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Microsoft & Music – A Remix We Don’t Need

[ 3 Comments ]Posted on July 15, 2009 by admin in Music

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

Why is Microsoft the last thing I think of when I think of music?

You’re sitting at your computer listening to your favorite song, and suddenly your system freezes, an error box pops up saying that the “Bing Streaming Music Player” is not responding, and the music gets stuck in annoying loop. Which of course, you might not even notice, if you were playing Vanilla Ice’s ripoff of Under Pressure (we would’ve embedded those clips but ASSCAP is suing people for doing that lately). In any case, this is what I imagine happening regularly if Microsoft does in fact launch their streaming music service later this month. Remember how Microsoft’s first big media partner RealPlayer (which has actually won awards for how bad it is) used to not only try to spy on you obsessively, but would always crash while doing so? Remember the Zune launch and all its software problems? Personally, I don’t even use iTunes; I refuse to download a 72MB piece of software just so I can buy some music. I typically buy from Amazon, or if it’s an indy release, sites like CDBaby , DigStation, or Amie Street. And for streaming music, Pandora (in spite of their recent legal problems) is working just fine. Microsoft and music just don’t mix, in my opinion. Fortunately, there are plenty of other resources; here are eighteen to keep you busy. Where do you get most of your music?

Pitchfork 50 Best Albums of 2008

[ 2 Comments ]Posted on December 26, 2008 by admin in Music

Friday, December 26th, 2008

The Enhanced, Condensed Version

As I said a few weeks ago, I’m helpless without Pitchfork Media’s Top 50 list. It has totally dictated my January listening habits for three years running. Well, the 2008 list is finally available, and as usual they’ve spread it across five web pages, which is a minor annoyance to me and a few other people I know. So, I’ve done you all a little favor, and summarized the list without reviews. I’ve also gone one step further and provided product and torrent search links for most of the list. I tend to torrent, review, then buy if I like it or delete if I don’t. Try to be cool and support the artists if you do the same. By the way, the The Pitchfork 500 book (pictured) is a treasure trove too, if you haven’t checked it out. It chronologically covers indy music from ’77 Punk to the present, and is written in the same clever style as their site content. So free up some hard drive space, ’cause here it is, our condensed list —> Read the rest of this entry »

Before the Music Dies

[ Comments Off ]Posted on August 8, 2008 by admin in Music

Friday, August 8th, 2008

I wonder if Don McClean did the soundtrack?

If you listen to pop music with any regularity and intelligence, you may have noticed an extremely high suck quotient in the major label releases of the past couple of years. This, while the quantity of really high quality indy material has grown almost exponentially and provided the artist with a higher income-making potential while unit prices plummeted. Well, someone else seems to have noticed too, and made a film about it. Perhaps a bit melodramatically titled, Before the Music Dies features interviews and performances with Erykah Badu, Eric Clapton, Dave Matthews, Branford Marsalis, ?uestlove and a wide variety of others. The film promises to explore the phemomena of “the homogenous corporate product that is spoonfed to consumers and the diverse independent music that finds devoted fans online and at clubs across the country”. The teaser with Erykah Badu, left, is hilarious.

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