In these tech-ified times, all but gone are the old-school ways of trading mix tapes or CDs. Modern radio and television introduce us almost exclusively to mainstream, mass-appeal music. These days, the way many of us discover music, really discover music, regardless of our age, is through the most trusted, reliable brand in marketing history: the friend.

I think that this new online social “music-on-demand” cloud-type thing called Rdio (R-Dee-Oh) might be my new music friend. At the very least, it’s a friend aggregator with a very smiley face. I can’t deny that it’s making my ears smile, too.

An earlier DailyXY article detailed how the Rdio interface works, so I won’t go into tech-twiddling details. Still,  the relevant shorthand is: over 12 million songs available to stream on demand in Canada, including almost every new release, and, announced and adjusted just this week, rates in Canadian dollars, making the service slightly better priced than it was at time of launch.

Stats suggest that, similar to Facebook, Canadians are Rdio’s per capita top listeners (meaning, we spend the most time shifting through the site as if we’re going through a record bin). Still, perhaps not surprisingly, the biggest influencers tend to come from the States: indie — and therefore early-adopter — cities like Chicago, San Fran, NYC and Portland.

I’ve been spinning Rdio for one month now. The first thing I did was “follow” some friends. You can follow your actual friends, or suggested users (prompted by the site interface), or top influencers (mentioned above). I chose a bunch of music mags and Alan Cross (who has never steered me wrong), and automatically gained access to the lists of who/what they were listening to, and when they were playing it.

Immediately, I mean immediately, this nifty thing started happening. You’re perhaps familiar with Pandora, or iTunes “genius,” which will recommend songs based on what you’re listening to. Rdio does the same but instead of analyzing beats per second or sub-genre triangulation et. al., it simply tells you that “Fred” (whom you follow) is listening to Band X, and that “Bill,” who follows “Fred,” is listening to Band Y, which is similar enough to Band X. As a result, your music universe opens in a gigantic way, fast. You’re listening to music that your friends’ friends are listening to. It’s not perfect cross-referencing by any stretch of the imagination — but perhaps the point worth emphasizing is that the Rdio formula of “diversity meets referral” means that Rdio stretches the imagination.

With Rdio, I can set my music player to blast tuneage from bands/artists that are on the playlists of the people I follow. And that is really, really cool. My first day using it, I listened to an early U2 album, which linked me to The Church, then The Flamingos, who in turn brought me to John Coltrane, then Django Reinhardt. I listened to the new David Lynch album and didn’t like it — but it brought me to Destroyer (whom I fell in love with and likely would have written off based on the album art). Listening to singer songwriter Emmit Rhodes (mentioned in an earlier Cultured post), I ended up catching Noel Gallagher’s new album, then Jason Kennedy and Hayward Williams. I don’t know how I ended up checking out Isa and The Filthy Tongues, but I did, and I thank Rdio for it. This is one example, where being a follower is actually a great thing.

As a filmmaker obsessed with soundtrack, I am passionate about discovering fantastic tunes from artists I have never heard of. Could be latest/greatest, or oldie/goodie; no one person can know all music, so the hunt is perpetual, the treasures limitless. (Quentin Tarantino and John Hughes are the gold standards for doing this kind of music mining in their film soundtracks.) The way Rdio is working for me right now, I’m going to need to make a lot of films, soon, because my soundtracking options just went through the roof. Best part: I have my “friends” to thank.

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Image courtesy of Matt Campbell.