Sorry for the poor RAZR picture quality (iPhone 2.0 where are you?).

Foreign Keys is Ryan, Anh, Aidan, KangMin, and Micah.

Remember high school circa the early 90s? I do, and the best way to say “I love you” was to painstakingly craft a mix tape Lloyd Dobler style.

Now that we all have 100s of internet friends we need a new internet mixtape. Enter Muxtape: the web startup I’m most jealous of. Jealous because of its beautiful clarity, and because it’s the work of just one talented guy, Justin Ouellette (even his photography rocks).

Of course he’s built his service on copyright infringement — it even makes money with Amazon affiliate links for pirate bonus points — so I’m sure the RIAA’s black bag men will be at Justin’s door in short order. Too bad. Muxtape is the best music marketing tool I’ve ever seen.

Music is the most powerful medium. Kids don’t buy clothes at Hot Topic so they can identify with a visual arts movement. They buy The Queen is Dead t-shirts to identify with their tribe. Adolescence is a struggle for identity and music is a huge part of that identity. Ever notice how “what music do you like” is a stock “getting to know you” question and how everyone always says “I like everything” because they’re not ready to be judged by you? Notice how you’ll meet people who know nothing about art or books, no big deal, but there’s just something off about someone without strong music preferences? At my last on-site consulting gig I met someone like that and it was downright creepy to hear her say “I only like Josh Groban.” You can love music that I hate, but you at least have to have a preference.

That’s why mixtapes are so powerful. When you say “I like this, and I like you well enough to hope you like it” you’re inviting someone into your tribe. Of course Muxtape isn’t as intimate, but it makes up for it in reach. You can post your muxtape link in your sidebar and say more about yourself than any “about” page ever could.

I hope Muxtape lives forever. It may escape destruction because it’s “ethical” copyright infringement. You can’t download the songs, it invites you to buy, and you can only upload 12 songs (Which is good because constaints make you selective. It’s the opposite of just dumping a friend’s hard drive onto yours).

Nevermind the socio-business-speak, here’s the music:

• Sandra’s muxtape
• Jose’s
• Micah’s
• Doug’s
• My muxtape (Please forgive the juxtaposition of George Michael and Johnny Cash. I am aware that I’m the world’s worst DJ.)

Do you have a Muxtape? Post it in the comments!

Update: In the comments MakeItEasy mentions that imeem.com should get respect since they were first and did everything by the book. Being first (to say nothing of following the RIAA playbook) isn’t enough. Imeem is to Muxtape as Yahoo is to Google.

By law I can’t link to Top of the Pops footage without also linking to Morrissey with foliage sticking out of his butt:

* Unless you’ve heard the Foo Fighters version, or you’ve logged more hours watching VHS tapes of 80’s videos than I have.

This Week in Tech did a great interview with Jonathan Coulton. He talks at length about how he built a successful career as an independent musician by using the internet to serve a niche of dedicated fans.

Coulton also talks about his former life as a programmer and how he always longed to do music for a living but didn’t know how to pull it off. Having a child motivated him to pursue his dream, which is amazing since having kids usually prompts people to avoid creativity and risk.

There’s plenty of Merlin Mann humor, and the show ends with “I’m Still Alive”, the fantastic ending song from Portal that’s sung by the evil boss artificial intelligence. You can hear 24 other songs in their entirety at Jonathan’s website. I recommend “Code Monkey”, “Re: Your Brains”, “So Far So Good”, and “Mandelbrot Set”.

Here are the podcast highlights:

@ 23:00 minutes the interview starts: They start talking to about how his business model is built on a niche. He said the “niche found me.”

25:40 Merlin Mann: Big companies are legally obligated to bloat. A “micro-band” like JC can serve who he wants for low cost. Calls JC “patient zero” in the new creative economy.

30:15 JC: Geeks and techies are more willing to be crazy fans of something. (Also notice that geeks are able to help you go viral since they’re immersed in social software).

33:00 JC: Was a computer programmer, loved music, couldn’t figure out how to make it happen. Says he was afraid for a long time. Wrote software for 9 years. After his daughter was born he realized that he needed to get off his butt and do something. Quit the job and did a song a week for free in podcast form. Regularity was key. He got linked by key sites.

35:05 Meritocracy: Good stuff can float to the top. You have to be good consistently, not just once. (See also: my post on Steve Martin)

MM: He created an expectation of a new song a week for free, but his fans buy box sets of mp3s they already had for free.

The panel talks about how Baby Got Back was linked on BoingBoing and then passed around and went viral. Not everything good rises, but it has to be good to rise.

38:00 JC: Had a plan, a secret hope, that he could build his career this way. What he hoped for came true.

41:00 JC: 40% of his income last year was from digital downloads for stuff that was already free. The rest was merchandise, shows, and CDs at shows. Fans WANT to support artists. Be upfront about asking for money, don’t apologize for it. People feel bad about pirating from a niche independent artist.

42:54 MM: You can tell a lot about a company by what problems they can solve. There is a lot of opportunity for the smaller artist who “solves a problem” that big record companies are too bloated to deal with.

43:50 JC: Last year he made more money as a musician than he did as a programmer. The numbers keep on improving.

56:00 JC: Because he knows technology he can roll his own website, do his own marketing, build traffic, and relate to the people in his niche authentically. He’s interested enough to try tech things which is a huge advantage. The music industry in contrast fears technology and clings to a dead model.

1:00:00 MM gets all 43Folders on JC and Leo says MM has a proctologist’s morbid curiosity with people’s inboxes.

1:02:54 Merlin Mann’s Dr. Phil impression. (MM should have been a comedian)

1:16:00 Discussion of Zendrum and other music/recording equipment and software.

1:21:10 What would JC do if he could fix the record industry? Get rid of DRM, make the music as available as possible, purchasable in as many formats and channels as possible. File sharing benefits all artists. Saving the industry is not something we need to worry about. The industry won’t be able to command the same percentage. What used to be a record label would be a service provider that offers a spectrum of services. The old model is dead.

1:27:23 “Still Alive” kicks in.

Anything by Camera Obscura (1996-present):

See also: Lloyd I’m Ready to be Heartbroken, Keep it Clean, Tears for Affairs, If Looks Could Kill. I am such a sucker for melancholic indie folk pop.

Clare Grogan in Don’t Talk to Me About Love (1983) by Altered Images:

This video has it all: lingering shots of Rickenbacker guitars, LED level indicators, and an extra pouty Clare Grogan.

Shirley Manson of Garbage @ the Roxy (December 1995):

Garbage was just breaking when my friend Derek took me to see them. Shirley’s smoldering Scottish sex appeal compelled me to buy a Garbage concert T that I wore for an embarrassingly long time.

Spandau Ballet’s To Cut a Long Story Short (1980):

Ok, Spandau Ballet were from London, and they also weren’t technically female, but they made it on the list due to the “extra greasy Tony Hadley in a kilt plus there’s a Rickenbacker” rule.