Nuts For Music

For the longest time I’d spin tunes through Apple’s iTunes by playing entire albums. Over time, the problem I started to encounter was that the music got really stale and I’d burn through music faster than I thought I should. Building playlists has typically been a chore for me, so I never really got into it unless I wanted to create a CD for my car. Using a “Smart Playlist” in iTunes didn’t really work for me either since my most played songs were part of entire albums. So what could I do to to build a playlist, but not make it a chore?

I started off with about 10-15 songs in my playlist. Then, I just started playing random music and when I got to something I deemed cool enough, into my playlist it went. After about half a day of doing this, I had a 3.5 hour long playlist. Not quite long enough, but a good start. At least now I’m on my way to having a playlist I can put on shuffle for an entire work day and keep the toons that are spinning fresh over a long period of time. I’d have to say the hardest part is just starting the playlist. Once you get going it picks up steam and you’re well on your way.

I’d be interested in hearing how other people manage their music with playlists. Share your thoughts!

Just read over at Rolling Stone that MySpace has inked a deal with Warner Brothers, Sony/BMG, and Universal Music to offer music on MySpace called MySpace music. Apparently this is in response to Facebook signing a deal with Apple’s iTunes to offer tracks on Facebook. I missed that one when it happened, must have had my head in the sand. Anyway, I find this interesting. I think it starts to show that selling music online is the future of the music business.

The major labels refusal to embrace that themselves will, in a sense, cost them money because by having dismissed it previously, they have to form partnerships to distribute their music online through already established networks. They could have easily done this themselves with their own applications years ago and people probably would have embraced it. Too bad so sad for them I suppose. I really don’t think that this will compete all that well with iTunes though. As I’ve written before about Amazon’s download service, the integration just comes up short compared to Apple’s iTunes. Regardless though, its a good sign for music and those of us who listen to lots of it!

A while back I wrote about how it was rumored New Kids On The Block were going to make a comeback. Today, on my ride into work, I heard more of that on the radio. In fact, it appears the original members are going to be appearing together on The Today Show at some point this morning. What has the world come to! I guess it’s safe to say no band or musical group is ever dead.

So my “worst fears” have come to pass, we’ll not only have young girls screaming and clawing after these guys at shows, but girls in their late 20’s and early 30’s who grew up with them! We already know that the polar ice caps are melting, does this mean that hell is freezing over??? Needless to say I’m not excited about this in the least, but I’m sure plenty of people will be and these guys will make a ton of money.

Now I find the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame to be rather interesting. Unlike all other Halls of Fame (MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, etc. etc.), you can still be “active” when becoming a member of the Music Hall Of Fame. Baseball greats like Nolan Ryan and Cal Ripken and NFL greats like John Elway, Dan Marino, and Joe Montana all retired before being inducted. But you don’t have to retire as a musician to become a member of the Rock And Roll Hall. You can still be actively producing new albums and touring. I suppose its more an honor of the work you’ve already done as part of an illustrious career, but for me, it doesn’t have the same meaning as a ballplayer having a long, fruitful career and then hanging them up and waiting the alloted time frame before becoming a hall member. Regardless, congrats to Madonna and all of this years other inductees.

I was on my way home from work today and listening to WAAF out of Boston, MA and heard the DJ talking about this site called Rockabye Baby. She starts playing these cuts of rock songs done as lullabies! It was weird at first, but the more I heard, the more and more I thought it was pretty cool.

If you go to their site, you’ll find lullaby CDs done for artists like Metallica, Coldplay, Tool, and Pink Floyd among many many others. The prices are a bit steep with most CDs coming in at at $16.98. The web site design also leaves a little to be desired, but maybe with some success they’ll be able to polish it up a bit! But if buying this for your kids is your thing, go for it. Its definitely an original idea for sure.

I was reading my copy of the February 2008 Maxim and came across an article about Gibson‘s new Robot Guitar. This is the first guitar Gibson has made that can actually tune itself! It has a tiny CPU in the neck of the guitar that can pick up individual string data from the body. It then distributes it in real-time to that string’s corresponding tuning pegs. A ceramic insulated tailpiece minimizes vibrations that allow senors to transmit accurate pitch data to the CPU in the guitar’s body. Wala! Self-tuning! Granted, any self-respecting guitar player should be able to tune his own guitar, but hey, a little help never hurt, especially when you’re in a hurry!

Even though this guitar has state of the art technology built into it, it still looks like a vintage axe you’d expect from the folks at Gibson. The Stroke’s Albert Hammond was quoted in Maxim as saying that the guitar is a work of art, but he can definitely tune his guitar faster by ear. But it’d be good for beginners who’re looking to get into playing the guitar. The only problem for beginners? The $2,499 MSRP price tag. I know when I started playing I wasn’t spending more than $300. Even know I only have maybe $1,000 worth of equipment as a hobbyist. Anyway, it looks cool for sure!

I’ve been playing Guitar Hero for the Playstation 2 since it first came out. I have all 3 games and am quite an addict when I actually have the time to sit down and jam out on the T.V. (disturbs the neighbors less than my mediocre electric guitar abilities). Anyway, it seems that nothing can keep this great game down and a fourth installment is in the works. Its said that Aerosmith will be starring in its own version of the game, entitled “Guitar Hero: Aerosmith”. Its rumored to hit shelves by the 2008 holiday shopping season (big surprise there, cha ching!).

The game will feature only Aerosmith songs, totaling about 30. I’m sure this will be a great not just for both the Guitar Here franchise, but also for Aerosmith fans. I’ll definitely be picking this up when it comes out. Yet another Guitar Hero game to drive my fiancee nuts with!

So the Grammy Awards were on last night. I don’t pay attention to these types of shows much, but my fiancee had it on while I was working at the computer, so I caught some bits and pieces. Seems that Kanye West doesn’t like a time limit on his speeches. Dude, the night isn’t just about you, chill out. A very nice showing of The Beatles Love production. Its nice that they did that sow people who don’t get a chance to see it in Las Vegas can see how great and special it is. I believe they won a Grammy for that too. Nice stuff. Lastly, does anyone else out there find it ironic and really sad that Amy Winehouse wins multiple Grammy’s for her album “Back To Black”? Most notably the song “Rehab”? Uh, isn’t she in rehab? Didn’t they let her out to perform via satellite at the Grammy’s? Uhm, yeah, great message people. She needs to just go away. Thanks for coming out.

I was just over at Last.fm and noticed on their index page that their offering free streaming music. I hadn’t been there in a few weeks, so this was something that I thought was cool. So, I decided to check it out, doing a search for Band of Horses. I was taken to a page listing the 4 tracks they had available. The one annoyance was the music started playing immediately. What if I was already listening to something? I’m not sure what sort of licensing they have going on that lets them do this and why the number of tracks are limited, but who case. Sampling entire tracks for free is where its at in my opinion. Short clips sometimes doesn’t give you the best idea of a songs quality.

Anyway, it streams fairly well, which is nice. I always hate it when audio and video craps out in the middle of playing it. I wasn’t able to find more details about it (like how many times you can play tracks), but this looks promising for anyone looking to check out new music.

I just saw this on one of Shannan’s Hollywood gossip shows and I just found this bit on Yahoo News about the possibility of NKOTB coming back. Like the Spice Girls wasn’t bad enough, we’ll have to deal with this nonsense? Now, I understand they were big when I was like, 10 years old, but come on. Hasn’t the “boy band” thing phased itself out? Maybe someone should check the temperature of hell, I think its frozen over!