Spotify

I signed up for Spotify’s $4.99/month plan.

Why?

While there are a lot of things that I would like to change about Spotify (I refuse to use the Facebook integration, more metadata in the library, etc.), the truth is that it really is a great service. When my 6 month unlimited trial runs out, I will seriously miss it. That’s a great marketing strategy. If it were only a 1 month free trial, I may not get hooked and sign up.

Why Now?

My daughter is having a Halloween party on Saturday and she wanted to make a playlist in Spotify for the party. I didn’t think it would so cool if those pesky commercials were interrupting the music.

Will I buy less music because I am a Spotify member?

I generally only buy music from bands that I already know and love. When the new Van Halen album comes out, I will most definitely buy it on MP3 from Amazon. Occasionally, I’ll buy one of Amazon’s daily MP3 deals if it’s compelling, which has led me to buy a lot of music I normally wouldn’t buy. The only impact Spotify will have is that I probably won’t buy things that are on sale at Amazon anymore. For instance, I’ve picked up a lot of albums either from the Daily Deal or the monthly $5 Sales. I would use the sales to buy things that I normally wouldn’t buy. Now, I don’t have to. If I see something that interests me in Amazon, I’ll find it in Spotify and add it to one of these playlists that I created in Spotify:

1. New to Me – this is for music that I’ve discovered (or would never have bought in the first place) because of Spotify  (examples:  The Black Keys, Primus, Adele)
2. Albums I Might Have Bought If I Had Unlimited Funds – contains albums from bands that I’ve always liked, but didn’t buy  (examples:  Jane’s Addiction, Death Cab for Cutie, Paul Simon, Joe Satriani, Pearl Jam, etc.) 

Generally, if there’s an album for sale on Amazon that I’m interested in, it will fit into one of those playlists. Now, if only Spotify would come up with something similar to iTunes’ Smart Playlists.

Boom Boom Pow

Thank goodness for Guitar Hero World Tour. Ever since I got that game, my son’s interest in songs with subjects about fruit salad, cold spaghetti, etc. has certainly waned. Barney beget The Wiggles beget Imagination Movers beget The White Stripes. Long car rides are now tolerable, however, making sure my kids only listen to songs that are appropriate for them is an unwelcome, but necessary, challenge.

A few months ago, my son and my daughter were clamoring for iPods. I told them that they’d have to save up their allowance if they wanted it get an iPod knowing that it would take them forever. My in-laws generously offered to pay half. When the kids finally saved up enough money for their iPods, my in-laws also generously bought them iTunes gift cards as well. And the struggle begins.

Their song selections started out innocently enough. Between my daughter and my son, they bought songs from artists you’d find on the Disney Channel (Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, Jonas Brothers, etc.) or on American Idol (Jordan Sparks, Kris Allen, etc.). They would also hear songs on the radio that they like by artists that for the most part are benign, but I am quickly learning that you have to be careful.For instance, my daughter loves the song Hot and Cold by Katy Perry. Not a bad song, but their is an utterance of the b-word. We let my daughter buy it. She also wanted Katy Perry’s Waking Up In Vegas. We said no to that one.

We let my daughter get Lady Gaga’s Poker Face and Just Dance, although the latter’s subject matter — while not having bad words — is probably not appropriate, since it’s about a girl at a club who’s totally wasted. I don’t think my kids have picked up on that aspect of the song. We definitely will not be letting her get the song where Lady Gaga talks about taking a ride on a guy’s “Disco Stick”. I hope she hasn’t heard that one yet. Ugh.

Enter The Black Eyed Peas. A couple of weeks ago, I bought them I Gotta Feeling and had no problems with the lyrics. Last night, my son decided he wanted Boom Boom Pow. I’ve heard the song on the radio a million times and never heard anything objectionable. I fired up iTunes and found the song. I noticed that there were Explicit and Clean versions of some of their older material and took note that their new album was not marked Explicit. If a song/album is not marked Explicit, wouldn’t you assume that it is “safe”? Guess what? It’s not.

We bought Boom Boom Pow and started listening to it and I heard a few mentions of the “s”-word. I actually started the song over a couple of times to make sure that I heard what I thought I heard. Usually, if a song is released to the radio, there is an option to buy the Radio Edit version of the song. No such luck.

I contacted Apple’s support via online chat and explained my problem. I meant to capture the transcript because it was kind of interesting, but I won’t bore you with the details. To make a long story short, marking a song Explicit and/or providing a Clean copy of the song is solely at the discretion of the record company (Interscope Reconds in this case). It turns out the Radio Edit version of the song is available, but only if you buy the entire album of “Now That’s What I Call Music, Vol. 31”. Uh…no thanks.

I did a quick search of the Amazon MP3 store for a clean version of Boom Boom Pow and came up empty handed. The ironic part is that there were comments on Amazon.com that described the same experience as me: bought it for a young child and were shocked to hear the bad language.I’ll certainly be more careful next time.

