Wired.com's Listening Post blog tracks the latest in digital music news, tools, and gear, plus coverage of the best new music online from digital music guru Eliot Ban Buskirk and MP3 blog pioneer Sean Michaels.
To display the most relevant entries to you in priority,
vote for the stories you are interested in
()
and reject those that you are not interested in
()
After today, you can follow our music coverage on the Underwire culture blog, courtesy of current LP writer
Scott Thill. I'll keep covering the collision of music and technology on the Epicenter business blog.
As things evolved there was a great deal of overlap among Listening Post, Epicenter and Underwire
so there is a wisdom to concentrating our fire where it will have the most impact.
Scott and I are excited about continuing the same coverage we've been doing here, on Epicenter (subscribe via RSS) and Underwire (subscribe via RSS), where we'll rub shoulders
with other writers and maybe even tackle a few new topics.
And, of course, thank you, our readers. You made a blog that began as a minor companion to the
Listening Post
column the #40 blog in the Technorati 100. We've enjoyed
writing for you and hearing your thoughts, and hope to continue doing so in our new homes.
Most of all, thanks to the musicians, music lovers and innovative thinkers who make this space
such a thrill to cover.
For now, I'll leave you with a nice little tune that Pandora threw my way as I was
writing this:
After today, you can follow our music coverage on the Underwire culture blog, courtesy of current LP writer
Scott Thill. I'll keep covering the collision of music and technology on the Epicenter business blog.
As things evolved there was a great deal of overlap among Listening Post, Epicenter and Underwire
so there is a wisdom to concentrating our fire where it will have the most impact.
Scott and I are excited about continuing the same coverage we've been doing here, on Epicenter (subscribe via RSS) and Underwire (subscribe via RSS), where we'll rub shoulders
with other writers and maybe even tackle a few new topics.
And, of course, thank you, our readers. You made a blog that began as a minor companion to the
Listening Post
column the #40 blog in the Technorati 100. We've enjoyed
writing for you and hearing your thoughts, and hope to continue doing so in our new homes.
Most of all, thanks to the musicians, music lovers and innovative thinkers who make this space
such a thrill to cover.
For now, I'll leave you with a nice little tune that Pandora threw my way as I was
writing this:
It may not
have been as polished as his later works Rushmore or The Royal Tenenbaums, but
Wes Anderson's film debut, Bottle Rocket, brimmed with a beautiful brand of naivete not
concentrated as strongly in his later films.
One reason for this is the film's excellent
soundtrack. Anderson's movies tend to feature top-notch tunage, but there's something about
those Bottle Rocket songs and Mark Mothersbaugh instrumentals that gives us that "so
fresh" feeling.
But before Bottle Rocket was a feature-length film, it was a 13-minute short film (trailer), with completely different music that
Anderson had hoped to use in the feature, only to be told by the studio that the film should not
feature jazz.
To coincide the release of the Bottle Rocket Criterion Edition, which includes the
original short film version,
Fantasy Records collected the songs from its soundtrack and will release them digitally on
December 9, when the Criterion edition of the film will be released.
"I was listening to a lot of jazz at the time, especially Coltrane's albums on Blue Note and
Sonny Rollins' A Night at the Village Vanguard," stated Anderson. "I was inspired by the
use of American jazz in French new wave movies like Breathless. I still love this
music... The studio didn't want us to use jazz in the feature version. We didn't license a lot of
this music at the time because we couldn't afford it."
Time heals all wounds. Here are two songs from that soundtrack, courtesy of Fantasy Records,
available here as QuickTime streams:
Other songs included on the short film soundtrack include Artie Shaw's "The Chant," Sonny
Rollins' "Old Devil Moon," Chet Baker & Art Pepper's "The Route," Duke Ellington & John
Coltrane's "Stevie," Art Blakey covering Horace Silver Trio's "Nothing but the Soul" and the
Vince Guaraldi Trio's "Happiness Is."
It may not
have been as polished as his later works Rushmore or The Royal Tenenbaums, but
Wes Anderson's film debut, Bottle Rocket, brimmed with a beautiful brand of naivete not
concentrated as strongly in his later films.
One reason for this is the film's excellent
soundtrack. Anderson's movies tend to feature top-notch tunage, but there's something about
those Bottle Rocket songs and Mark Mothersbaugh instrumentals that gives us that "so
fresh" feeling.
