Diary of a Disordered Mind - Filed under 'music'

September 7, 2009

The Day The Music (Industry) Died - ish

OK, saying the music industry is going to die because of Spotify is going a little OTT (and a poor way of referencing American Pie lyrics in the title!) but I think the music industry is going to change beyond recognition from today onward.

I've mentioned Spotify before and I'm still loving it. Just so you know, Spotify is a music streaming service that allows you to listen to 4 million tracks, for free, on your PC or Mac. It pays for itself by inserting short ads every so often which can be a little annoying, but for £9.99 per month (or 99p for 24 hours) you can listen to all the music you like advert free.

Pretty cool, no?

Well, it gets better. For those of you with Android mobiles and iPhones there's a new app that streams over 3G or Wi-Fi meaning you essentially have 4 million tracks on your phone.

Wait, it gets better.

The app also allows playlist synchronisation. What this means is that your phone will download, legally and for free, music on a particular playlist to your handset for offline listening.

Pretty amazing if you ask me. Essentially, you have a scaled-down, streaming iTunes Store on your phone. This is only open to premium users (i.e. £9.99 a month) but is worth the monthly subscription for the offline playlists alone.

So, how will this affect the music industry? Well, I can imagine a time when, services like Spotify, dominate the music industry. Why pay for music you like now but, as your tastes change, may hate in a few years time? Artists are still being payed by these services and piracy will be reduced as everyone has access to all the music they want. In theory a least.

iTunes will have to update or face certain death - if the rumours are true, we should be seeing new iPods any day now and it has been said that many will include the iPhone OS. If every iPod has access to Spotify, why would anyone by music from iTunes? Maybe their own subscription service is in the offing?

Filed under // internet music Spotify

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August 6, 2009

Radiohead: Harry Patch (In memory of)

Harry Patch (In Memory Of)

Image from the BBC

Radiohead honour the memory of Harry Patch, the last surviving British WWI Vetran who was buried today, and raise money for the Royal British Legion.

The BBC reports:

The former plumber, who fought at the battle of Passchendaele in 1917, gave a memorable interview to Today reporter Mike Thomson in 2005.

Thom Yorke, lead singer of the band Radiohead, was moved by the interview to write a tribute to the veteran, inspired by Harry Patch's words.

I am the only one that got through
The others died where ever they fell
It was an ambush
They came up from all sides
Give your leaders each a gun and then let them fight it out themselves
I've seen devils coming up from the ground
I've seen hell upon this earth
The next will be chemical but they will never learn

Filed under // memory music radiohead war

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March 27, 2009

Robbie Williams says he is ready to join Take That reunion - mirror.co.uk

via mirror.co.uk

So it looks as though Robbie Williams's career is at rock bottom and the only way out is to go, cap in hand, to his former band mates and beg forgiveness.

It's funny how, at the hight of his career, RW had no intentions of getting back with his at-the-time-less-talented friends but has suddenly had a change of heart, presumably after comparing album sales.

(For those interested, Rudebox, released in 2006, went 2x Platinum selling over 600 000 copies. At the same time, Take That's Beautiful World sold over 2.5 million copies and went 9x Platinumand their current release, The Circus, has sold over 1.6 million copies.)

Filed under // music news

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March 11, 2009

Do the iPod Shuffle

via images.apple.com

With a sleaker design and a new 'Voice Over' function (that allows you to hear the informaion that would normally be displayed on an iPod's screen), the Shuffle is becoming an amazing piece of kit. The controls have moved from the body of the Shuffle to a inline control on the headphone cord and the capacity increased to an generous 4GB for £59 in the UK. I do wonder though how small can an iPod get.

I'm holding out for the next generation that will inevitably be injected subdermally.

Filed under // Apple iPod music

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March 8, 2009

Vanilla Ice sorry for 'Ice Ice Baby'

I'm sorry for the hairdos, the baggy pants, the scandals, the lies, the gangs, and I'm sorry about the music. I was young, manipulated and I was a puppet.

via digitalspy.co.uk

Filed under // music quote random

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March 5, 2009

Music Ally | Blog Archive » Mentalists play MGMT cover on four iPhones

via musically.com

thanks to @timlovejoy for pointing this out!

Filed under // iPhone music random

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March 5, 2009

BBC NEWS | Technology | User info stolen from music site

via news.bbc.co.uk

No sooner do I mention Spotify, it's hacked...

Filed under // internet music security

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March 5, 2009

The End of Music Piracy?

I recently started using Spotify, a streaming music service that allows you to listen to music for free. As always happens with digital media, not every artist has joined the party (spotify.com list the Beatles, AC DC among those abstaining) but most genres are covered and over 4 million tracks are availible to listen to from your desktop. The music quality is easily comparable with iTunes and most mp3 download services and there are Mac, Windows and Linux versions of the GUI, which is intuitive and easy to use..

So what's the catch? Well, there's no download service at the moment so that means you can't put any of the music on your iPod and there are adverts every 20 mins, although it's so infrequent I've only heard a few in the last couple of weeks. Why would you need illegal downloads?

Filed under // internet music

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March 4, 2009

It Ain't Me, Babe

I recently bought and re-watched the 2005 James Mangold film "Walk the Line", a Johnny Cash biopic starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon. The story charts the meteoric rise of Johnny Cash (Phoenix) amid the Rock 'n' Roll explosion from the southern states of the USA. The plot focuses on the relationship between Cash and June Carter (Witherspoon), a country singer whom Cash pursues, destroying his young family in the process. We follow Cash through his addiction to prescription and eventually harder drugs and, eventually to his now famous live performance at Folsom Prison.

I've never been a hugh fan of Rock 'n' Roll or country music, in fact, I've never really paid much attention to either genre. Sure, they would eventually evolve into the Rock and Indie scenes of which I am a hugh fan, but, I suppose, I've always been ignorant to it's history and heritage. I have since started listening to Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis et al. on Spotify and am becoming a big fan. I suppose this was perpetuated by the fantastic performances of Phoenix and Witherspoon who sang every song featured in the film (and accompanying soundtrack) and learned to play, from scratch, the guitar and autoharp respectively. An impressive feat. I'm now trying to work out if it's wrong that I prefer Joaquin's version of some of Cash's songs...

Walk the Line [DVD] from £2.98 Amazon.co.uk

Rent Walk the Line with a free LOVEFiLM UK subscription

Filed under // film music

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March 4, 2009

I Hate U2

via optintoday.com

Why do I hate U2? In theory I should love their music - I've listen to indie rock since I first heard the Stone Roses eponymous debut, but I just ca'nt listen to U2 without wanting to do myself physical harm. I suppose it doesn't help that I find Bono smug and rather hypocritical.

It does appear, however, that I'm in the minority; particularly given the reaction of the BBC to the release of "No Line on the Horizon", U2's long awaited twelfth studio album (U2 basically took over BBC Radio and played a "surprise" live gig that 5000 people turned up to). It's obviously something I'll have to live with, though their first album was completed before I was so it's something I've gotten used to.

Filed under // music

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