts. More than a life-stream or an aggregator, chimp allows you to take control of how you share your self with the world.”

“With chi.mp, you own everything you put on your chi.mp site – your domain, your content, your contacts – everything. With chi.mp, you own your identity.”

“Your chi.mp site includes a granular privacy feature – Multiple Personas, allows you to create multiple versions of you for different visitors when they are on your site. You assign content and contacts to each Persona that you create – this allows you to control ‘who sees what’. For example, people you don’t know see ‘public you’, your boss sees ‘work you’, your close friends might see ‘crazy you’ and your family members see ‘family you’.”

That sounds great to me.

But let’s face it, Michael Jackson was a pioneer, and I’m not embarassed to say that I have always liked his music and in fact I’m listening to his “Dangerous” album right now (which is what made me think to write this).

Where were music videos and MTV before “Thriller”?  His style of dance still inspires excitement to watch it.  Despite the fact that he never rapped (can you imagine?) I believe his style of technical, tight-rhythm-oriented music in a way inspired the next generation of rapper.

Granted, the man is a freak, and has been most of his life.  And I don’t approve of the lyrical themes in a lot of his songs.  But you can’t take away from his dance and musical talent.

I remember when I was in grade school in the early eighties.  My recollection is that Michael and Modonna where the top two singers.  You could like both of them because one was a boy and one was a girl.  Of course if you were a boy you were a little embarassed to say you liked Madonna, but Michael was cool.  Then I remember at some point Prince came into the popularity picture as a competitor and it became a question of “do you like Michael?” OR “do you like Prince?”  You couldn’t like both.  As a result, I never much listened to Prince in my younger years.  Kids are weird.  Growing up is weird.