But before Bottle Rocket was a feature-length film, it was a 13-minute short film (trailer), with completely different music that
Anderson had hoped to use in the feature, only to be told by the studio that the film should not
feature jazz.
To coincide the release of the Bottle Rocket Criterion Edition, which includes the
original short film version,
Fantasy Records collected the songs from its soundtrack and will release them digitally on
December 9, when the Criterion edition of the film will be released.
"I was listening to a lot of jazz at the time, especially Coltrane's albums on Blue Note and
Sonny Rollins' A Night at the Village Vanguard," stated Anderson. "I was inspired by the
use of American jazz in French new wave movies like Breathless. I still love this
music... The studio didn't want us to use jazz in the feature version. We didn't license a lot of
this music at the time because we couldn't afford it."
Time heals all wounds. Here are two songs from that soundtrack, courtesy of Fantasy Records,
available here as QuickTime streams:
Other songs included on the short film soundtrack include Artie Shaw's "The Chant," Sonny
Rollins' "Old Devil Moon," Chet Baker & Art Pepper's "The Route," Duke Ellington & John
Coltrane's "Stevie," Art Blakey covering Horace Silver Trio's "Nothing but the Soul" and the
Vince Guaraldi Trio's "Happiness Is."
The ambitious ad-supported music service Qtrax
has announced a deal with its second major label: Sony. As part of the deal, Qtrax will offer
Sony's digital music catalog for free to those who install its music downloading client.
As with Qtrax's deals with EMI and Universal, Sony only agreed to
license its regular digital music catalog, consisting of the same music it has already licensed
to digital music stores like iTunes and free, ad-supported sources such as imeem and SpiralFrog.
Qtrax's ultimate goal, however, is to go far beyond that, allowing users to download unreleased,
live, rare, remixed and other major label music that's not part of that official catalog, from
Usenet or possibly another P2P source. Unlike current P2P networks, Qtrax would share ad revenue
with labels and publishers of those works.
In that way, Qtrax president and CEO Allan Klepfisz told Wired.com, the company would be able to
legitimately offer as many as 30 million songs as compared to the 8 million or so currently
available on iTunes. That idealized offering remains a glint in Klepfisz's eye. although it is
worth noting that Qtrax has brought another major onboard for the existing version of its
service.
"We are always exploring new and exciting ways of bringing our music to fans in the digital space
and are very happy to support Qtrax and their innovative ad-supported business model," stated
Sony global digital business and US sales president Thomas Hesse. "Sony BMG has a well deserved
reputation for innovation," said Qtrax's Klepfisz. "We welcome the addition of this vast and
vital catalogue to Qtrax's worldwide service," Klepfisz continued.
The ambitious
ad-supported music service Qtrax has announced a deal with its second major label: Sony. As part
of the deal, Qtrax will offer Sony's digital music catalog for free to those who install its
music downloading client.
As with Qtrax's deals with EMI and Universal, Sony only agreed to
license its regular digital music catalog, consisting of the same music it has already licensed
to digital music stores like iTunes and free, ad-supported sources such as SpiralFrog (updated --
see below).
Qtrax's ultimate goal, however, is to go far beyond that, allowing users to download unreleased,
live, rare, remixed and other major label music that's not part of that official catalog, from
Usenet or possibly another P2P source. Unlike current P2P networks, Qtrax would share ad revenue
with labels and publishers of those works.
Update: Qtrax president and CEO Allan Klepfisz said via e-mail from Singapore,
"1) Spiralfrog requires you to wait 90 seconds for a download- our average download is 5-10
seconds does not have Sony and does not have global licenses; 2) Imeem Is streaming; and 3) P2P
content is included in all our contracts. While we only propose to turn it on in approximately
the next 90 days, it is an essential part of the contracts."
In that way, Qtrax president and CEO Allan Klepfisz told Wired.com, the company would be able to
legitimately offer as many as 30 million songs as compared to the 8 million or so currently
available on iTunes. That idealized offering remains a glint in Klepfisz's eye. although it is
worth noting that Qtrax has brought another major onboard for the existing version of its
service.
