Second Fieldnotes

Article on How Pandora Works: Levine, Mike Music Business Insider: Q&A: Tim Westergren - hitPandora Maps the Musical Genome
Electronic Musician p. 76, 78
Mike Levine is an EM senior editor.
(Copyright 2007 by Penton Media, INC. All rights reserved.)
Key Points in Article:
This website is an opportunity for obscure bands to be played alongside already known bands. An automatic promotional tool.
"Seventy percent of our artists are not affiliated with a major record label."
Personal Experience:
Plug in Orson and a result comes out; even though Pandora is an American site, it does feature artists that are not necessarily well known in America or are signed to major record labels; have the option of submitting your own music
Came across The Feeling on the Orson station -- British trend?
Other bands that popped up: Cartel, Finn's Motel, Pete Yorn
You have the option to click on other users who also like Orson ("Find other Fans of this Artist")
"Why Was This Song Selected?" (on Orson): Based on what you've told us so far, we're playing this track because it features electric rock instrumentation, a subtle use of vocal harmony, major key tonality, a vocal-centric esthetic, and electric rhythm guitars.
Option to buy music you're listening to: links to iTunes and Amazon CD (iTunes only has Orson's first album)
Songs that follow on the station have slightly different qualities (usually from the list of qualities featured for the main artist, variation of 1 or 2 characteristics)
Is this a tool that serves to open up music tastes, too?

*Orson opened for Duran Duran -- launch of European success

Web 2.0 Article
http://eprints.qut.edu.au/9747/1/9747.pdf

"support for niche markets and interests which aggregate globally" (one of the concepts of Web 2.0)
"New large-scale web services have emerged which link music producers to consumers via artist similarity, taste profiling and recommendation data as well as linking listeners with shared tastes and interests. These include Last.fm, MySpace, Pandora.com, and a range of other social media and networking sites."
Also, influence of blogs: people will post music they like, review it, recommend it, attract a readership and spread the word
"Due to the low cost of distribution, and the absence of physical overhead costs, online services can now carry an 'infinitely large' catalogue and increasingly, the business models of online distribution are predicated on such a principle. As a result, a massive array of niche genres and out-of-print catalogue is available via online services and file sharing networks."
Many bands seem satisfied with Internet success
Less expenses - advertise online, people who want to listen will, spend only what you have to, no wasting of resources on advertisements
MySpace is a major force for bands; music, blog entries, videos, fan interaction
Pandora features Orson and shows the band's rhizomatic relationship to other bands that American listeners may have heard of before
In a video, they say, "We are famous for our fish and chips." --> they see themselves as British

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hefdniJdp6I&feature=PlayList&p=E60D1CB4C7A7592F&index=6: Interview with the band
THEY ARE SO SERIOUS! Kind of boring when they talk?
They're very simple and straight-forward
Prepared album in Hollywood, ready to go to Arizona to promote the music, but got a call to go to the UK to perform
If the UK wanted them, that's where they were going to be
British humor? American accents
Japan: Queen, Cheap Trick, KISS ... Japanese audience reception
Performed at Fuji Rock Festival in Japan, 2006; International music festival

http://www.last.fm/music/Orson?autostart
Orson labels
Similar artists mostly British
Fan interaction here
Rhizome relationships
lots of information on main page; fans, groups, discussions, tour dates, videos, music, etc.

My progress so far: I've been able to talk to a couple of Orson fans as well as see their interaction on sites such as Facebook where they can join an Orson fan group and write on the group profile's wall. The fans tend to be in their upper 20s to lower 30s, although there are plenty of college-aged fans as well. I'm starting to notice that Orson's success is not due to mass media publicity.