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October 21, 2009
Wednesday Odds and Endsby David Harrell
Amazon sent out a press release today, touting Susan Boyle's upcoming album as its largest-ever CD pre-order, but it didn't reveal the actual number of orders.
NME magazine is using Last.fm data to create artist pages for smaller acts, something I discovered when a web search turned up an NME page for my band.
How the Shazam song-identifying software works.
And Sunday's NY Times magazine has a long piece on Pandora and its process for catagorizing songs. One interesting fact: the current catalog is approximately 700,000 songs. That's small relative to the number of tracks available in iTunes or Spotify, but it no doubt dwarfs the number of tracks in any traditional radio station's rotation.
Maybe I just need to use it more (and perhaps listen to something beyond indie rock), but I've never been wild about the tracks that show in up Pandora stations I create. And I don't think it has anything to do with the size of the catalog. I completely understand what Pandora is trying to do with the Genome project, but I question the prioritization of the song attributes used to serve up songs. When I click "Why was this song selected," it seems like I always see things like "major key tonality" or "electric rock instrumentation", both of which seem less important than the way the vocalist sings, or -- for many listeners -- lyrical style/content. According the article, vocal style and lyrics are categorized (here's a Wikipedia list of Music Genome attributes), but the only explicit reference to vocals I ever see when using Pandora is "a subtle use of vocal harmony."
tags: digital music Shazam Last.fm NME Pandora
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Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four
THE LAYAWAYS
Out Now -- "Maybe Next Year" -- The New Holiday Album:
O Christmas Tree - free mp3
Away In A Manger - free mp3
Download from eMusic, iTunes, Amazon MP3, Napster, Rhapsody, Lala.com, Amie Street, or Bandcamp. Listen to free streams at Last.fm.
"...about as melodic and hooky as indie pop can get." -- Absolute Powerpop
"Their laid-back, '60s era sounds are absolutely delightening." -- 3hive
"...melodic, garage-influenced shoegaze." -- RCRD LBL
Keep It to Yourself - free mp3
All Around the World - free mp3
Come Back Home - free mp3
Download from eMusic, iTunes, Amazon MP3, or CD Baby, listen to free streams at Last.fm, Lala.com, and Napster.
"The Layaways make fine indie pop. Hushed vocals interweave with understated buzzing guitars. The whole LP is a revelation from the start." -- Lost Music
"A wonderfully crafted recording built around tasteful songwriting and musicianship..." -- PopMatters
Silence - free mp3
The Long Night - free mp3
Download from eMusic, Amazon MP3, or iTunes, listen to free streams at Last.fm, Napster, or Rhapsody.
"These are songs that you want to take home with you, curl up with, hold them close -- and pray that they are still with you when you wake up." -- The Big Takeover
Let Me In - free mp3
Ocean Blue - free mp3
Download from eMusic, Amazon MP3, or iTunes, listen to free streams at Last.fm, Napster, or Rhapsody.
More Layaways downloads:
the layaways website
Current/Recent Reading and Listening:
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It's written as a how-to guide for those looking to become music supervisors, but I found it to be a good resource for musicians (like me) who are trying to get their music used in movies, TV, etc.