"We are always exploring new and exciting ways of bringing our music to fans in the digital space
and are very happy to support Qtrax and their innovative ad-supported business model," stated
Sony global digital business and US sales president Thomas Hesse. "Sony BMG has a well deserved
reputation for innovation," said Qtrax's Klepfisz. "We welcome the addition of this vast and
vital catalogue to Qtrax's worldwide service," Klepfisz continued.
Six lucky candidates from a field of 5,000 have survived contests across hundreds of Guitar
Center stores to compete at the 2008 Drum-Off finals on January 10. But who will walk away the
best new skin-pounder in the music game? That's up to the bigshots.
They were announced on Wednesday, and
feature some fearsome drummers from across the sonic spectrum, including Foo Fighters' Taylor
Hawkins, Tool's Danny Carey, No Doubt's Adrian Young, Avenged Sevenfold's The Rev and session vet
Kenny Aronoff. Those distinguished musicians will be joined by celebration host and Jane's
Addiction slammer Stephen Perkins, The Mars Volta's Thomas Pidgeon, Shadows Fall's Jason Bittner,
and Papa Roach, which performs a headliner set.
Meanwhile, lifers making Guitar Center's "Drum Legends" Hall of Fame include the late, great
Mitch Mitchell -- Jimi Hendrix's recently deceased timekeeper,
soloing in the video at right -- Vanilla Fudge's Carmine Appice, and Iron Maiden's Nicko McBrain,
who just might be the man who owns the best metal name of all time.
The sticks meet the skins in Los
Angeles at The Music Box, with $45,000 in career-enhancing possibilities on the line, including
$25,000 cash, $20,000 in gear, custom-designed kits, endorsement deals, a feature in Modern
Drummer, shopping sprees and onward. Welcome to the big time, drum nuts.
Got a favorite drummer you think should be at the show? Share it in the comments below.
Six lucky candidates from a field of 5,000 have survived contests across hundreds of Guitar
Center stores to compete at the 2008 Drum-Off finals on January 10. But who will walk away the
best new skin-pounder in the music game? That's up to the bigshots.
They were announced on Wednesday, and
feature some fearsome drummers from across the sonic spectrum, including Foo Fighters' Taylor
Hawkins, Tool's Danny Carey, No Doubt's Adrian Young, Avenged Sevenfold's The Rev and session vet
Kenny Aronoff. Those distinguished musicians will be joined by celebration host and Jane's
Addiction slammer Stephen Perkins, The Mars Volta's Thomas Pidgeon, Shadows Fall's Jason Bittner,
and Papa Roach, which performs a headliner set.
Meanwhile, lifers making Guitar Center's "Drum Legends" Hall of Fame include the late, great
Mitch Mitchell -- Jimi Hendrix's recently deceased timekeeper,
soloing in the video at right -- Vanilla Fudge's Carmine Appice, and Iron Maiden's Nicko McBrain,
who just might be the man who owns the best metal name of all time.
The sticks meet the skins in Los
Angeles at The Music Box, with $45,000 in career-enhancing possibilities on the line, including
$25,000 cash, $20,000 in gear, custom-designed kits, endorsement deals, a feature in Modern
Drummer, shopping sprees and onward. Welcome to the big time, drum nuts.
Got a favorite drummer you think should be at the show? Share it in the comments below.
Forrester has new predictions about the
future of music. Apparently, 41 percent of music sales will be digital by 2013. As previous
studies have shown, the increase in digital sales will not make up for the ongoing decline in CD
sales, and so as a result, the music market will shrink at a compound annual growth rate of
0.8, dropping to $9.8 billion in 2013. Sales in 2008, by comparison, are expected to total $10.2
billion.
A book I'm reading has made me wary about such predictions. Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Black Swan
teaches that it's folly to try to predict the future based on the past because there are too many
unknowable variables at play, and because we never truly know the past in the first place. The
events that matter most -- so-called "black swans" such as the original Napster -- are impossible
to predict. Therefore, Taleb says, we must be vigilant against trusting predictions while
preparing for inevitable unknowns.
Forrester's predictions make a certain amount of sense. We all know CD sales are sinking from
their artificially high levels in the late nineties, and it stands to reason that digital sales
are increasing, as the population moves online for music and other needs. But its prediction
fails to take into account the possibility of another Napster, another black swan.
