Great moments in Redundancy: "Mood Music."

Jon, over at Business Evolutionist has a great post on the Future of Radio. I like his conclusion: Genre is limiting, Mood programming is the real end product, because feel is why we buy music:

Now, I think that radio needs to better understand what people want. Some radio stations will exist longer than others, there will always be demand for Top 40 or news, those stations will last the longest - regardless of the underlying technology infrastructure delivering the music (satellite, etc). But the radio stations that want to be in business 10 years from now will need to better understand how consumers choose music. Let me give you an example, we just got a new radio station in my area - Smooth Jazz 92.7, they play (shockingly) smooth jazz (FULL DISCLOSURE: I know one of the DJs). It isn't that I like or even know half the artists on the station, but the music is essentially all the same and I know how I will feel when I listen to it, actually, they've transcended "genre" and they're offering "mood". The radio station that can do that, does have a future, albeit a short one. Genre can be all over the map, mood is a much better programming method. If a radio station decides that they will go this route, they'll have to understand that they will give up listeners because not everyone will be in that mood all the time (yikes, did I just write that?). For instance, I listen to the Jazz station mostly in the evening, when I'm reading, etc. When I'm driving to work, for instance, I don't want to listen to Stairway to Heaven - I want Master of Puppets. On the drive home however, I want to know about traffic and Master of Puppets isn't quite right... perhaps some Jeff Buckley or Alicia Keys.

Think about it, radio stations program their music by genre, but most peoples CD collection is all over the map. Right? Our CD collection, currently around 400, is so diverse and eclectic that it defies categorization. Sure, there are some CDs of mine that my wife will never listen to... and some of hers that I will never, ever listen to, but it is all over the map - from ABBA to Zebra - and there is probably no radio station in the world that has played songs from both of those artists.

Got ABBA. Got Air. Got Aerosmith and Argent. But no Zebra. Does Buckwheat Zydeco count? My .02: Wow. Right on with the idea of transmitting mood. That's how I select and program my own "radio station"--my collection of mp3s on PC and those self-burned CDs. If "it's the experience economy, stupid" (and it is is, right?), why the hell are so many industries that should really know better repeating the past *rudimentary* mistakes of the IBMs and the Railroads and you name its? Never mind, I'm sure we all know the answer. The weird part is, marketers have known since the advent of reel-to-reel and cassettes that people do program their own collections into compilations themed around feeling states--a jump start for the heart or a cool down, if you will--high school, college, 'mellow,' 'raging,' or whathaveyou. They even sell products like the minidisc or iPod showing handwritten "labels" made by art directors for the product shoots with names like "Sunday Morning Papers" or "Beach or Bust."

Who are the A&R people researching these evocative moments and creating the understanding of what makes one different from the other? And what we get from them? That's Golden Goose territory.

Jon's got more on the topic, as well as some interesting comments, some from inside the radio biz.