The Infinite Dial

I've already got some conceptual reservations about GetBack.com, which launched on Wednesday positioning itself as a more adult-friendly social networking site, with an emphasis on music and TV from the years between 1968 and 1990.

For one thing, LinkedIn has already effectively become the social networking site for adults. And not every adult who wants another social networking site wants to define themselves by nostalgia, but those who do and graduated before 1968 will find themselves disenfranchised on a site where Public Enemy and Tracy Chapman are now considered nostalgia. GetBack's Chris Dominguez hails from MTV Networks among other places, and there's definitely a VH1 feel to the site in that regard and others.

But I've definitely been enjoying the site's music channels, one for each year between 1968 and 1990. They're very deep -- GetBack might want to consider a channel or two that are just hits and cover multiple years -- but for music junkies and record collectors, these are definitely the channels that I would have expected from Goldmine Radio. On the 1974 channel, James Brown's "My Thang," David Bowie LP cuts and Willie Nelson's "Bloody Mary Morning" all play together in a way that you wouldn't have even heard on the broad-based Top 40 stations of the time.

Here's a stretch of GetBack Radio for 1968:

Herb Alpert & Tijuana Brass, "Carmen" (No. 51 in Billboard)
Bobbie Gentry, "Okalona River Bottom Band" (No. 54)
Simon & Garfunkel, "America" (No. 97, but didn't become a chart single until 1972)
Impressions, "We're A Winner" (No. 14)
Jimi Hendrix Experience, "Spanish Castle Magic" (LP cut from "Axis: Bold As Love")
Doors, "Love Street" (b-side of "Hello, I Love You")
Nilsson, "The Cast And Crew" (soundtrack oddity in which he sings the final credits to the movie "Skidoo")
Johnny Cash, "Greystone Chapel" (from his "Live At Folsom Prison" album)

Here's 1974:
Willie Nelson, "Bloody Mary Morning"
Love Unlimited Orchestra, "Love's Theme"
Who, "Now I'm A Farmer"
Raspberries, "Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)"
Barbra Streisand, "The Way We Were"
Aretha Franklin, "I'm In Love"
Neil Young, "Walk On"
Barry White, "Honey Please, Can't You See"
Brownsville Station, "Smokin' In The Boys Room"
ZZ Top, "La Grange"
Bad Company, "Bad Company"

And here's about 45 minutes' worth of 1990 where we move well beyond chart singles to Modern Rock and Hip-Hop titles that would have crossed over in a better world, but didn't:

Prince, "Thieves In The Temple"
Primal Scream, "Loaded"
Barenaked Ladies, "Be My Yoko Ono"
Neil Young, "Days That Used To Be"
Lenny Kravitz, "Mr. Cab Driver"
A Tribe Called Quest, "Bonita Applebum"
The House Of Love, "I Don't Know Why I Love You"
Annie Lennox, "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye"
Jellyfish, "That Is Why"
Black Crowes, "She Talks To Angels"
Everything But The Girl, "Take Me"
Public Enemy, "Welcome to the Terrordome"
B-52's, "Roam"

Right now these channels are pure music -- no imaging, no anything else. And if there's anything that should have been carried over from MTV Networks, it's the between-the-records (and behind-the-music) experience. There's also an issue where if you surf from one year to another, you lose the player for the year you're listening to. But given the speed at which I've been able to rule out a lot of pure Internet radio as not-for-me, I've been spending a lot more time with these stations than I expected over the past few days.