What if WiFi, cellular and other networks improve to the point where it will no longer be
necessary to own music at all -- point when buying a download is seen as a waste of disk space,
the same way buying a CD is considered by some to be a waste of apartment space? For instance, I
can already hear whatever I want, whenever I want, and nearly wherever I want, using SeeqPod on the iPhone.
In the next five years, music sales could be upset by another shift on the level of Napster with
dire implications for Forrester's predictions, which are already somewhat restricted by their
focus on music sales as opposed to the music market in general. (Ad-supported music -- the
lifeblood of MySpace and other high-profile ventures -- does not appear to factor into
Forrester's forecast.)
That said, the study does tell us some interesting things about how people are consuming music
today. "Paying downloaders are shifting an average of 60 percent of their music spending to
digital formats," a spokeswoman quoted the study as finding via email, which means that just
because music buyers try digital downloads doesn't mean they abandon other formats.
The study also found that over-the-air (OTA) downloads are unlikely to have a significant impact
on sales during in this timeframe. It predicts that the entire market for OTA downloads "will
amount to less than $300 million in 2013." By comparison, the ringtone market in 2007 was worth
1.1 billion in Europe alone.
By that measure, ad-supported music streaming services like Pandora and imeem have ample opportunity for
expansion as smartphone adoption rises in the near future, because they won't be competing much
with OTA downloads. But on the whole, it's anybody's guess what the music market will look like
in five years.
Forrester has new predictions about the
future of music. Apparently, 41 percent of music sales will be digital by 2013. As previous
studies have shown, the increase in digital sales will not make up for the ongoing decline in CD
sales, and so as a result, the music market will shrink at a compound annual growth rate of
0.8, dropping to $9.8 billion in 2013. Sales in 2008, by comparison, are expected to total $10.2
billion.
A book I'm reading has made me wary about such predictions. Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Black Swan
teaches that it's folly to try to predict the future based on the past because there are too many
unknowable variables at play, and because we never truly know the past in the first place. The
events that matter most -- so-called "black swans" such as the original Napster -- are impossible
to predict. Therefore, Taleb says, we must be vigilant against trusting predictions while
preparing for inevitable unknowns.
Forrester's predictions make a certain amount of sense. We all know CD sales are sinking from
their artificially high levels in the late nineties, and it stands to reason that digital sales
are increasing, as the population moves online for music and other needs. But its prediction
fails to take into account the possibility of another Napster, another black swan.
What if WiFi, cellular and other networks improve to the point where it will no longer be
necessary to own music at all -- point when buying a download is seen as a waste of disk space,
the same way buying a CD is considered by some to be a waste of apartment space? For instance, I
can already hear whatever I want, whenever I want, and nearly wherever I want, using SeeqPod on the iPhone.
In the next five years, music sales could be upset by another shift on the level of Napster with
dire implications for Forrester's predictions, which are already somewhat restricted by their
focus on music sales as opposed to the music market in general. (Ad-supported music -- the
lifeblood of MySpace and other high-profile ventures -- does not appear to factor into
Forrester's forecast.)
That said, the study does tell us some interesting things about how people are consuming music
today. "Paying downloaders are shifting an average of 60 percent of their music spending to
digital formats," a spokeswoman quoted the study as finding via email, which means that just
because music buyers try digital downloads doesn't mean they abandon other formats.
The study also found that over-the-air (OTA) downloads are unlikely to have a significant impact
on sales during in this timeframe. It predicts that the entire market for OTA downloads "will
amount to less than $300 million in 2013." By comparison, the ringtone market in 2007 was worth
1.1 billion in Europe alone.
By that measure, ad-supported music streaming services like Pandora and imeem have ample opportunity for
expansion as smartphone adoption rises in the near future, because they won't be competing much
with OTA downloads. But on the whole, it's anybody's guess what the music market will look like
in five years.
British music fans have a new option for
purchasing music online: Amazon MP3, which sells music from all of the major labels and thousands
of indie labels in the MP3 format without copyright protection.
The British version of Amazon MP3 launched quietly on Wednesday, with no fanfare from the
retail giant but was spotted by the Britain-based
MusicAlly.
Amazon MP3 offers DRM-free music from all of the majors, as opposed to Apple, which must apply
DRM to certain tracks per its label contracts. Another difference between the two giants is
pricing. While Apple sticks to a single price for all singles, Amazon allows the labels a bit
more variety. Songs in the British version of Amazon MP3 currently range from 87 cents to well
over $1.20, and we noticed that one classical piece was priced at $4.43.
