BlogHer - Madonna turns 50; More Problems For Online Radio - Comments

50's certainly not "senior."

lauriewrites — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 23:12:04 -0500

But I feel the same way about these "milestone" birthdays and anniversaries of albums and movies, etc. What some get from the Madonna birthday was the same thing I felt when I realized that Duran Duran released "Seven and the Ragged Tiger" more than 20 YEARS AGO. I know it intellectually but when someone or something was iconic for me at a certain point in my life, it's like a snapshot in my brain that never goes away.

The experience of watching and listening to the old songs is still so much the same - at least it is for me, although I no longer have the pink Sony boombox, heehee - that it's interesting and a little jarring to note that both Madonna et all AND I are 20 years older. Not bad, not really, just interesting and a little weird.

Hard to explain, too, it seems.

Laurie

Turning Fifty and More

Kathy333 — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 22:30:47 -0500

Oh gosh, I remember that big hair, bangle bracelets, and leather, leather leather! I went through so much Rave hairspray back in the day it's amazing my lungs aren't harmed!

What astounds me is how when I was in my teens and listening to Madonna, women in their fifties seemed so old. Nowadays you have women in their fifties just hitting their prime! I wrote a post on my marathon blog about the winner of the women's marathon, who was 38 and a mother! And Dara Torres, still swimming strong in her early forties.

For me, it is just hard to believe that time has gone this quickly . . . high school seems like years (and leg warmers) away, and Madonna turning fifty sounds bad only because I feel like I'm still 20 though I am almost twice that age!

Kathy

Mama Marathoner

Allbusiness:Working Mothers

Kperfetto-- I think there

midlifemuse — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 21:44:58 -0500

Kperfetto--

I think there are already a lot of women in line in front of Madonna for 50 and fabulous. Turning 50 doesn't make you a senior. In fact, many people at 50 could live yet another 50 years so 50's really only halftime--not over the hill.

Midlifemuse

Contributing Editor on Midlife Issues

Visit me at Midlife's A Trip.

Madonna turns 50; More Problems For Online Radio

kperfetto — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:13:39 -0500

Growing up in the eighties, Madonna was the cool older sisters you wish you had. So hearing that she turned fifty last week made a lot of those former 80s girls feel a little, well, old. Here's what Betty Rocker had to say about a recent trek to the Rock "n' Roll Hal of fame, and one youngster's reaction to a Madonna display:

This little kid in front of me turn to his dad and said "Is Madonna still alive???"The father, completely embarrassed that his song would ask such a bad question in public turned and told him, "Uh yes, she is".I looked at the kid and added "She's 50."His eyes got super wide when I said that. I may as well have said she turned 100.

Ouch. Jocelyn Novak of the Huffington Post wrote a lengthy article about Madge and "the New 50."

But as the Material Girl hits the half-century mark this weekend, she may be stepping into a role that even she, with all her marketing savvy, might not have dreamed up: poster child for the 50-and-fabulous set.

So as many of us who came of age in the 80s creep closer to that forty mark, are we ready for our idols to become senior citizens? Should it really matter?

...

Looks like more trouble for internet radio and its fans. Venerable online radio site, Pandora, faces shutting its doors due to the high royalty fees. Rachel Webster of Paste Magazine writes:

The problem is royalty fees exacted by a federal panel. Last year, the panel doubled the fees a webcaster has to pay per listener per song, meaning Pandora will pay 70 percent of its expected $25 million revenue, according to Westergren. Traditional radio outlets, on the other hand, pay no such fees to artists, and satellite radio stations pay smaller fees.

This comes on the heels of another popular music site, Muxtape, under pressure from the RIAA, temporarily going offline.

...Muxtape users found the site unavailable, replaced by a message saying, “Muxtape will be unavailable for a brief period while we sort out a problem with the RIAA.” The site usually allows users to create playlists online and share them with others through streaming.

Caroline McCarthy of CNET allows for some hope, however:

A few Web geeks weren't convinced that Pandora's situation is as dire as Westergren says it is. "I love Pandora like my old baseball glove, but they can only pull this Chicken Little move so many times," marketing consultant Brian Oberkirch posted to Twitter on Monday morning.

So how does all this affect fans of online radio? As of today, Pandora is still up and running, and even added some improvements, making giving a song a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" a little more user friendly. Newcomers like imeem are flourishing, and Last.FM, who recently underwent a a huge makeover, remains a major player, but only time will tell if royalty fees "kill the internet radio star." Enjoy it while it lasts.