A little over a year ago, on April 9, 2007, Rock Town Hall proposed a bold, blind CD swap known as Hear Factor. Over the next week, subjects enrolled in this experiment and study methods were fine tuned, as follows:
Rock Town Hall members will be sent anonymous mix CDs lovingly (sincerely) compiled by other Townspeople that may be inappropriate to a recipient’s usual tastes. For 3 days, each participating Townsperson will listen to no other music but the possibly inappropriate mix CD they have received. They will report back to the list. Highlights of their mixes will be posted for all to experience and chime in on.
A press release was sent to major media outlets on April 19, 2007, as anticipation built.
On May 2, 2007, BigSteve and General Slocum reported on their anonymous, alien CD mixes. Hear Factor was off and running.
A year later, we think it’s time to stage season 2 of Hear Factor. If this is new to you, take some time to visit last year’s activities in the links provided throughout this post. If you lived through – and especially if you participated in – last year’s inaugural Hear Factor, feel free to share your reflections with newer members of the Halls of Rock.
Let me know, either in the Comments section of this post, or directly by e-mail (headstache [at] gmail [dot] com) if you’re interested in taking part in this year’s experiment. If we get a dozen or so participants, we’ll take a couple of days to further streamline the process before moving forward. I’m thinking we limit mix CDs to 10 songs or 45 minutes, whichever comes first, to allow participants the opportunity to better focus on a set of possibly alien music. Let me know if you have any questions.
Meanwhile, links to each of last year’s Hear Factor exchanges follow, including selections and full zipped files of the mixes our Townspeople lived with for 3 straight days.
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