I found tons of albums through the old rec system. That is because I am always interested in old jazz, and one old jazz record inevitably leads to another.
I also have little use/patience for any rec system that's just going to spit out new hits and "hot artists" at me. That said, I got the free Frankie Rose track, liked it, and bought the album (tho on mTraks).
Nothing wrong with liking MFR. It's just if any rec engine (emu or elsewhere) is gonna rec me something that I find awful, there better be some logic to why it's showing up in my queue. There were plenty of albums that I didn't like that the old rec engine threw my way, but typically, I could figure out common-sensedly how they ended up on my rec list. I'm not calling foul on bad music if its presence is explainable.
But I get more appropriate to me recs from Amazon just by using it for album covers. I'm not a computer expert, but I would imagine the size of the data base would give 'better' recs. I used to find more at emusic by going through new releases before the changes. I could scan fairly quickly, now the time taken to do that puts me off.
In a way the "Customers Who Bought This Also Bought" feature at Amazon reminds me of the way eMu USED to show other members Lists, etc., on album pages - these were always the best way to browse off down the rabbit hole and find something new and unexpected. Like to see those back, dammitall. Of course the cheaper prices back then made gratuitous voyages of discovery more of a going proposition.
DdB, now that you mention it, I remember when eMusic had a neighbors system that worked as you described and you could "friend" someone to follow their download and reviews.
Friend? Friend....Good.
Actually the Friend feature is still there, and if you go to someone's profile you still can Add them as a friend.
Neighbors, however, are history. That feature hadn't been working very well for some time before it disappeared anyhow - it was downright strange and buggy the last times I saw it.
I used to use the Friend feature to check out other members Lists back when I had more enthusiasm - like back when I used to bother maintaining my own Lists before the rampant changes and malignant resentment dampened said enthusiasm. Not much point in making Lists right now because the webmonkeys have managed to make the Comment feature nonfunctional on SFLs and all personal Lists. What a bunch of bozos.
and I rejoined over the weekend at the lite level. I figure one album a month is a good cap for me and keeps the odd and inexpensive stuff they still have. It also means I can quit any time vs an annual plan.
The end is getting close. I've now got 33 tracks left in my balance. Some of those will go on the new Ebo Taylor album due out today, then probably the rest will come from my SFL. I'm going to put my account on hold for a couple of months initially to see how I get on without emusic, as I'd never get my grandfathered plan back if I cancel and decide it is a bg mistake. I've not been to the message board there after a couple of weeks away from it whilst on holiday and at a conference, that no longer has the pull it used to have. I suspect that I'll dip back in again for a month or two around July/August to catch up with key new releases and then come out again for another few months. But maybe the addiction will cause me to go back sooner for another fix....
After my latest bout with trying to get emusic to work, I do have a question for those who know more than I do about computers.
Browsers don't share cache processes, right? If I am seeing the same thing in three different browsers, one of which I hardly ever use and a second of which I haven't used for a couple of weeks, and emusic tell me to clear my cache and do a browser reload, are they just guessing and hoping it goes away (in this case with some justification because it did go away before they had chance to fix it) or is there some way that this could be a browser cache issue? I am trying to figure out whether emusic customer service is insulting my intelligence or exposing my ignorance.
@GP, yeah you're right - they are just adding insult to injury. It is their crappy website that is FUBAR, not people's browsers or computers. I have yet to clear my cache or do a browser reload - I just move on until they patch the latest hole in their leaky dinghy, then it's OK again until the next snafu. Funny how these acronyms generate from the same WW II database but the latter has been assimilated into the vernacular enough to be used as a noun in its own right. I just find it reprehensible that eMu routinely uses this strategy of trying to keep their customers on the defensive while not owning up to their own massive screw up.
So it's an instance of Mungspeak, which I'm going to define as making several incremental changes to an item that combine to destroy it and then speaking in such a way as to mendaciously imply its continued integrity.
GP... the cache for different browsers are independent of each other. You can check to see the location of Firefox cache files by type "about:cache" in the address bar of Firefox. For IE go into Tools/Internet Options/Browsing History - 'Settings' button/ and look under the section titled "Current Location".
eMu suggesting that their users clear their cache is probably something that worked for some problem way back when and as a result made it into their troubleshooting scripts. It might just be something they want to ensure is done by anyone complaining of problems in an attempt to eliminate the most common source of cryptic problems.
