Podcast Talk: What Now; iPodder

For the past few weeks I have been on a music kick. Some of you may find this difficult to believe, but I go months without listening to music other than whatever is on the radio when ABM is driving. This is difficult even for me to believe because I have always felt music so deeply that I often wonder why God didn't bless me with a singer's voice or a dancer's rhythm. It just seems that I have substituted the background noise of the TV for the music in my life.

Anyway, I found a podcast perfect for someone like me who has lost touch with new music. It is a 10-minute show called What Now that gives you the highlights of each Tuesday's new releases. The presenter, Mick Orlosky, used to work for MusicMatch and now works for Yahoo! so he must have connections that allow him to listen to all this music without emptying his bank account. The production quality is great; it sounds like a professional radio segment. Although Mr. Orlosky's musical tastes are a bit different than mine, I've already been introduced to a few cool tracks. He doesn't just play the single, which usually has gotten a ton of airplay already. He highlights what he deems to be the most interesting track on the CD. I'm sure I'll find out later that this podcast is just a marketing ploy to get people interested in Yahoo!'s new music subscription service, but I don't care. I still like it and I think you should give it a listen.

In other podcast babble, I finally downloaded iPodder for Windows. Ever since I started listening to podcast in late February, I've been hearing about iPodder and Adam Curry. Those who know me IRL know that I resist being mainstream in little stupid ways (remember the wailing and hand-wringing when ABM bought me a cell phone?). So when I started hearing on several different podcasts that Adam Curry was king of the podcast and that all podcasters genuflect before him, my useless little rebellious streak rose up and I decided I was going to try to find a different free aggregator to avoid using iPodder. Well, that was a fruitless search. I downloaded three and none of them worked to my satisfaction. I joined the masses that use iPodder and so far I am pretty happy with it.