broken me
I...um, "was given" a copy of this album a few weeks ago, and after an initially disappointing listen (wasn't the "slap to the face awesome" pairing I was expecting from The Shins' lead singer and Danger Mouse), it quickly grew into this crazy-addictive-album-of-my-life I had on non-stop replay. For, like, a week straight. Obsessive much?
So, when I saw it on Amazon's daily deal a few days ago, I quickly snatched it up. You know, supporting things I like and all. And now, gah. Back into the addiction.
Such great stuff...
ff7 re-remixed
A shockingly solid mashup of Final Fantasy VII tunes and hip-hop from Team Teamwork — liking it much more than I was anticipating, I've got to say. The album is "pay what you want" (I threw them $5), and is very worth at least checking out.
get ready. pop it. let's go.
Case-in-point, I can’t stop listening to this:
Over produced? Maybe. Hated by Pitchfork? Oh, yes. Addicting? Very much. I don’t love every track, but there are a good half dozen or so that are on constant repeat, and now it’s wedged firmly in my current St. Vincent / Cut Copy / Johnny Polygon / The Bird and the Bee / Regina Spektor mix.
Hell, I’ll go as far as saying it’s my new favorite album of the year. Um, so far.
wild
Amazon has it for $8.99, which is an absolute steal. Really can't wait for the flick...
spot the future
Holy hell. I think I’ve just experienced the eventual evolution (or demise?) of iTunes.
I’ve heard of Spotify before, but I always considered it a streaming music service in the same vein as Pandora or Last.fm, both of which I don’t really care for. I mean, they have potential and neat aspects, but are too cumbersome or invasive or inconvenient for me to really use over iTunes. Plus, Spotify is currently a Western Europe-only service, which made the choice to use it or not an easy one to make.
Then I found out how to get around that pesky regional requirement thing.
Again, holy hell.
Rather than taking the form of a web-based service (like the aforementioned Pandora and Last.fm), Spotify is an iTunes-like Mac or Windows program. But, instead of being a way to interface with the music on your computer / network, it’s connected to online servers and (quite apparently) magic.
The app is slick as all heck, it’s easy to find songs / albums and the music starts playing instantly. Like, it feels like it’s already on your computer instantly. Same thing goes with scrubbing through the track, there’s no lag. It’s really quite remarkable.
And the selection, while not all-inclusive, is simply huge. Plus it’s super easy and...well, fun to find similar artists, and listen to them as full albums of as a radio stream.
Oh, the radio stream. It’s intuitive (and, again, fun) to navigate - either use it to listen to similar tracks from different artists, or select a particular decade (or a range of them), then select one or more genre buttons (hip-hop, rock, alternative, and 15 others) and sit back.
There’s a great social aspect to Spotify as well. I can “send” tracks to friends by email or IM in the form of a link that, when clicked, automatically adds a new playlist on their Spotify populated with my suggestions. Simple and without annoyance.
The greatest part about all of this? It’s free.
Like, really, really free.
There are “radio ads” from time to time, but these are short, 30 second bits. And I’ve only heard maybe two for a nearly whole day of listening. That said, I’ve been mainly jumping around between artists, and not just using the radio (which, from what I’ve heard, is where most of the ads are found).
There is a subscription mode which cuts out the ads, offers higher bit-rates (albeit the standard Ogg Vorbis q5 codec isn’t bad at all) plus pre-release albums (along with other bonuses), but it’s fully optional and doesn’t punish free users.
The only downside? You have to be connected to the internet to listen to the music. Well, for now.
If the iPhone app hits and works as advertised, this really could be the beginning of an actual sea change in terms of how we consume / purchase music.
In fact, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised it Apple either killed the iPhone app outright or (even better) bought Spotify in the nearish future. Integrating this sort of online content / functionality with physical libraries (and give the ability to purchase songs to keep at a much higher quality) would be the dog’s choppers.
Indeed.
god can be funny
Hot damn I enjoy Regina Spektor’s music (amazing
voice + fantastic lyrics = constant iTunes
rotation), and her upcoming album’s new single (iTunes) is a nice reminder of why.
June 23rd really can’t come soon enough...
unofficially awesome
I’ve always loved “music shooters,” and Everyday Shooter is one of my favorites. It seemed strange, though, that such a music-centric game never had a stand-alone soundtrack. Apparently someone on Last.fm had the same thoughts, and ripped his own. Two of them, in fact.
One of the unofficial albums is “real” (with sound effects generated by gameplay) and the other “pure” (he enabled an invinciblilty code and just sat there, recording the instruments only). Both are excellent, and can be downloaded by joining the Everyday Shooter Group at Last.fm and checking the discussion forum for direct links (along with a slightly amusing conversation with Jonathan Mak).
amp it up!
I just ordered that headphone amp from this guy. Actually, it might not be that exact casing, there are multiple options and I told him to surprise me. And now I’m all jonesing for a quality pair of headphones for my upcoming birthday.
You know, I always disliked headphone snobs, but now I want to be one!
Yay for getting old(er)!
monster music
OMG! PixelJunk Monsters is a fantastic
game with an equally fantastic soundtrack, but
last I heard Otograph had no plans on releasing
an OST. But it’s out, like...today! For only 3 bucks! Yay!
things
Yeah, it was crazy. And
amazing. And moving. And overwhelming. In fact, I
really enjoyed watching the movie at the time - the
visuals and music were stunning - but it wasn't until
several hours later that I realized how much I loved
it. Like, you have to spend some time processing
everything you were just assaulted with before being
able to appreciate its greatness.
So, the next day I bought the soundtrack on iTunes
(direct iTunes link), and have been
listening to it like mad.
Oh, while on iTunes I noticed they carried a few
Yoko Kanno CDs as well, so I picked
up this:
CM Yoko (direct iTunes link) is all
commercial music (like, for TV commercials), but
it has super neat (and incredibly varied) stuff.
One of the tracks, though, is crazy good. I really
want to know what kind of advertisement
"Exaelitus" was for...
Also, holy crap, I'm already over 80 hours for this
week. Yay for crunch. Game is going great though!
d-n-a spells dna
This CD is great. Super great. Been listening to I Feel Fantastic like mad. That and Better. Best 5 bucks I've ever spent.
in(to) rainbows
I bought In Rainbows a couple of weeks ago on iTunes, but didn't really have the chance to listen until toady. Maybe it was the fact I was on the sick-side (and slightly drugged), or because the new headphones I got in the mail, but I haven't been this addicted to an Radiohead release since Kid A (which is still one of my favorite albums of all time) - and, for someone who hasn't been listening to a lot of non-soundtracks lately, it's a nice change of pace.