I dread hearing the words from any CS lackey telling me to clear my cache basically for the aforementioned reasons... that I end up losing a bunch of settings and such for other websites that I visit.
eMu CS is just grasping at straws/reading from a script when they tell you to clear your cache. When I was a member and had the infrequent occasion to contact eMu CS regarding a problem it was obvious to me that they made little to no attempt to actually read and understand the specific problem at hand and just fired off a canned response/resolution (that I'm pretty sure even then consisted of clearing one's cache). Unfortunately, this isn't something specific to eMu CS though.... almost all my CS contacts with any company regarding technical issues seem to be handled by people the least qualified to be doing so. Oh well.. such is life.
BTW: I saw some 30 song download eMu cards at my local stables for $15.00. I briefly entertained the idea of picking one up to see if I could actually get 30 songs (irrespective of individual song price) out of it. But I started peeking in on the eMu message boards again and immediately lost any and all desire to get entangled in that 'service' again. Go me!
@luddite, thanks, that was my understanding too. And it is certainly clear that initial messages were not read, as I told them in the original messages that it was multiple browsers and I had cleared the cache already - I've learned that going on the offensive does not work as defense against the script.* And I was factoring in the fact that one of the CS people who responded to me yesterday was the same one who a year ago told me when the DLM was messed up that I didn't need to use a DLM to access emusic (and had presumably therefore never heard of album-only tracks).
(*I also experienced this a few years ago at ToysRUs. One Christmas I ended up making several visits there and was sick of the checkout upselling routine and in a hurry. So I marched up to the checkout with my latest purchase and said "I'd like to buy this, you may not have my phone number, I don't need batteries, and I don't want a store card." The checkout guy gave me a wicked grin of triumph and said "Would you like to pre-order the new Lion King DVD?")
Yes, come to think of it the only time I had a genuine need to "clear" was in reloading their DLM at some point a number of years ago. That whole experience taught me not to update their DLM's as long as the old one was still working, and never without having a backup copy of the old one to hand.
That's interesting. I did a rough sample of old and new albums, including ones that I remembered being .49/no album pricing and vice versa...
Stuff like older Matthew Halsall and Nat Birchall, which had the .49 pricing, still show the old description after a google search of artist name + emusic, whereas newer albums like Omer Avital's show the new description. Also, the new Carla Marciano shows the new description, but the google results that point to her older albums on emusic show the old description. On Carla's albums, her earlier albums are album priced at six bucks because they have album only tracks. The old Kekko Fornarelli shows the old description and is all .49.
It's possible that only new albums are getting that subheader and emusic isn't bothering to change the "tag" on the older albums. I do wonder if that means that all new albums are eventually going to be only .89 (or more), or if nothing on the pricing options is going to change but since more artists/labels are choosing the higher per-track price, emusic felt it wiser from a PR strategy to simply say .89 as the "low" price, but when people click to investigate joining, that's when emu says, hey, there are also albums cheaper than .89/track (as opposed to having to say starting at .49/track, then turning people off when they see a bunch of .89 on newer releases... a question of first-impressions & expectations).
Prices are still 0.49/5.99 (or less) on the old jazz I see; the same on much of the new jazz, with the notable exception of ECM of course. But the new Glasper and Esperanza albums, both crossover 'hits,' are 0.89/6.99. Lots of older pop is also still 0.49, although higher (or album only) for classic rock radio-type 'hits'. I'd assume that most new commercial pop songs are 0.89 or will be soon, at least on the major labels. If that's the stuff I was interested in, it's hard to think what my incentive for being on eMusic would be.
Honestly, if there were a scenario where mass produced major market stuff was .89-.99 per track or 8.99/9.99 per album, which allowed under the radar small label self produced stuff (all genres) to stay affordable, I wouldn't mind a bit, just as I didn't mind seeing jacked up prices on Big New Hit albums at my local music store while browsing the small time stuff and getting a good deal.
But trying to predict what any of this means is a fruitless exercise.
P.S. Fruitless is one of those words that sounds fine in a vocalized sentence, looks weird in print.
If that were the scenario I'd have no problem with it either, but stuff from tiny independent labels is starting to hit emusic at between $8 & $9. If I were the typical customer this would not be a good strategy for those labels, but who knows what the market will bear.
I'm on a 3 month break from emusic. I'm another one who's loathe to give up my grandfathered plan (90 tracks for £15.99) but I don't know how to find stuff there any more. I'll probably use the breaks to cut my subscription down by half, like I did last year, treading water to see what happens......
