The Music Genome Project by Pandora

Discover Music through The Music Genome Project by Pandora: "The Music Genome Project"

Hey this is pretty cool. Internet radio with nothing to install. Works great in IE and Firefox. I started with the Beatles, thinking that was pretty basic but hey, that's my roots. The Music Genome project player presents music based on the description of your favorite songs. It's online and it's free, as long as you don't mind the advertising.

Their musical attributes or "genes" capture the musical identity of each song, everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and vocal harmony.

My first attempt was fun. I chose Beatles first, then Pandora progressed through some old rock and roll and surf tunes before finding jewels like "Jessica" by They Might Be Giants and "Don't Worry Baby" by the Beach Boys. Pandora also chose songs by Dick Dale and His Del Tones, the Pogues, Fleetwood Mac, Davie Allan and the Arrows, Van Der Graaf Generator, Buck Owens, and the Who.

Pretty cool technology. Pretty cool concept. All from a bunch of friends who happen to be musicians and some techno types who love music and technology. And they're looking for people to join their team. Where else, but California. Wow...cool man.

They bill themselves as an enriched experience in the musical universe...

...a group of musicians and music-loving technologists who came together with the idea of creating the most comprehensive analysis of music ever.

They set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level; it's about what each individual song sounds like.

Related Tags: Music, Pandora, Digital Music, Beatles, Music Genome Project, Internet Radio

Train - : For Me It's You

For Me It's You: Release date January 31, 2006

Train quickly rose to the top of my favorites in 1998 with their self titled release "Train". Whenever I visited my in-laws I would always ask to hear what my sister-in-law was listening to. With a 17 year age difference I was always enlightened to the latest releases that the "younger" crowd was enjoying. From these trips I was turned on to Train, Sister Hazel, Staind and a score of other fine artists.

Although I have never had the opportunity to see Train live, I do have a couple of concert T-shirts thanks to my good friend Don. Don got to catch Train live in Colorado and was gracious enough to send me some shirts.

For Me It's You Track Listings

1. All I Ever Wanted
2. Get Out
3. Cab
4. Give Myself to You
5. Am I Reaching You Now
6. If I Can't Change Your Mind
7. All I Hear
8. Shelter Me
9. Explanation
10. Always Remember
11. I'm Not Waiting in Line
12. Skyscraper
13. For Me, It's You

Train will be performing at a special WPLJ China Club show in New York City on January 30, 2006 at 7:00 pm. No tickets are being sold to this event. You must tune in to WPLJ 95.5 and listen in to win.

Band Members: Pat Monahan - Charlie Colin - Jimmy Stafford - Scott Underwood - Rob Hotchkiss (left in 2003)

Top 10 with "Drops Of Jupiter"
Top 10 with "Meet Virginia."
Top 40 with "Calling All Angels"
Top 40 with "Something More."

Top CD: Drops Of Jupiter (2001)

In 2004 Train was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group and Best Rock Song ("Calling All Angels").

Related Tags: Train, Music, New Release, Sister Hazel, Staind, For Me It's You, WPLJ, Drops Of Jupiter, Meet Virginia

Music Kiosks

Have you used any music kiosks yet?

"A digital music 'vending machine' of sorts, music kiosks allow you to browse, buy and download tracks from an Internet-connected unit that you can then either burn to a CD or transfer to an MP3 player. " - Antony Bruno

New versions support Bluetooth technology, which would enable buyers to transfer content wirelessly from the kiosk to certain mobile phones."

Cool idea, but there's still some drawbacks. Only unprotected MP3s and tracks bought from the iTunes Music Store can play on the iPod. The tracks sold by kiosks are protected with Microsoft Windows technology, and thus are unable to be transferred to the market-leading iPod.

Starbucks' Hear Music initiative has placed CD-burning kiosks inside 40 coffeshops in five cities nationwide, charging customers $8.99 to burn a custom-mixed CD of seven songs, and 99 cents for additional tracks. Starbucks' kiosks do not yet support portable music players, but they recently bulked up its available music catalog to 1 million tracks from 150,000.
MusicLand has made kiosks a central feature of its new Graze Music in-store environment.

