BREAKING: Music is not relevant with friends

So Ping is bad. Shocker!

I’m taking an example with Sean. Sean is a friend and when he’s writing stuff on his blog about philosophy of life or feelings about behaviors, I pretty much agree 100% every time to what he says. Because reading about core values like how you see Life or how to take advantage of it, I feel respectful and ready to help or do whatever it is with someone I respect like Sean.

We’re connected through multiple social networks.

We both love music so much that we’ve been deeply involved in it, him from running an indie rock label to designing covers, me creating all my music by myself and self-publishing it since 10 years. We don’t listen to the same music at all. AT ALL.

Our musical tastes are irrelevant in the connected world and I find that amazing looking at how close I feel from his brain you know? And it happens with a lot of friends.

Music doesn’t say anything about who you are now. It says something about what you’ve been through, which is something secondary in friendship and social networks. What you needed as a soundtrack for your Life says quite a lot because in relation on where you were and when, it shows in what spirit you were and music is almost the only thing that can track your mood and feelings. But even if you shared it or that you’re sharing the current one with someone doesn’t mean you value the same things, buy the same stuff etc. Companies can’t use that to market anything, barely some music.

If a friend is recommending some music in a genre I’m not familiar with, I will trust him more than any algorithm or other automatic process. And the more people like music, the less they need recommendation from a software, they have friends and are actively and precisely searching by themselves.

I think it’s really misleading because music is a very personal thing so exposing it should make us able to find some people “like us” where companies could invest on that. But relationship is more than just sharing a spirit/mood for a moment. I believe we all go through the entire palette in our lives, at different moment and with different bands and sounds, but it’s the same: love, rebellion, independence, hedonism, experiment… It’s just something human, we all share that.

So filtering people through this huge common denominator that is music is saying pretty much nothing about people, even if you do it well (last.fm). So if like Ping you’re also doing it wrong…  Just die, merci.