The increased competition brought about by a heavyweight like Amazon stepping into the ring may
already have had an effect on music pricing in the United Kingdom. MusicAlly reports that as
Amazon MP3 launched there, Apple dropped its prices on key albums in the British version of
iTunes, including those by Oasis and Fleet Foxes, to under $6.
Songbird is like an open source version of iTunes that handles just about
everything that program does, while swapping out the iTunes store interface in favor of the
world's music blogs.
You can stream music from those sources directly within the program (try that with iTunes'
browser), purchasing whatever music you encounter there that strikes your fancy from multiple
sources: Amazon, Amie St., eMusic or iTunes. Or, if a blog or other site offers songs as free
downloads, those are gathered neatly at the bottom of the screen as well (see screenshot to the
right).
At its core, though, Songbird is a solid music playback program -- albeit one that can be
customized with add-ons from Songbird and other developers, a strategy we've seen before from
Songbird founder Matt Lord, formerly of Winamp, which itself had a wide variety of plug-ins.
Lord set his
sights squarely on iTunes when he launched Songbird a couple years back, accusing the program
of being "like Internet Explorer, if Internet Explorer could only browse Microsoft.com."
Songbird, with its emphasis on unfettered access to the web's music sources, proves his point.
Aside from being a solid local player with Web 2.0-friendly music discovery built-in, Songbird
can sync music to your iPod, so long as it's not protected by Apple's Fairplay DRM. Although a
mechanism exists for playing Fairplay-protected music in Songbird, it didn't work for us
(screenshots below).
Beta versions of Songbird
have been kicking around for ages, but today's official 1.0
release offers several improvements over the program, including a switch to the open source
GStreamer multimedia playback system, which the team says
makes this version perform better and with more reliability.
Songbird also added a meshTape feature that harvests images from Flickr, videos from YouTube,
artist bios from last.fm and news from Google, all related to the currently-playing song. Minor
tweaks include revamped keyboard shortcuts, a new Linux installer (the program runs on Windows,
Mac and Linux), the ability to find out where a file actually lives, and the ability to nest one
smart playlist inside another.
Here's what the program is like to install and use:
First you import music. You can add more directories later if you want. Note the option for
importing directly from iTunes:
Then it's time to choose some add-ons from Songbird's recommended list, which includes
synchronization with Apple iPods and Microsoft-based MP3 players, support for Quicktime and
protected WMA files, access to free Shoutcast radio stations, concert listings from Songkick, scrobbling to Last.fm
and mashTape, which lets you augment your local library with custom mixtapes from remote web
sources such as Hype
Machine:
Songbird seems to import music as quickly as processor and RAM allow:
Here's the default playback and library view, featuring automatically downloaded album art and
bio. Songbird has improved album art support in this version, and harvested correct artist bios
from Last.fm. If the album art happens to be wrong, or you want to switch it just for kicks, you
can drag-and-drop new art into the program:
One slight hitch: Windows Vista muted Songbird by default, so we had to unmute it before we could
hear the music. Your results may vary (Vista is finicky):
Clicking on Hype Machine brings me there in Songbird's browser (the program is based on Mozilla).
Note how I can see the blog in the top area, while the bottom area lets me cut to the chase and
stream all the music embedded on the page. The tabs near the top of the window let me switch
between the web view, library and a video demonstrating how to customize Songbird with extensive
options. You can bookmark any music blog for easy access. Smooth:
Pretty much everything worked as advertised with Songbird, except that when we tried to play
protected content that had been purchased from iTunes, it wouldn't play. First, Songbird asked us
to enter our iTunes password into iTunes:
However, iTunes told me my computer was already authorized, but the song still wouldn't play in
Songbird. Oh well -- DRM is a headache, as we all know. It might be too much ask Songbird to be
able to handle protected content, and we can't get too down on this program, because it does so
many other things so well:
In addition to local song playback and music blog streaming, Shoutcast radio stations also worked
perfectly. However, it would be nice if you could purchase songs that stream from Shoutcast the
same way you can those that stream from web-based music sources:
Songbird says 160,000 people use the program every month, and that was before this final release
became available. If you're interested in a solid open source audio player with great web
integration, give it a try.
)
and reject those that you are not interested in
(
)