Kiosk providers claim the digital music revolution has created an opportunity for what they are marketing as a music store in a box. The idea is to place music kiosks in well-trafficked areas where people generally have 10-15 minutes of time to kill -- such as airports, coffehouses, university student unions, truck stops, even convenience stores. Anyone willing to pay around $10,000 per unit can place a kiosk on their property and start competing for record-store business.

MediaPort says three Fortune 500 companies are testing its MediaATM now and expects a 1,500-unit rollout with an as-yet-unnamed nationwide convenience store chain.

Related Tags: music, music kiosks, Bluetooth, iPod, Starbucks, MusicLand, digital music, MediaPort, MediaATM

Digital music sales up - CD's are down

The music industry is changing. Everyone knows it. But this story from Rolling Stone magazine really brings it home. And the numbers are staggering. CD sales are down and digital downloads are up. Way up. How else do you feed almost 11 million iPods received as Christmas gifts? 19 million digital single downloads, making Apple's iTunes store one of the top ten music retailers in the U.S., ahead of Tower Records and Sam Goody.

For the first time in history, digital downloads are outselling CD's. 2005 saw a seven percent drop in CD sales. About 48 million fewer CD's were sold in 2005 than the previous year. In 2000, the industry's last boom year, the top five albums -- including megahits by Britney Spears and Eminem -- sold a combined 38 million copies. The top five in 2005 sold just 19.7 million, including hits from Mariah Carey, Green Day, and Kelly Clarkson.

So what's the download? In 2005, digital downloads became a major moneymaker for the first time, earning more than $500 million as sales of digital tracks jumped from 141 million in 2004 to 353 million in 2005, and sales of digital albums rose from 5.5 million to 16.2 million.

Ring tones were even more profitable, as revenues doubled to $600 million.

So as the major music labels are suffering losses, the independent labels grew to 18 percent of total album sales in 2005. Maybe that's why we're seeing more digital labels using the internet to market their bands and artists. Ironworks Music and Cordless Recordings come to mind.

It seems the old models don't work anymore. Buying a CD in a store is out...download the latest tunes to your computer or digital music player, and make your own CD's or build up your digital library. And with the iPod Nano holding one thousand songs (the 4GB model,) it's easier than ever.

So what's the future hold? Probably about 200GB of your favorite songs in the palm of your hand. You've got the iPod standard, Nano, and Shuffle. And with latin music sales on the rise, maybe we'll see the first iPod from Latin America...the i yi yi.

Related Tags: Rolling Stone magazine, iTunes, Tower Records, Sam Goody, digital downloads, CD, Mariah Carey, Green Day, Kelly Clarkson, music

Shock & Awe (Banned Cover Art)

Shock & Awe (Banned Cover Art) -- Rate Your Music

"Everyone needs a little controversy: Album covers that were banned, removed, altered or raised a huge amount of controversy. In chrono order. Suggestions welcome & credited. "

Discussions about banned covers have always been interesting. The hard part was finding an original copy to see what it looked like. Well, here is a good list of previously banned albums with the respective graphic.

Now we need a list of "what is that" about on cover art. My favorite was Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys by Traffic. On the back artwork, the guy on the far left has something in his left hand, and we never could find out what it was. Now remember, this is from 1971, so it ain't no cell phone or iPod.

Technorati Tags:

• Music
• Steve Winwood
• Album Covers

Internet Archive: Live Music Archive

Internet Archive: Live Music Archive is a very interesting site. Strictly noncommercial the site offers downloadable music from "trade-friendly" artists. The site also offers several subsets of audio, including:

Netlabels

"These 'netlabels' are non-profit, community-built entities dedicated to providing high quality, non-commercial, freely distributable MP3/OGG-format music for online download in a multitude of genres."

Open Source Audio

"This collection is open to the community for the contribution of any type of audio, many licensed using Creative Commons licenses. Please feel free to contribute your recordings!"

If you like Live recordings and new artists, this site should have something for you.

Technorati Tags:

• Live Music
• Music
• Recordings

Music-Map - The tourist map of music

Here is a site I found entertaining. Music Map takes your search for an Artist and creates a map of other artists. I did very little research into the algorithm that produces the map, but, I found it fun. And I did pickup a few artists to check out along the way, and that is always worth something.