The new emu rec engine is recommending albums to me that I originally rec'd as Jazz Picks. I think I should be flattered, but it's a sufficiently incongruous feeling that I'm not sure how to feel about it yet.
Comments
I also have little use/patience for any rec system that's just going to spit out new hits and "hot artists" at me. That said, I got the free Frankie Rose track, liked it, and bought the album (tho on mTraks).
And, yes, I did type common-sensedly.
i agree this is a good album! night swim, in particular, is kind of hypnotic and epic.
Actually the Friend feature is still there, and if you go to someone's profile you still can Add them as a friend.
Neighbors, however, are history. That feature hadn't been working very well for some time before it disappeared anyhow - it was downright strange and buggy the last times I saw it.
I used to use the Friend feature to check out other members Lists back when I had more enthusiasm - like back when I used to bother maintaining my own Lists before the rampant changes and malignant resentment dampened said enthusiasm. Not much point in making Lists right now because the webmonkeys have managed to make the Comment feature nonfunctional on SFLs and all personal Lists. What a bunch of bozos.
It's $8.69.
Browsers don't share cache processes, right? If I am seeing the same thing in three different browsers, one of which I hardly ever use and a second of which I haven't used for a couple of weeks, and emusic tell me to clear my cache and do a browser reload, are they just guessing and hoping it goes away (in this case with some justification because it did go away before they had chance to fix it) or is there some way that this could be a browser cache issue? I am trying to figure out whether emusic customer service is insulting my intelligence or exposing my ignorance.
eMu suggesting that their users clear their cache is probably something that worked for some problem way back when and as a result made it into their troubleshooting scripts. It might just be something they want to ensure is done by anyone complaining of problems in an attempt to eliminate the most common source of cryptic problems.
I dread hearing the words from any CS lackey telling me to clear my cache basically for the aforementioned reasons... that I end up losing a bunch of settings and such for other websites that I visit.
eMu CS is just grasping at straws/reading from a script when they tell you to clear your cache. When I was a member and had the infrequent occasion to contact eMu CS regarding a problem it was obvious to me that they made little to no attempt to actually read and understand the specific problem at hand and just fired off a canned response/resolution (that I'm pretty sure even then consisted of clearing one's cache). Unfortunately, this isn't something specific to eMu CS though.... almost all my CS contacts with any company regarding technical issues seem to be handled by people the least qualified to be doing so. Oh well.. such is life.
BTW: I saw some 30 song download eMu cards at my local stables for $15.00. I briefly entertained the idea of picking one up to see if I could actually get 30 songs (irrespective of individual song price) out of it. But I started peeking in on the eMu message boards again and immediately lost any and all desire to get entangled in that 'service' again. Go me!
(*I also experienced this a few years ago at ToysRUs. One Christmas I ended up making several visits there and was sick of the checkout upselling routine and in a hurry. So I marched up to the checkout with my latest purchase and said "I'd like to buy this, you may not have my phone number, I don't need batteries, and I don't want a store card." The checkout guy gave me a wicked grin of triumph and said "Would you like to pre-order the new Lion King DVD?")
Makes you wonder about the fate of all those songs currently priced at 0.49...
That's interesting. I did a rough sample of old and new albums, including ones that I remembered being .49/no album pricing and vice versa...
Stuff like older Matthew Halsall and Nat Birchall, which had the .49 pricing, still show the old description after a google search of artist name + emusic, whereas newer albums like Omer Avital's show the new description. Also, the new Carla Marciano shows the new description, but the google results that point to her older albums on emusic show the old description. On Carla's albums, her earlier albums are album priced at six bucks because they have album only tracks. The old Kekko Fornarelli shows the old description and is all .49.
It's possible that only new albums are getting that subheader and emusic isn't bothering to change the "tag" on the older albums. I do wonder if that means that all new albums are eventually going to be only .89 (or more), or if nothing on the pricing options is going to change but since more artists/labels are choosing the higher per-track price, emusic felt it wiser from a PR strategy to simply say .89 as the "low" price, but when people click to investigate joining, that's when emu says, hey, there are also albums cheaper than .89/track (as opposed to having to say starting at .49/track, then turning people off when they see a bunch of .89 on newer releases... a question of first-impressions & expectations).
All guesswork on my part.
But trying to predict what any of this means is a fruitless exercise.
P.S. Fruitless is one of those words that sounds fine in a vocalized sentence, looks weird in print.