Sean Alexander

Back during the dotcom bubble, there were a number of sites popping up that offered a simple way for folks to share their playlists (not music). Some services like Napster do a so-so job of this, and even iTunes Music Store has the concept of Celebrity Playlists (I still have no idea what Jackie Chan is listening to, and that’s okay). Let’s face it, celebrities (ahem their publicists) aren’t any better at building playlists than most of us are. But a useful way of finding music that works well is elusive- unless you use iMix on iTunes, and then you’re locked into their service.

The topic struck me a few weeks ago when I was looking at the latest version of MoodLogic. We were throwing a dinner party and let’s face it, listening to Aerosmith and Kanye West doesn’t really set the mood for a sit-down dinner. What I wanted was a site for playlists where I could search on tags like, “November”, “Fall”, “Dinner” and get a list of good songs. Then I could sort based on popularity (and here’s an idea- opt-in popularity based on age group. Sorry, I don’t listen to the same music a 16 yo does downloading heavily off of MSN Music). I asked Chris Pirillo if such a service existed, we couldn’t find one anymore. MoodLogic comes close, and Yahoo Music has a great personalization engine, but they’re based on your own music library. Search engines do an abysmal job of cataloging mixes too. I tried again the other day when building my ultimate Gym Mix (6 miles of pain!)

With the advent/re-emergence of Tagging, RSS, media player plug-ins, and a number of legitimate music stores now available, I think there’s an interesting opportunity for personalizing music based on playlist sharing and moods. And I don’t think it should be locked to any one group or service.

Radio networks spend hundreds of thousands to millions programming their stations, but they’re so formulaic. Isn’t it time that we start aggregating our own playlists via an online service? We do it for collections of photos on Flickr, so where’s our Mixr?

And with that, I offer my latest:

Sean’s Gym Playlist – Soundtracks
Tags: October; Mix; Gym; Soundtrack; Power; Pump Up;

1. Jesus Walks – Kanye West (from Jarhead trailer)
2. Precious – Depeche Mode (from Smallville Vol II: Metropolis Mix)
3. Anvil of Crom – Basil Pouledouris (from Conan the Barbarian)
4. Dragula (Hot Rod Herman remix) – Rob Zombie (from the Matrix)
5. Learn to Crawl -Black Lab (Spider-Man)
6. Everybody out of the Water – The Wallflowers (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation)
7. Would? – Alice in Chains (Singles Soundtrack)
8. Lose Yourself – Eminem (8 Mile Soundtrack)
9. Blow Me Away – Breaking Benjamin (Halo 2 Soundtrack)
10. Gladiator – Hans Zimmer (Gladiator Soundtrack)

Got some others? Send them my way.