Annie Lennox’s new album, Songs of Mass Destruction, has delivered a number of great tracks, but my favorite is Ghosts in My Machine, this week’s Song of the Week. Much of her recent work has been dark and melancholy (see Dark Road, also and excellent single), but this upbeat single has some the bounce and soul of her earlier work, with and without Dave Stewart.
Her Myspace page is unspectacular, but contains complete tracks.
The artful and intricate official website is great, but plays only track segments.
Filed under: Hip-Hop, Just Fine, Mary J. Blige, Music, Song of the Week, Soul, Work That
Mary J. Blige’s new album, ‘Growing Pains’, is due out in stores December 18th, but there are two new pieces of her work that you will be hearing a lot of during the next month. The first is an excerpt from her single ‘Work That’ which has been used in the latest iPod advertisement, sounding something like her 2001 hit ‘Family Affair’. The other is this week’s Song of the Week, ‘Just Fine’ a mellower track reflecting MJ’s more recent maturity and her standard issue outstanding vocals. Either way you can’t lose. Both are uplifting, self-respect oriented tunes with exceptional vocals.
Enjoy both at her website, or her MySpace page.
Finger Eleven’s ‘Paralyzer’ reflects the band metal roots and a heavy dose of cynicism. Hailing from Burlington Canada, Finger Eleven is labeled an Alt Metal band by some, but has more alt than metal its most recent singles, including Paralyzer. The band has been around for 13 years, with current album ‘Them vs. You vs. Me’ serving as their fourth album. Their self titled third album also produced another top twenty hit in ‘One Thing’, a song you will recognize even if you have never heard of Finger Eleven….
Check out the band at their site or their MySpace, and check the video for Paralyzer below.
Filed under: Apple, EMI, Music, Nokia, Sony, Sony BMG, Sony Ericsson, Universal, Vivendi, Warner Music, iPhone, mobile
In a clear response to Nokia’s recent launch of a music portal with PC and mobile storefronts for purchasing and downloading tunes, Sony Ericsson has announced that it too will have a full-fledged music store for its customers by Q2 2008. S-E has always been able to sell tunes from the Sony BMG Music Entertainment, but has now reached agreement with the other three major labels (Universal Music Group (Vivendi), EMI Group PLC and Warner Music Group Corp). All of which means that Sony Ericsson customers will now be able to purchase the vast majority of the major label music that they can purchase through iTunes, Rhapsody, Nokia Music, etc.
The announcement yesterday was apparently timed to respond to both Nokia’s announcement last month, and the launch of the iPhone in Europe which takes place today.
Take That has a long history and vast success as a boy band, but has produced perhaps its first adult ballad of note in ‘Rule the World’. Take That’s history is much akin to that of their US counterpart N’Sync, with great success in dance tracks during the 90’s and with the UK’s Robbie Williams mirroring the success of Justin Timberlake’s solo career as the first stage of the boy band wound down. The four remaining members of Take That produced the track ‘Rule the World’ for the movie Startdust, and the song took on life of its own as a single and music video (featuring clips from the movie). The track doesn’t appear on their current album ‘Beautiful World’ but is supposed to be included in a Deluxe Edition release of the album later this year.
The band is on tour in the UK during the next month,
Though the concept is hardly new, Facebook’s announcement yesterday that it would begin to tailor ads to users online behavior rankles some. People have been proposing this idea for several years… most don’t have enough user data to make a go of it, and most don’t have the high profile that Facebook does. The thought that a corporation backed by Microsoft and worth nearly a Trillion dollars (yes, a slight exageration but that’s another topic) would monitor an individual’s actions or interests and delivery ads based on that informations seems somehow sinister…
But, hold the phone, isn’t that exactly what Google is doing by offering up ads in its search pages? OK, a narrow case because you are asking for specific information when Google responds for related ads. More broadly, isn’t the whole concept of the semantic web based upon the delivery of information you are interested in based on a knowledge of your past behavior? Would you rather get a slew of ads that you have no interest in? Sure we would all rather get no ads at all,… or maybe not.
