Soft and Music

pI#39;m sitting at my computer. It#39;s about 11:00 in the morning./p pI#39;m listening to my streaming LAUNCHcast when I hear a familiar tune. It#39;s quot;Digquot; by the stalwart of early #39;90s alternative Christian music, Adam Again. However, it#39;s not the dark acoustic and reverb and nasal voice of Gene Eugene - it#39;s lighter acoustics and Dan Haseltine#39;s gentler voice leading the harmonies of Jars of Clay./p pI suddenly stare at my computer with a start - I didn#39;t know they covered that!/p pAnd I have something to look up later./p pJust as I did when I heard a Jimmy Eat World song I hadn#39;t heard before last week - quot;Dizzy,quot; from the Chase That Light album - and was so affected by the song that I just went out that night and - shock, horror - paid money at the record store for the album./p pJust as I did nearly ten years ago when the song was a set of snare drums ahead of some thin electric guitars that heralded the start of Sarge#39;s quot;Charms and Feigns,quot; and I simply had to know who that woman singing that song was./p pLAUNCHcast has been a wonderful old friend. And it#39;s going away. By the time you read this, it may already be gone./p pThe guys who started up LAUNCH Media in Santa Monica in 1999 had quite a few good ideas. I remember hitting up their website several times in the formative days, watching music videos and reading music news. God knows how many people they sucked in - or nearly repelled away - with ads featuring a new video by a new starlet, Britney Spears (those were the days). But there was plenty of music-based content to keep your eyes trained./p pAnd then there was LAUNCHcast. /p pCustomizable radio./p pStart rating your favorite artists, your favorite songs, your favorite genres. The scale goes from 0 to 100. Your station is then compared to other stations, especially those who rated similar songs high, and there would be an electronic hunt for songs that you might like. quot;Music that listens to youquot; is the promise./p pEven if it had been a false promise, I might have still been hooked at the mere concept. It wasn#39;t a false promise. The station began to figure out my favorite styles of music immediately, and select new stuff that I had never heard of and immediately loved. The programming of the widget was simply amazing. /p br