Experience, knowledge, familiarity and a timely topic make for great conversation. — “A playlist is not a marketing plan.” It’s a catchy phrase and an intuitive axiom of the record business. But people may, from time to time, need to be reminded that something as small as a single playlist cannot be the focal point of marketing campaigns. …

Retail has little interest in the compact disc. If downloads were the nail, streaming is the hammer. Seeing a mass merchant’s CD section drives the point home, however. Over the years I’ve seen the decline of the CD at a Target store near my home in Nashville. No matter what…

Here are my picks for influential music business people who aren’t on Billboard’s 2019 Power 100 list. — Billboard’s latest Power 100 is out today. Just for fun, I thought I’d make my own list of powerful, influential people not likely to make Billboard’s list. Do these lists matter? I don’t know. They could matter to the extent Billbchart position matters in the record industry—which is a lot…

They highlighted the best music of the year. I’m highlighting the best highlights of the year in music. — I’ll keep the introduction brief. Here is a list of the best of the year-end “best of” lists that started rolling out after Thanksgiving. The notion of what’s best is a distinction made subjectively. My “best of” list includes the lists I liked, not necessarily the best ones. Although I…

It’s not an exhaustive list, but a good list. — If you like documentaries, you’re at the right place. This list, compiled from recommendations I received on Twitter, is originally from my Curio Dojo email. Sign up to receive emails here. Four decades of releases are represented here: the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, ’00s and ’10s—more if you count archival footage…

An introduction to Java is barely holding my interest. — You must code! How many times have I read or heard that coding is a necessary skill? How often do I hear somebody implore the public to learn to code. Constantly. Everywhere. From all corners of the world. Entrepreneurs. Politicians. Educators. Parents. New careers can be built. Life-changing. Career independence…

Who jumps out of a fucking plane?! I did. And I loved it. Cheating death. For over a month, I’ve thought of the best description for my first skydiving experience. It felt like I was cheating death. I’m horizontal, legs splayed, arms out at a 90-degree angle, my body hurtling down through the atmosphere at upward of 120 miles per hour. The three things separating me from a certain death are a main and…

The jump was a demarcation line that perfectly cleaved the before and after. What’s different about life after the jump? Everything feels a bit easier. What felt daunting now feels achievable. Tall obstacles have shrunk to mere hurdles. Most are high hurdles. Some low hurdles. But hurdles nonetheless. Making the decision to jump out of an airplane going 75 miles per hour at 14,000 feet—even making the decision to show up at the airstrip—wasn’t too hard. Honestly!