music

The events of the past weekend renewed my appreciation for live music, especially the non-traditional (or to me at least) types. After four days/nights of music events, with genres ranging from singer/songwriter types to heavy-metal, screaming to jazz, I am hooked. Coming from someone who tends to frequent a number of concerts each month, it may seem like an arbitrary statement. However, my typical shows usually require at least a $40 commitment per show (and more often than not, the charge is more).

Don't get me wrong, I will still enjoy seeing a great show at my "usual venues" such as Red Rocks or the Bluebird, but there's just something to be said about being able to enjoy new music, at a venue I don't normally frequent (read dive bars) for only $22 (for four days!). The bottom line is the Underground Music Showcase rocked and I can't wait for next year. Along those same lines, I concluded a great weekend by enjoying a few hours of jazz music last night at City Park Jazz, which is an event that takes place weekly at Denver's City Park. With just two more Sundays remaining, I recommend anyone in the Denver area to take advantage of this awesome (and free) event.

And how ironic then that after listening to Pandora for just 20 minutes this morning at work, I received a message stating that I had reached my "monthly free listening limit." A co-worker had warned me of this just a few weeks ago, but I had nonchalantly disregarded his warning, until this morning. As someone who must have background music to survive at work, the once-free Pandora now charging for services comes as a bit of an upset. After throwing a silent fit, I clicked on the "learn more" link and found out that the "monthly free listening limit" is 40 hours per month, which, for someone who constantly streams Pandora at work, this only last for a week.

I thought the whole premise of Pandora is that it's a free service, which is why I can't choose to play specific songs (it reminds of this from time to time when I'm searching for a song or artist) or skip too many songs in a row by rating them with a thumbs-down.

Upon further inspection, I have discovered this morning that I have the option of paying $.99 to continue listening for the rest of the month (5 days) or I could fork out $36 to upgrade to Pandora One, which includes unlimited listening for one year and no daily "skip" limit (aka thumbs-down), however an hourly "skip" limit still applies. Because I primarily utilize Pandora as more of a background music service and am not an avid skipper, I am definitely choosing the $.99 option.

I realize $.99 is a minute figure, I guess I'm just disappointed that one of my simple pleasures in life, free streaming music during the workday, is no longer an option (with Pandora anyway). However, with all the cheap musical entertainment I enjoyed this weekend, I suppose it all evens out in the end.