The Joys of Turntable

Homes, have you heard the Good News?  Old people can be cool again, all thanks to a little web site called Turntable.  

I know, I know.  Turntable is not exactly breaking news to a lot of you, and you've probably heard me sing its praises sometimes since I joined 7 months ago.  This message is not for you, however.

Old folks like myself tend to miss when new music technologies break.  I got in on Pandora about two years late (as Joni Klopp will be happy to remind you), and stuff like last.fm and Kaaza are still mysteries to me.  As a consequence, the new music I found was limited to whatever I could scrounge up from my friends' blogs and radio shows.  It is a very distressing part of getting older when you start to be not that good at the things that used to matter a lot.  There's only so many times a thirtysomething can talk about the new album by that band they loved in college before s/he feels lame.

But there is hope, and it's Turntable.  Turntable is nice in part because it's so approachable.  Instead of a soulless interface, you get cute little avatars like the ones pictured above.  When you DJ, if people like your song, they hit the "awesome" button, and you get a point.  As you get more points, you can get cooler avatars.  It's a brilliant idea, because it creates an incredibly positive atmosphere.  Everyone wants points, so everyone pretty much awesomes every song.  All that happens if someone doesn't like your songs is that they head over to another room with a different theme.  

So old heads, we can get on and play our My Bloody Valentines and our Gang Starrs, and we'll get head nods, and we'll feel good because we haven't lost it THAT much.  And because we're feeling good and listening to music theme that we like, we're hearing new stuff from the type of people who seek out and awesome MBV and the Foundation.  Combine that with Spotify or Google, and all of a sudden you're up on the new sh!t once again.  Once again, you will impress the cooler friends at your very adult cocktail parties.

Afterword: Right now I'm spinning hip hop in the Shaolin Temple, and the crew wants a shout out.  If y'all want to hear some real hip hop, come on in.  I'll awesome whatever you play.