Everyone wants to sound like Joy Division, but these Californians get far closer than most. A hollowed-but-charismatic singing style (the first step in any Ian Curtis imitation) is validated by acerbic guitars and marching drums. There's evidence here of both real talent and studious research.
- Topics:
- Rock and Pop,
- Free MP3 of the Day,
- Alternative/Punk
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Jasmine's back and Donald wrangles her away from vacation reflection and back into a digital music frame of mind. Discussion topics include a new Philips GoGear review, why you should never trust a headphone review, and what would happen if Apple stopped supporting FairPlay.
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Episode 108 |
Yamaha Pocketrak 2G Voice Recorder
Never trust a headphone review
What if Apple stopped issuing DRM keys?
Band-themed MP3 players: Yay or Nay?
- Topics:
- Podcasts,
- MP3 Players
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I spoke with Mercora founder Srivats Simpath about three years ago as the company was looking for possible partnership opportunities with Microsoft. At the time, the company's vision and proposed business model seemed a little muddy. Music was involved. There would be some sort of peer-to-peer sharing system, but somehow this would be legal. To differentiate itself from the popular but illegal file-sharing systems used by most of the world at that time, Mercora would have a strong social-networking aspect, with users recommending or voting on songs. I don't remember exactly how the company expected to make money, but I recall telling them that charging subscription fees to end-users is a hard way to go.
If you can't explain your online music service in a sentence, it's too complicated.
Yesterday, the company--which changed its name to Social.fm last year--announced it's out of business. Without knowing exactly what went down, I'll just say that Mercora's was one of many confusing pitches that I've heard over the years. (I sympathize with Rafe Needleman's frustration.)
So, in hopes of turning a negative into a learning experience, here are some very general rules for digital music start-ups:
1. Focus. If you can't describe your service in a single sentence, you're doing too much. Think of the few successes in the digital music space we've seen so far. iTunes Music Store: buy songs and they'll automatically transfer to your iPod the next time you connect it. MySpace (from a music standpoint): people can learn about and sample musicians that their friends and peers like. CDBaby: online CD store for unsigned bands. Pandora: builds a custom radio station for you based on your musical taste.
2. Uniqueness. We've already got plenty of choices for downloading and streaming music--what can you offer that's different? Social networking won't cut it because it's so subject to network effects--the more people are on one, the more useful it becomes. MySpace has been doing social networking-plus-music since 2005 and consistently draws more than 100 million users per month. How will you convince anyone to migrate to your brand new service when all their friends are still on MySpace? I'm not saying it's impossible, but you better have something unique.
3. Music listeners are cheap. This is a hard one to swallow, but any time I'm listening to a pitch or reading about a new online music service and the idea of fees--particularly monthly subscription fees--comes up, I immediately think "fail." It may not be moral or fair, but any fee-based music service has to compete against a huge amount of free music that's easily available to anybody with an Internet connection. So what's the answer? Music listeners are also lazy! You can charge money if--and only if--you offer a significantly easier experience than we could get by frequenting file-sharing sites and other free sources (not to mention ripping CDs from our friends). Again, iTunes is instructive: you pay to download the songs directly into the same app you use to transfer them to your iPod. Saving a few steps is worth $0.99.
A quick aside: musicians are even cheaper, and well-attuned to suspect anything that smells like pay-to-play. Good luck with that.
4. Launch strong. On the day your site goes public, you better have enough capacity and bandwidth to accept all the curiosity seekers. Your site better be so easy to use that I don't have to read the FAQ. And most important, you better launch with all the content (that means licensing deals ahead of time) and features you promised--I feel so burned by Qtrax (just to pluck an example out of thin air) that I'll probably never write about the company again.
- Topics:
- Music News
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The Pretenders weren't gone enough for "Break Up the Concrete" to count as a comeback, but it still stuns--this is rock 'n' roll as we perhaps forgot Chrissie Hynde could make it. Gruff melodies pair with countrified guitars and a voice that hasn't sounded better. This exclusive offer of the MP3 "Don't Lose Faith In Me" is available on Download.com Music and MP3.com for one week only.
