Questlove Talks Music Discovery + Runs Down 70s Classics w/ WiRED
Our fearless founder Questlove spoke to WIRED magazine recently about-not surprisingly--the changing landscape of music discovery in the age of iTunes, Spotify and Pandora's box. Not only is Questo's resume as a music discoverer unparalleled, he is in a unique position to comment being at the crossroads of the new ways of discovering music (Sonos, twitter, *cough, Okayplayer) and the old; as the houseband for Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, The Roots in conjunction with LNWJF music booker Jonathan Cohen have arguably reasserted late night TV as the key tastemaker in breaking music to a mainstream audience. Here's a taste of Questo's perspective in an excerpt of the thoughtful piece that resulted:
Sometimes it’s a little too easy to get to a song: think, type, retrieve. What about calling up your friend, making him drive you to the record store, waiting patiently behind the guy who won’t move away from the “B” bin, and then flipping through to see what Beach Boys records (or Beastie Boys or Brothers Johnson or Buckingham Nicks) are left? All of that’s gone now. And, counterintuitively, because it’s gone, it’s harder and harder to truly fall in love with a song or album. What was your cost of entry? How hard did you have to work?
Questo also reminisced about record shopping and bonding over music with his dad in an on-camera clip, as well as providing WIRED with his top 7 cuts of the 70s (kicks off with Nina Simone's "Baltimore" so you know he didn't go for the obvious) find both os those below. It's perhaps no surprise that multiple outlets are publishing their overdue Questo profiles today, given The Roots brand new gig as houseband of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon which, lest ye forget, debuts tonight! Questlove dropped a few more tidbits about what we can expect (including an opening sequence shot by Spike Lee) in a piece for Philly.com, especially as regards the Legendary's contribution in comparison to other late night bands.