Input an artist name and watch the map. It will place several artist names on the screen. The closer two artists are, the greater the probability people will like both artists. (needs a little time to organize)

Click on any name to travel along.

Interesting results, I tried "Tommy Bolin" and this is the "Map" I received. Not real sure about Billy Joel and Tommy Bolin being considered in the same realm ?

Tommy Bolin
Stevey Ray Vaughn
The Tubes
Mike Stern
Jeff Beck
Frank Zappa
Styx Journey
Def Leppard
Aerosmith
Phil Collins
Bryan Adams
Elton John
Billy Joel
Bon Jovi
Ac/dc
Queen

Also, a minor note, Stevie Ray is mis-spelled in the list.

Tags:Music Music Map ACDC Journey Aerosmith Bon Jovi Def Leppard Stevie Ray Vaughan

Barry Cowsill, found dead

Barry Cowsill, missing since Katrina, has been found dead.

Barry moved back to New Orleans a few weeks before Hurricane Katrina hit. The Cowsill family had not heard from him since September 1, 2005.

Cowsill's body was recovered December 28 from the Chartres Street Wharf.

The Rhode Island Band consisted of mother Barbara, brothers Barry, Billy, Bob, John, Paul and sister Susan. They had eight pop singles from 1967-69.

They had 2 hits reach No. 2 nationally:

"The Rain, the Park and Other Things"
the title song from the musical "Hair,"

The Cowsills: Barry : We are deeply saddened to report that the Cowsill family just learned that Barry's body has been found. More nformation will be posted on the site as it becomes available.

Neil Peart's Anatomy of a Drum Solo

Anatomy of a Drum Solo presents newly-recorded, in-studio footage of Neil discussing, in detail, his approach to soloing. Using a solo recorded in September, 2004 in Frankfurt, Germany, as a framework, Neil talks about each segment of this nine-minute tour de force that is a feature of each Rush performance. He describes the inspiration and the conceptual thinking behind each part of the solo and discusses, and often demonstrates, the technique necessary for playing that segment.

This just released DVD package includes:
a booklet
over 3 hours of live and studio footage
additional interviews and documents Rush performances from the drummer's perspective

This is a must for drummers because it's all from the perspective of the drum chair...behind the kit...behind the scenes. I read somewhere that there's over a dozen cameras covering just Neil's drum setup, so the angle and perspectives must be pretty amazing. I know I always try to position my concert tickets so I can see what the drummer is doing. In fact, the best seat I ever had was on the side of the stage, where I could see the drummer's hands and feet, and watch his every move.

For the Rush/Neil Peart Fan...check out Neil's website...click on "Digital Man" video link on the right, after you enter his site. There's an amazing computer animation of Neil playing "XYZ" with his drumset floating on the water outside Toronto!

Technorati Tags:

• Rush
• Drums
• Music

David Gilmour New Album and Solo Tour

Fresh off the success of Pink Floyd's Live 8 reunion show, singer/songwriter/guitarist David Gilmour has announced a solo European tour, with the promise of U.S. dates to follow.
Confirmed shows include 10 March concerts in Germany, France, The Netherlands, and Italy. Amsterdam and

Milan will get two shows each. Gilmour's two planned concerts at London's Royal Albert Hall May 29-30 have already sold out. Gilmour will be supporting a new solo album, titled On An Island. The disc is reportedly scheduled for release on

March 6 - Gilmour's 60th birthday. The album is Gilmour's first solo effort since 1984's About Face. More shows in Europe are planned, along with a U.S. tour, according to Gilmour's official Web site. Pink Floyd made headlines in July when Roger Waters reunited with the band for the first time in nearly a quarter-century. The group's Live 8 performance was apparently a one-off reunion, notwithstanding ongoing rumors to the contrary.

Technorati Tags:

• Pink Floyd
• Music
  

Popular Music Links as listed on del.icio.us

There is a new feature now available on CybersMusic. On the right sidebar you will notice a new link "Popular Music Links", this will present you with a dynamic list of the Popular Music Links as listed on del.icio.us.

del.icio.us is one of the internets most popular social bookmarking websites. This list represents the most popular pages that people have tagged with the word "music". With thousands of people using the del.icio.us system we hope this list will offer some links to sites that would interest you.

And HAPPY NEW YEAR !