- Topics:
- Rock and Pop,
- Free MP3 of the Day,
- Alternative/Punk
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"Sweet Lord" is the latest uncategorizable duet from the L.A. emcee and the N.C. producer. Underground in spirit but polished, wordy as a notebook but jammed with explosive beats, cut with samples but full of original storytelling, it holds their unique spot in the scene.
- Topics:
- Hip-Hop,
- Free MP3 of the Day
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You could listen to the Cloud Room for street cred alone--their frontman's related to Philip Glass, they like to cover New Order--but there are better reasons. Try a blend of dreamy lyrics and tough percussion that, if not yet as polished as the Arcade Fire, is still sinuous and entrancing.
- Topics:
- Rock and Pop,
- Free MP3 of the Day,
- Alternative/Punk
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John Dragonetti's self-professed enjoyment of both modern electronica and classic pop gets put to great use on the L.A. pair's second disc. "Honeysuckle Weeks" layers sun-dappled melodies into dreamy beatscapes, giddily mixing tambourines with drum machines.
- Topics:
- Rock and Pop,
- Free MP3 of the Day,
- Alternative/Punk
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"Chrom-E-O-oooo...O!" an anxious crowd chanted before a sold-out show this past Tuesday, (July 29, 2008) at the Fillmore where Montreal-based '80s synth-funk duo Chromeo owned the night (no openers) and showed us Bay Area folks how to make the finest of their "Fancy Footwork."
As always, Chromeo looked and sounded sharp on stage, with Dave-1 sporting the typical garb: black leather jacket, black shades, skinny-black jeans and classic porkpie hat. P-Thugg, on the other hand, carried the "bonafied" street-thug look with a regular black tee, jeans, and fancy kicks. The crowd, you ask? Very mixed! And I have to give Chromeo mad props for attracting hipsters of all shades and color. Weirdly enough, too, I noticed more dudes than girls, but then again, the chicks probably dragged their men to share their affinity for Chromeo's new-age funkiness. Admittedly, I am used to dance numbers, knob-twiddling, and anything electronic, so it was a great treat to be able to slowly sip on my cocktail while enjoying a more slow-tempo booty -groove and cracking up in--between songs whose lyrics include "You're a needy girl, I can tell when I look in your big brown eyes. You want my world, but how can I do yours if I can't do mine?"
The duo played practically every song off of Fancy Footwork, and one of the show's golden moments was the big salute to the Bay Area and its rap legends, Too Short, E-40 and Mac Dre (RIP), followed by the cheesy '80s-hip-hop number, "You're So Gangsta." Although nothing beats P-Thugg's cover of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'", which gave me the opportunity to sing along to this guilty pleasure.
For more Chromeo goodness, check out their artist page here featuring tons of free, killer remixes to show off to your friends. Enjoy!
- Topics:
- Rock and Pop,
- Hip-Hop,
- Electronic & Dance
- Tags:
- Chromeo,
- Fillmore,
- Free MP3,
- electronic,
- dance,
- Fancy Footwork
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This is truly pathetic. A couple weeks ago, L.A. rock band BuckCherry issued a press release (since removed) complaining that their latest single had been leaked on BitTorrent. But a little clever research by TorrentFreak revealed that the leaker had only uploaded one track--this one--to BitTorrent, and had the same IP address as someone who'd edited the band's Wikipedia entry. When TorrentFreak e-mailed the band's manager to ask his opinion, lo and behold, the IP address matched.
Leaking a track is a valid way of getting promotional buzz for a new album. But complaining about it indicates a certain desperation--like people weren't even interested in the leaked track, so the artist had to call attention to it. Oops.
Few singer-songwriters wear their Leonard Cohen influences as well as San Diego's Woodard. And that cool folk melancholy sounds especially fine next to gleaming country-pop guitars. Woodard is tough to classify, and we should consider that an asset.
- Topics:
- Country,
- Folk,
- Free MP3 of the Day
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