Okay, here we go again. Despite our on-the-pulse news delivery, next-level graphic design, “don’t go there, girl”-style record reviews, easy-to-use interface, up-to-the-minute commentary, a crack team of writers, a self-proclaimed “highly sexual” team of editors, and all of the references you could ever want to this one band called Zazen Boys (?), some of you out there still insist on allowing Expert Listening Services (ELS's) other than Tiny Mix Tapes (TMT) to soullessly manufacture the pop culture-related sections of your Social Networking Site (SNS) profiles from the, uh... you know, “ground up.”
So fine. We can handle this. Now, iTunes is getting in on our racket? We say “let them come.”
Panel is a new app in the, you know, App Store founded by L.A. producer Darius Fong that aims to provide music lovers (read: “the opposite of music lovers”) with recommendations from a so-called panel of music industry experts who will stream two albums per week in various iTunes-centric categories (rock, pop, alternative, indie, jazz, hip-hop, etc.) and then, basically, tell you what they like about these albums. It’s kinda like when you go into a good record store and they always have those little handwritten descriptions stickered onto the CDs in the New Releases rack. Except that you’ll also be able to stream the albums (er, that’s the eventual plan, it seems, anyway).
As of now, confirmed panelists include Mark and Wendy Redfern, founders of Under the Radar magazine, Jason Hughes, owner of Seattle's iconic Sonic Boom Records, popular music blogger Justin Gage of Aquarium Drunkard, producer/musician Matt Bayles, and Peter Harper -- sculptor and... wait for it... Ben Harper's brother. Again, each of these cats will offer interviews, album descriptions, etc. for two albums each week. Of course, Panel offers users that dangerous, dangerous one-touch access to the iTunes store where they can be the first to eagerly swipe up The Next Pavement (TNP), carry it over to the digital counter, purchase with their creased and crumpled digital tip money from their analog jobs, tear off the digital shrink-wrap, affix that digital sticker-label thing proudly to the digital trashcan outside where everyone sticks their digital sticker-label things like badges of consumerist valor, run to their digital cars, throw the thing into the digital tray, and mmm-mmm-mmhmmm: savor the sweet, sweet sound of that compressed, downsampled Wowie Digital Zowie (WDZ).
Well, shit. I guess that’s pretty much it for us here at TMT, then. Good luck in the new decade, folks. Mr P, could you hand me that gas can over there? P??? Yeah... the gas can. No... it’s... yeah, over there, it’s back there. Okay cool... thanks.