How many of the gadgets you love or the clothes you wear came to your attention first through ads? No, we don’t want to hear about erectile dysfunction anymore, and no, we don’t need to see any more ads for home equity loans, but I do want to hear about Halo 3 or WoW (don’t play, wish I had tme, just enjoy the ads). I do want to see the latest consumer electronics (sports celebs not needed, thanks), and I do want to learn about new music, art, and events without having to track it all down myself.
So yes, Facebook, please serve me ads based upon what I am interested in, just don’t get too good at it… it would be nice to learn about something I’m not already interested in every once in awhile….
Filed under: Google, Gphone, HTC, Microsoft, Motorola, Samsung, cellular, mobile
Google today announced its much anticipated cell phone strategy. Instead of competing with cell phone manufacturers, Google plans to provide the software to run on handsets manufactured by some of the worlds leading cell phone manufacturers including Motorola, HTC and Samsung, with additional partners anticipated in the future. There will be no Google phone or GPhone, rather, Google with license the software for free to handset manufacturers to encourage them to develop mobile computing and communications platforms that will surpass the Symbian and Windows Mobile smartphones that are currently available on the market.
Consumer electronics hype junkies will be disappointed, but may change their mind when the new handsets start rolling out in the second half of next year.
Filed under: "Alright, Amy Winehouse, Back to Black, Daniel Merriweather, Hip-Hop, Lili Allen, Mark Ronson, Music, Rock, Song of the Week, Soul, Still", Valerie, Winehouse, club, media
Catching up a bit after a crazy week of travel….
Mark Ronson’s single ‘Valerie’ prominently features vocals from Amy Winehouse, though the mock club performance portrayed in the corresponding video shows no sign of her. Probably just as well, since her presence would distract the viewer from Ronson’s music, which would be a shame.
No accident in the choice of singer though; Ronson produced Winehouse’s platinum album ‘Back to Black’ as well as Lily Allen’s ‘Alright, Still’, and it was Ronson’ prowess as a producer and DJ that earned him the label’s backing to produce his own album. The album, “Version” features Winehouse and Allen on vocals and is an upbeat blend of hip hop, soul, R&B melodies and brit punk, all packaged for a club setting.
The next single ‘Oh My God’ featuring Allen is beginning to climb the charts and is an excellent single in a somewhat more mellow arrangement. Similarly “Stop Me” is an arrangement of the Smith’s “Stop Me if You’ve Heard This One Before” featuring Daniel Merriwather and a bit of mashup with the Supreme’s ‘You keep me hanging on’. It’s very enjoyable, but more sober than the upbeat “Valerie”.
Give it a listen at Ronson’s MySpace Page
Kitschy UK band the Hoosiers has some fun making their music and it shows. The theatrics and pop tunes are reminiscent of Sgt. Pepper, but there’s new edge and freshness to the sound that keeps it fun. Their album “The Trick to Life” is out on the RCA label, and their Ten4 designed website is very nice (if slow).
Their new single “Goodbye Mr. A” is getting airplay and videoplay in the UK, but hasn’t really jumped to North America yet.
…in the UK. Coming soon to a browser or N95 near you. Music from Nokia.
The AllAboutSymbian site reports the Nokia Music store, widely anticipated following the Nokia purchase of Loudeye last August. The company has cut deals with the 4 big labels and will be selling DRM’d tracks, initially only in the WMA format with other formats to come. The PC and mobile clients will interact to a limited extent and, and the PC client will support a plan for ‘all you can eat’ streaming of tracks (to be added to the mobile client later). Initially available on the N81 and N95 8G, you can expect that Nokia will soon incorporate the mobile client in many of their multimedia lines.
Looks like a solid offering to line up against iTunes + iPhone. It wil be interesting to see the rest of the industry respond.
