Everyone has their comfort zones, right? Musically, for me, it was my heart-rated playlist. I could put nothing else on my Zune HD, but I had to have this collection for 400+ songs. These were songs like "Without Warning" by Thomas Nicholas or "Jeremy" by Pearl Jam or "Everything In It's Right Place/Maiden Voyage" by Robert Glasper. 11 times out of 10, on any given day, you'd find me blasting that familiar list out of the speakers in my office.

One day I decided to flip that script.

Check out this situation (Argh, damn you Jersey Shore!)

PHASE I: THE SETUP

You see I always told people how much I love music and how much I love helping new artists find their way into the ears of the masses. It's something that I enjoy: the thrill of that new MP3 and not knowing whether on the other side of the press-play was I going to find something that is both thrilling and something that will earn a ticket into my heart-rated playlist (or, at the very minimum, part of my local rotation). However, what kind of person was I that I would spend more time flipping through the hearts instead of really diving into the deeper end of the pool and seeing what I could find?

So here's what I did: I plugged in the Zune HD to my PC software, said a little prayer and hit the (erase all content) button. After a couple of minutes, I was looking at a bare bones Zune HD -- waiting to be filled up with music, podcasts, apps and whatever else I could throw at it. The instant notion that I had was to immediately start syncing the heart-rated play list again, but I had to refrain. What I did do was disconnect the Zune HD and start browsing through the artists view of the software.

Remember now, the point of this little exercise was to really jump into Zune’s notion of music discovery. Zune from the very beginning has offered tools that allow listeners to take what they normally like and use that as a kernel to find other great material out there to enjoy and add to their collections.

I grabbed many artists that I loved: From Seal to Linkin Park to Morgan Page and I had the software create Smart DJ playlists. To perform this task yourself when you’re in the artist view of the software, right-click on the artist and select 'create smart dj mix’. If you choose the one that says ‘play smart dj mix’ what’s going to happen is the software will start to immediately play a created smart dj mix. While you’re in the playlist view of this there should be a button that says (save as playlist). Now, in the playlist view I would right-click these newly created Smart DJ playlists and I would hit the edit button. I made sure that the little radio button said to only pull from the marketplace collection and to change the play list every 5 days.

Oh my GOD! I didn't recognize 98% of what was being pulled into these play lists. I was seeing names that I knew but songs that were totally unfamiliar to me. I was seeing names that I totally didn't know at all. What the hell was I getting myself into? An itchy trigger finger wanted to tell the software to sync that heart-rated play list again, but I took a swig of Propel (blatant article product placement in this article, yes) and continued to create more Smart DJ playlists. I was telling the software to make sure that all of these songs came from the Marketplace, which ensured that it wouldn't be anything familiar -- familiar stuff was already in my local collection.

After creating about 7 Smart DJ playlists (which has grown since this experiment first started – and no, that wasn’t a small tribute to Windows 7!), I then began to look through Marketplace channels.

Since I'm the owner of my Zune Pass account, I could easily subscribe to these dynamic play lists and have some more new music synced to my device. But was I nuts? I was going to put my musical well-being into the hands of people who never really sat down at a Starbucks with me and asked me what stuff I liked. I was just going to trust that the "Top Songs in Zune" channel was going to present me stuff that I might eventually like. By the way, the "Top Songs in House" channel needs a total fkn overhaul. That's a very poorly maintained channel. If that channel is automated based upon what’s in the House category, then the Marketplace needs some serious re-categorization!

When it was all said and done, I had about 9 Channels and 7 Smart DJ play lists on my Zune HD. Ladies and Gentlemen, I did it. I didn't include my heart-rated play list and I was going to take this device with me to the office and sit through 8 hours of work complimented by a soundtrack of the unfamiliar. I donned my Fedora, got into the car and headed off.

PHASE II: THE INITIAL REACTION

You ever see that movie "A Scanner Darkly" where people are inhibited by this drug and think they're seeing stuff and they go a little crazy? Yes, that was the first couple of days with me and these play lists. I was going through a withdrawl period, if you will since I didn’t have that heart play list to immediately go to when I wanted to be “comfortable”.