In case you were curious, here’s the songs my kids have bought since they’ve gotten their iPod:

Kris Allen	Live Like We’re Dying
Black Eyed Peas	Boom Boom Pow
Parry Gripp	Do You Like Waffles?
Mary Poppins	Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
Jordan Sparks	Battlefield
Lady Gaga	Poker Face
Black Eyed Peas	I Gotta Feeling
Queen	We Will Rock You
Queen	We Are the Champions
Taylor Swift	You Belong With Me
Mary Poppins	Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
Kevin Rudolf w/Lil Wayne	Let It Rock (Clean)
BBC Orchestra	Star Wars Theme
Corinne Bailey Rae	Put Your Records On
John Williams	Dual of the Fates (from Star Wars: Episode I)
BBC Orchestra	Star Wars Theme
Sean Kingston	Fire Burning
Disney’s Friends for Change	Send It On
Selena Gomez	Magic
Survivor	Eye of the Tiger
Kris Allen	No Boundaries
Hey	Mitchell Musso
Jonas Brothers	Poison Ivy
Jonas Brothers	Paranoid
Jonas Brothers	BB Good
Jonas Brothers	Fly With Me
Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato	One and The Same
Hannah Montana	He Could Be the One
Demi Lovato	Don’t Forget
Meaghan Martin	Too Cool (from Camp Rock)
Demi Lovato and Joe Jonas	This Is Me (from Camp Rock)
Demi Lovato	Here We Go Again
Aaron Doyle	What It Takes
Miley Cyrus	The Climb
Katy Perry	Hot N Cold

King's X/Extreme, 8/2/2008, Rams Head Live!

The date in the title of the post is correct.  I didn’t get the year wrong.

Thirteen months ago, I saw King’s X and Extreme at Rams Head Live! in Baltimore. I just found this draft post with just the setlists from the evening that I meant to expand upon, but I never got around to it. I figured it might be worth trying to recollect some events from the evening for my own benefit.

Probably the strangest part of the evening was the third act on the bill, Rock n’ Roll Fantasy Camp, which consisted of people that actually pay money to go to “camp” and have barely famous or formerly famous musicians as “counselors”. Some of the counselors included people like Kip Winger, Mark Slaughter, ex-GNR guitarist Gilby Clarke, an ex-member from Megadeth, an ex-drummer from AC/DC, and the list gets even more obscure after that. The highlight of the camp is to play in front of a crowd of people that are impatiently waiting to see King’s X and Extreme. To be honest, it was decent, if not a bit too long. It was definitely comical. The best part was the “counselor” jam that ended the show.

I have been a huge fan of King’s X since the late 80s and I’d never seen them live. They always play these small venues that I usually don’t bother to go to. Another reason that I hadn’t seen them is that there are very few people that have heard of them, so I didn’t think I’d be able to find anyone to go with. As luck would have it, I discovered that a friend of mine from work is also a huge King’s X fan. What are the odds? So, we went together. We were sorely disappointed that they only played a 9-song set. I blame the Rock n’ Roll Fantasy Camp for running long. However, King’s X were great and I’d love to see them again when they are the headliners. The only distinct memory that stands out for me was that the lead singer/bassist, Dug Pinnick, completely forgot the lyrics to the song Pray. The other two guys in the band paused while he got his thoughts together. Then, all of the sudden, he started singing and they started playing like they never even stopped. I don’t even think they looked at each other before launching back into the song. The song just started. I guess when you play together for so long, you can do things like that.

King’s X setlist:

1. Alright
2. Rocket Ship
3. Move
4. Dogman
5. Pray
6. Looking For Love
7. Go Tell Somebody
8. We Were Born To Be Loved
9. Over My Head

I was really looking forward to seeing Extreme. Most people only know them for the song More Than Words, but they are much, much more than that. They really do a great job of combining hard rock and a bit of funk and other genres. Probably the highlight of the evening for me was the song Cupid’s Dead. They had a couple spots in the song where the band launched into an extended jam. Even though it’s already been over a year, I have a very strong, vivid memory of that song. Seeing them in such a small venue was amazing. They really seemed too big for the place.

Extreme setlist:

1. Comfortably Dumb
2. Decadence Dance
3. Rest in Peace
4. Star
5. Tell Me Something I Don’t Know
6. Play With Me
7. Slide
8. Midnight Express
9. More Than Words
10. Ghost
11. Cupid’s Dead
12. Take Us Alive
13. Am I Ever Gonna Change
14. Flight Of The Wounded Bumblebee
15. Get The Funk Out
16. Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love (tease)
17. Hole Hearted
18. Communication Breakdown (Zeppelin Cover)

Cheep Cheap Chickenfoot

This Friday, June 5th, brings the release of Chickenfoot’s debut album. If you weren’t sure whether you wanted to buy the album, Amazon will make it easy for you. According to the band’s website, the album will be available for digital download from Amazon’s MP3 store for $3.99 from June 5 thru June 8.

