mumford and sons and marketing ploys

Okay, so I've been hearing about Mumford and Sons for over 6 months now (which yes, I know means I'm out of the loop). They've come up on a couple of my Pandora stations and friends have posted their music on Facebook. I've listened to some of their songs and immediately loved them but today I'm finally making the commitment - looking up lyrics, buying the album, committing the songs to memory, etc.

Immediately the marketing ploys take over... iTunes' genius feature suggests that I may like Vampire Weekend's new album, Contra. So I listen - of course I would, iTunes has me all figured out... Pandora is sneaky like this too... I have found so many artists that I never would have heard of before simply from chasing threads through the Music Genome Project. I would have to say still, the best find ever was David Falcone, a fantastic fingerstyle acoustic guitarist from Philadelphia who is a psychology professor at Lasalle University. His song, Lullaby for Lauren came up on my Jeff Buckley Pandora station, which was created after seeing his cover of Hallelujah posted on a friend's facebook wall.

And it will continue... Earlier this month I swiped a near-stranger's entire playlist from playlist.com - there were lots of people I had never heard of before and am falling in love with. Also, I've just made the Mumford and Sons Pandora station, so you know there will be more there as well.

My love for music used to be a very expensive venture, after years of swiping I made a moral decision to come by my music honsetly, and iTunes loved me, but now thanks to playlist.com, Pandora, YouTube, etc. I am able to enjoy finding the music I love without blowing the bank :)