digital detritus

Look out kids, here comes a rant.

The question for the day is this: Music, why is it always about music?

Ok, that’s a little vague, so let me go into a bit more depth. I got an iPod from my family over the holidays and I’ve been enjoying it ever since. The sound is great, I’ve jumped completely on the podcasting bus and I’ve been able to listen to all kinds of really great stuff during my commute to work. But it’s also made me think a lot about the idea of audio metadata. I love the idea of being able to search, sort and group my collection by different information about them. One of my favorites is genre. I just run into one problem, I really love the spoken word and in particular radio dramas. For some great radio dramas check out BBC Radio 7.

Radio dramas come in all sorts of different flavors. Science fiction, mystery, adventure and comedy are all types of radio dramas. But spoken word goes well beyond just radio dramas, there are also things like poetry, lectures, news. I think you get the idea. Unfortunately I don’t think the folks writing software to manage audio collections or the folks building audio players get the same idea. Everything that I’ve seen so far seems to be designed on the assumption that they are only music players.

So, that’s enough complaining on my part, I do have some suggestions:

• Broaden the idea of genre to include different kinds of audio other than music,
• Allow for true sub-genres so that file can have multiple tags (e.g. spoken word and adventure).
• Use folksonomic tags in audio data to allow for many different points to identify it (e.g. spoken word, adventure, children, fantasy).
• All of this would benefit music as well as non-music since multiple tags/genres exist everywhere.

All of this is would be possible in lossy formats like MP3 and OGG and lossless formats like FLAC and Shorten.

Edit: Seems that I’m not the only person who’s thinking about this either:

• MP3 Tagger (mp3 folksonomy)
• Tagging Songs

Straight from the folks at the Social Security Administration. Link. I wonder if George II knows about this? Let’s all get on the same bus here folks, Even the SSA knows that privatization (which should always be read canceling) is a very bad idea.

Question
I think I could do better if you let me invest the Social Security I pay into an Individual Retirement Plan (IRA) or some other investment plan. What do you think?

Answer
Maybe you could, but then again, maybe your investments wouldn’t work out. Remember these facts:

• Your Social Security taxes pay for potential disability and survivors benefits as well as for retirement benefits;
• Social Security incorporates social goals - such as giving more protection to families and to low income workers - that are not part of private pension plans; and
• Social Security benefits are adjusted yearly for increases in the cost-of-living - a feature not present in many private plans.

Lately I’ve been really fascinated by several things, rss enclosures, the internet archive, the creative commons and really good music. This album (Wakka Chikka Wakka Chikka) from the folks at Comforstand is a great example of all of those things. In this case it’s a lot of people getting together to produce, well, I’ll let you decide what they have produced. The music is free, it’s licensed with a creative commons license, it’s good, I found it on the internet archive and I can include one of the songs as an rss enclosure. So, enjoy.

Even if you have never seen a porn movie in your lifetime, almost everyone in the world knows what the ‘Wakka Chikka Wakka Chikka’ represents… Each person, upon hearing it, mentally interprets the ‘Wakka Chikka Wakka Chikka’ in their own way, fueling a range of emotions from lust to disgust. This CD represents 17 individual artists’ interpretations of the ‘Wakka Chikka Wakka Chikka’; each providing their own unique cultural and geographic spin on the vibe that is “Wakka Chikka Wakka Chikka’. From celebrations of the beauty of intimacy to a cautionary tale of excess, this collection of sound sculptures of the ‘Wakka Chikka Wakka Chikka’ mystique from around the world will guide you into the heart of all that is ‘Wakka Chikka Wakka Chikka’.

So turn the lights down low, light a few candles, put this CD on the stereo and let the magic of the ‘Wakka Chikka Wakka Chikka’ take you wherever you want to go.

Check out this track.

[composed and posted with ecto]