I loved these guys back when I was in high school. It has been years since I listened to them, and last night, I did some searching on the internets on Grooveshark and found these guys again. I hadn’t forgotten them, but I just hadn’t listened in a while.

I just went to MTVMUSIC.com, another really cool site that allows you to search and FIND videos to almost any song…heaven. I found a video for Blister in the Sun and thought I would share it here. It has some clips from Gross Pointe Blank which is a bonus. It also has the lead singer taking a shot at a presidential cat, that was weird, but I still loves the song, and the Femmes. I am old.

I just started using the social music site last.fm. You can check out my page! They have a journal/blogging system on the site that allows you to post entries about your thoughts on music. I posted something there, and I was afraid that the post would just disappear into the ether so I am going to post it here too!

I have heard about this site for years now and I haven’t felt like jumping in, but now.. it is a Friday, and I just bought Coldplay’s Viva La Vida, and music is on my mind so now is as good a time as any to jump in and do some social music.

Shuffle on iTunes

I have iTunes set to shuffle on a playlist I call Super Mix. I put all the albums I love in there and turn on shuffle. Sometimes I have this creepy feeling that iTunes shuffle has a personality and makes weird picks. Today, iTunes is in love with Coldplay. It won’t stop playing them. I hit the next track button and then it gets stuck on The Cure. I am trying to get to the magic number of tracks on last.fm so that I can see trends in my listening and all the other fun stuff this site does and I want the trends to be correct. iTunes, quit screwing me.

New Coldplay

The latest Coldplay album is a departure from its first three albums. Where the first ones were sparse and patient in bringing the full band to bear. This album is adventurous and more in your face. It has a definite flavor of 80’s new wave and is deliciously english. I am still in that strange honeymoon phase with this album, and it is a bit of an acquired taste. I am only now starting my third listen and the songs (itunes just played another Coldplay song… what the…) are starting to grow on me.

It seems very evident that Coldplay has a lot more money to throw at an album because every song is crammed with instruments, like I said earlier. A real departure from the sparse patient sound of their earlier albums, Parachutes, A Rush of Blood to the Head, and X&Y.

I am interested to see whether or not this new album will grow on me as their first three have (iTunes just played another The Cure song… this is weird…).

SeeqPod - Playable Search

“Guaranteed to Make the Sunshine Return”

Could this be the best jam ever? I think so….

Nokia has recently announced that it is opening a new online music store called Ovi. Apparently that means something like “Open Door” in Finnish…who knows.

All this is happening at the same time that Sony has announced that it is shuttering its online music play Connect.

So let me get this straight, Sony, who has its own record label and has a lot of experience in the music business is throwing in the towel while a cell phone maker is getting started… hmmm. It sounds to me that Nokia’s music store is on death watch before it even gets started. I don’t think it will work.

Don Dodge, now with Microsoft, was one of the guys on the Napster team back when it took the world by storm back in 2000. This is a great blog post about the things he learned and we can all learn from the great Napster failure.

It is extremely interesting to see what their business model was and how they viewed their future co-existing with the record industry. There was some money to be made, but the record industry would hear nothing of it. This is definitely a must read if you are in the start-up business.

Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing: How Napster changed the world - A look back 7 years later

Wow, if you were putting anything off until Hell froze over, well you might need to clear up some time on you daytimer. Hell hath frozen over because a major record label, EMI, has agreed to start putting tracks into the iTunes music library, sans Digital Rights Management.

This is great new. It shows that there may be a thawing in the thinking of major labels and how they market their product online. But, I’m afraid that may be a bit premature. I am adopting a wait and see attitude when it comes to labels going “unprotected”.

The tech community has been crying foul over DRM from the very get go. DRM does not protect content from pirates. DRM breaks content for upstanding customers. DRM in effect harms customers, who incidentally paid for the content, while doing nothing to stop the pirates who are the real problem.

I know there is going to be some illegal sharing, but if I know that I can get a great version of the content quickly and easily from a known source, I will take that over the malware infested waters of the sharing sites.

One of the main reasons I haven’t purchased more from the iTunes Store is that I didn’t want crippled AAC files that would transfer to my other devices. I have no incentive to be a pirate of content. I don’t want to give up my cherished bandwidth so that others who didn’t pay for the content could profit from my purchase. I do want to be able to listen to my content on my XBOX. (Which, my home computer can’t see my XBOX because the new version of Windows Media Player is broken, but that is another blog entry.)

Hurray for EMI for at least testing the waters. This is a major step towards what I see as an uptick in revenues for you company. I know I will buy more tracks if they are more useful to me.

uPlayMe.com: People Discovery, Music Discovery

I just found this site today. I haven’t gotten the chance to explore it, but it’s new and it looks like a great way to connect with others who share your taste in music.

Check this article about the new Slacker player. It is a music service, and player that does all the work for you and keeps your player full of new and interesting music using whatever network it can find at the time.

Are you at home, then your Slacker player will use your Wifi. Are you on the road, then the Slacker player will use satellite technology to update your junks.

This stinks of to-good-to-be-true, but if it really comes to fruition, it could be a real contender. I didn’t know there could be something simpler than the iPod. This could be. The interface must be good and intuitive.

Go Slacker Go!

I must be sharing space with a blog that has been Dugg or Slashdotted because it is taking forever to get into my blog to upload content. I don’t know what the problem is. Right now it takes 2 or 3 minutes from the moment I log in to when I can put in a blog entry. If you know what the problem could be, let me know. In the mean time I hope that webbleyou gets it sorted out.

More on XM and Sirius Tying the Knot
In a previous post, I talked about the fact that some people are claiming that Internet radio is one of the reasons for satellite radio not taking off. I find that ludicrous. I listen to satellite radio exclusively in the truck. The last time I checked I can’t get the Internet in my truck driving down the road. That would be cool, but it isn’t happening. I think a more viable cause for the slow uptake of satellite is mp3 players like iPods. I bet there are more people listening to iPods in their cars than Internet radio.

So you might be asking why am I bringing this back up again. I listened to the latest edition of the Engadget podcast and they made the Internet radio argument…I just don’t buy it.