David Emery OnlineListening Room
Listening Room is a website for listening to music with your friends. Anyone in a room can play mp3s from their computer, and everyone hears the same thing at the same time.
So simple, but really nifty.
Visit ➔Sony's Qriocity music service leaves Spotify, Pandora, Last.fm and we7 unruffled
Someone should have told Sony that trying to get people to pay a monthly subscription for a service just like people can get for free is probably not a winning business model
Come on guys, surely you can do better then that?
Also, “Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity” really rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?
Visit ➔Best of 2010
As you may have noticed by the glut of list-based posts that have flooded the internet in recent weeks (and months, some people being far too eager), it’s the end of another year and hence roundup time.
Last year I elected to eschew the traditional albums of the year thing, as it was more of a singles year. This year, in all honesty, it feels like it’s neither a singles or albums year this year; lots of good music, don’t get me wrong, but a distinct lack of knock-out greatness.
In the spirt of the year then it feels prudent to do a slightly half arsed, less fully baked rundown, but make up for it in quantity (everyone likes lists, right?):
Albums of the Year
#20 Caribou – Swim
Rough Trade put this as their album of the year which is overstating it a bit, but it is rather lovely.
#19 Tinie Tempah – Disc-Overy
What? Good pop, innit.
#18 Delorean – Subiza
Perfect summer pop. Mystifying they’re not far bigger then they are.
#17 Hot Chip – One Life Stand
This seems to have fallen slightly flat critically, but it’s my favourite Hot Chip album I think (none of the others have quite ‘clicked’).
Read more ➔
Isle Of Tune Lets You Compose Music By Um, City Planning
Isle of Tune lets you create whole songs by building a little town using objects like streetlamps, houses and trees to make sounds. There is even a collection of pre-built loops for those of us less musically inclined.
Loving this, especially considering that the iPad version of SimCity has kickstarted that particular addition again… (p.s. if you haven’t got it yet, get it – it’s a steal for 59p).
Visit ➔Spotify CEO: Music on the Web Will Be More Popular Than Photos
Speaking at All Things Digital’s D: Dive Into Mobile conference on Tuesday in San Francisco, Ek said that he thinks “music on the web will probably surpass the popularity of photos.”
Interesting that he says that for two reasons:
1) Arguably it is already.
2) Spotify isn’t on the web; it’s a internet connected client application. I’d love them to be a web app, with embedable tracks á la YouTube, but I don’t see it happening any time soon.
Visit ➔Lawyers warn about Facebook’s terms and conditions
One of the recent changes they made is that you cannot incentivize users to take any action on Facebook. For instance, you can’t say, 'Become a friend and we’ll give you something for free.'
Interesting, especially considering the increasing power and relevance that Facebook has in online marketing. It almost goes without saying, but it’s a huge driver of traffic to music related sites; people used to talk about getting on Digg, Slashdot or other big community sites to drive massive traffic; now with Facebook Pages there’s these kind of communities for every artist and niche.
Visit ➔Around the world with the xx - Britain's hottest band
In the wake of their Mercury-winning debut album, the xx embarked on a year-long global tour. Here, photographer Jamie-James Medina captures the trio's most intimate moments from Japan to the southern states of America
Beautiful set of photos from The xx’s recent tour:
Some thoughts on the value of music, fan-funding and the bizniz of music
One the biggest things I’ve found in my shift from fan to blogger to running a label, to whatever the hell it is I am now, mixed with growing up with P2P, is my perception and understanding of the value of music.
Don’t agree with all of it – from where I’m sitting the recorded music industry isn’t really having anything like as many problems as is commonly made out – but certainly a lot interesting points in here.
Visit ➔iTunes Ping integration with Twitter = embedable iTunes widget
Twitter and Apple recently announced a nice-ish integration between iTunes Ping and Twitter – I say ‘ish’ as auto-tweeting should never be a default on things like this, and the use of long iTunes urls is a bit baffling. Anyhow, the nicest bit is that on twitter.com in the new Tweet side pane you get a nifty little embeded preview box, where you can see the release artwork, track listing and track previews.
After a bit of digging it turns out that it’s very straight forward to pull this code out and use it on your own site:
Or a single track:
Sadly I can’t quite decipher the URL structure iframe uses – it’s easy enough to get the ‘id’ (which referrers to an album) and the ‘i’ which refers to a track from the share links you get out of iTunes, but the ‘wdId’ remains a mystery to me, so to make the embeds you’ll need to post to twitter from iTunes, then right click on the iFrame embed on Twitter.com and get it’s SRC.
Hopefully might be useful to someone!
Hardformat: Vaughan Oliver
Vaughan Oliver is one of the great (music) designers. His work is highly original and often breathtakingly beautiful. Probably best known for his work for The Pixies and Cocteau Twins on the 4AD label, Oliver’s designs for Scott Walker, His Name Is Alive, Heidi Berry and many other lesser known names is just as remarkable. For someone who claims to have been uninspired by typography at college, his use of type is a joy. In its gestural expressiveness it focuses and enlivens each design with tremendous inventiveness. Oliver’s work often foregrounds dark images produced by photographers who are essential collaborators in the creative process (key names include Simon Larbalestier, Nigel Grierson and Marc Atkins). Also central to his process is a willingness to experiment and a deep engagement with the music. The result is work that is passionate, elegant and highly influential.
I have had the great fortune to work with Vaughan on a few occasions, and I’m never anything less then inspired by his work.
Visit ➔