...and it's gone...

I spent a bittersweet last evening with Launchcast April 15th. Some Launchcast sessions are mediocre; some send wonderful song after wonderful song. This last listening was a good example of what I'll be missing from Launchcast: a mixture of favourites, bearables, and at least two songs that were new to me and may go on to being favourites. The first of the latter is Umfazi Omdata which I think means "old married woman", so it's obviously my song: and the second is Maura O'Connell's rendition of The Blue Train. I can't embed this one, but the version of YouTube is a particularly fine one with Maura O'Connell singing with James Grant and Nanci Griffith, so do use the link if you have time.

Among these final seventeen songs on my Launchcast station, I was sent a number of songs I'd rated over 90 such as: Skating Away (on the Thin Ice of a New Day) (a nice live version from 1977 here), and:Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered by the unsurpassed Ella Fitzgerald (here, sadly with the saucy Cole Porter lyrics cleaned up), and: my absolute favourite Simon and Garfunkel song The Only Living Boy in New York. This song also appeared, as you may guess from the embedded video, in the movie Garden State which is a film I sat through, thinking all the while: "I bet I would have loved this when I was twenty..."

I even got to hear Never Let You Go by Three Eye Blind. I understand that as a discerning music lover, I'm not supposed to like Three Eye Blind, but I do. And I love this song (but can't find a decent video of it). The last song I heard on my Launchcast station was What I Like About You by the Romantics. Perfect.

The next day, my worst fears were realized. Not only has Yahoo dismantled the player, but they've taken down the lists for each personalized station. I had anticipated this and had transferred all songs I'd rated above 78 to Last.fm. Still, my ratings of over 15,000 songs, over 900 artists and over 600 albums are gone. Yahoo claims that the video station at my account has my Launchcast ratings in mind, but a video station is simply not the same thing, and I don't see them sending me much that is new, except a hell of lot of commercials and promotions.

Nope. You're blowing it, Yahoo. I'm off to Last.fm which, from earliest indications, will have more of a British bent to it, along with some other differences which I might discuss later. After the ballet, of course.