Man, I was being bombarded with unfamiliar stuff. Who were these people? Why were they releasing music? Why hadn't I heard some of this stuff before? Where the hell was "Without Warning"!? Questions in search of answers plagued me for the first few days of this experiment.

I guess what I ended up finding out in the first few days was that even though I prided myself on trying new music, I was trying new music that still had familiar elements to it. I was trying new stuff that was still very close to home to the stuff that I was already enjoying. So far, what this experiment did was take me far away from that comfort zone. I wasn't no longer listening to much house music, I was diving into breakbeat and down tempo. The group popping up wasn't "Linkin Park", it was "Chevelle". A channel wasn't giving me LL Cool J it was giving me Justin Bieber (a practice that I put a quick end to, thank you broken-heart!).

After that first couple of days, I was able to settle into the fact that what was once unfamiliar was going to eventually be familiar to me. In fact, I saved a few songs to my local collection. The reason? I figured out that when I get those 10 free credits from Zune Pass, I would instantly have a small set of songs to choose from.

You see – in the olden days -- when you download Zune Pass music (new albums and whatnot) you would ending crowding your collection with all of this Zune Pass music. What Zune did in a previous release was make things like your Smart DJ and Channels downloads separate from the local collection. This is why you see (add to collection) next to these particular songs. As I’m finding that cool new music, I will hit that button and add them to my local collection. Then when the credits come around the Zune Pass content will most likely be content that I’m considering adding, permanently, anyway.

PHASE III: USING ZUNE TOOLS

So here I am with all of this new undiscovered music and I figured, again, that if I was going to jump into this pool that I was going to just dive into the deep end. So I began to re-utilize some of the other Zune features that were available to me.

For example, one of the groups I discovered in this experience was Chevelle, but rather than have a Smart DJ play list created for them, I decided to use Mixview. I wanted to see where they're influences were coming from and who, amongst my friends (if any) were listening to them. I keep forgetting about Mixview as a feature, so I made sure to make it one of the primary functions in this experiment.

The mixview for the group Chevelle

Additionally, I did more streaming from zune.net. Of course, I didn't use the office computer for this (my office computer can't handle Silverlight for some odd reason), but I did take my netbook to Starbucks for lunch occasionally and I would use their AT&T WiFi to stream some music through zune.net. Again, while I was streaming these newly discovered artists, I used zune.net to read more about these folks, see their entire discography and get some bio information.

Speaking of which, using the bio information on the Zune HD is much more applicable when you’re using it on groups you had never heard of. While it’s certainly fun to be reading up about artists you know, being able to deep-dive into artists you aren’t that familiar with is very engaging.

PHASE IV: THE RESULTS

So who have I discovered as part of this project? Other than the aforementioned "Chevelle", I've (re)discovered Moby, Audioslave, The Veronicas, Stabbing Westward, Five Finger Death Punch and others. It's been interesting to see that with just a little effort, I could find much more music to add to my local collection (and eventually my heart-rated play list).

I don't consider this project to be complete, by any stretch. It's something that will continue to grow and evolve (both as I discover new artists and as Zune continues to release new ways to discover this music).

PHASE V: MY CHALLENGE

So here's my challenge to you readers (if you're too lazy to listen to Circle This, Episode #15). I challenge you to erase your Zune (HD) and only sync stuff that consists of: Smart DJ play lists that only pull from Marketplace, various channels from Zune Marketplace, which only works if you're the Zune Pass owner, and friend's Zune Social cards.

If you don't have access to much of this, then use the Solar257 method which is to create an auto-playlist of music that has absolutely 0 plays.

Then take a couple of days and travel into this unfamiliar territory. If you can't commit to a couple of days, then try a couple of hours. Not just a few songs here and there, really dive into it. Use tools like Mixview, really dive into your friend's Zune cards and see what you discover. Then come back here, to this post, and let me know what you found out about yourself and your discovery.

And whatever you do… don’t look into the forbidden eye. Strange things happen when you do… alright explorers, let’s go!

Oh, and one more thing. Here’s the current listing of music that I’ve added to my collection since beginning this experiment. My credits reset on April 24th so we’ll see what the landscape looks like by then. Yes, that’s Nickelback – that’s the song they did for WWE RAW and yes, I actually like it. Sue me!