In fact, the page for the album is already up on Amazon and you can listen to previews of the songs.

Another Reason to Hate NIN

Nine Inch Nails and a reunited Jane’s Addiction are touring this summer. The name of the tour is cleverly titled NIN|JA 2009.

Trent Reznor was so generous selling Ghosts for $5 and giving away The Slip for free. He (and Jane’s Addiction) is graciously continuing his genorosity by giving away a few sampler tracks in anticipation of the tour. The sampler has 2 unreleased songs from NIN and 2 unreleased songs from Jane’s Addiction. There are also 2 unreleased tracks from a new band called Street Sweeper.

Street Sweeper is a hard rock/rap combo featuring Tom Morello (from Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave) on guitar and someone named Boots Riley on vocals. I really like these two songs. The NIN|JA website has more songs from Street Sweeper that you can stream. I assume they’ll be releasing a full length album within the next couple of months.

If you enter your address on the NIN|JA website, you’ll get a link to download the sampler for free.

While I hope that Trent Reznor continues to do his part to change the culture of the record industry, I still (mostly) hate Nine Inch Nails.

My Kind of Music

If I were to describe my favorite kind of music, I would always say that Van Halen is my favorite kind of music. But, aren’t they a band that plays music? Are they a kind of music? For me, Van Halen is and they are a genre unto themselves.

While I am a fan of the entire VH catalog, I do prefer Van Halen with David Lee Roth over Van Halen with Sammy Hagar. That doesn’t mean I don’t like Sammy Hagar because I’ve really enjoyed his solo material — certainly better than David Lee Roth’s solo material.

Enter Chickenfoot. This band is made up of 2 parts Van Halen, 1 part Red Hot Chili Peppers, and 1 part legendary guitarist.  They’ve recently released two songs from their upcoming album (Soap on a Rope and Down the Drain) on Facebook. This is what VH with Sammy should’ve sounded like. This music is like a revelation to me. No current rock band sounds like this. I am really looking forward to hearing the rest of the album.

Chickenfoot is my kind of music.

What is Chickenfoot?

If you visit the Chickenfoot home page (today at least), you will see a video of 4 people’s mouth asking “What is Chickenfoot?” followed by a very short clip of a song. You may be able to figure out what is going on without my help, but I thought I’d enlighten everyone regardless.

The four people in the video are:

1. Sammy Hagar – former lead singer of Van Halen
2. Michael Anthony – former bassist of Van Halen
3. Joe Satriani – guitarist extraordinaire
4. Chad Smith – current drummer of Red Hot Chili Peppers

Chickenfoot is a new, hard rock super group. If the short clip at the end of the video is any indication, I think we are in for a real treat. I heard a short clip of another song that was just as promising.

I’m not sure when the album is coming out (Wikipedia says April), but I think this short video is probably the beginning of a drawn out marketing campaign to generate buzz. I’ve known about Chickenfoot for months — I don’t need a marketing campaign. I’m ready.

Female Singer/Songwriters

I’ve made no secret of the fact that the genre of music I favor is hard rock/heavy metal. However, I noticed something today: I have a lot of music by female singer/songwriters in my MP3 collection. I realized this when I saw the Daily MP3 Deal in the Amazon MP3 store was an album called Love, Save the Empty by an artist I have never heard of named Erin McCarley. I played the previews of the tracks and decided that for $1.99, it’d be worth a purchase. It was. I really like it.

I never purposely sought out music by female singer/songwriters. I guess I would hear a song, like it, and buy it. It sort of goes against the grain of the kind of music that I generally identify with. Maybe I’m more musically rounded then I thought. I’m sure a closer examination of the music in my collection would reveal other, similar trends.

Here are some other female singer/songwriters that are in my collection:

• Alanis Morissette
• Anna Nalick
• Carole King
• Chantal Kreviazuk
• Colbie Caillat
• Fiona Apple
• Jewel
• KT Tunstall
• Lisa Loeb
• Sara Bareilles
• Sheryl Crow
• Tori Amos

BTW, the Amazon MP3 store is great. They have a daily deal where they give a deep discount to some album. In addition to Erin McCarley, I’ve bought Police’s Synchronicity, Prince’s 1999 and some others for $1.99 from Amazon. They also have 5 for $5 Fridays, where they will sell 5 albums for $5 each. You can get some really good deals there. I track the MP3 Daily Deal using their RSS feed, which you can add to your RSS reader (I use Google Reader). I think there’s a fan page on Facebook also for the MP3 store.

Christmas Music – Fantasy Sports Style

I’m Jewish and I enjoy music with an edge. So, you may understand why listening to Christmas music is not one of my favorite things to do. I’m sure that if Metallica or Van Halen put out a Christmas album, I’d listen to it year round. However, you just don’t hear a lot of Christmas music that you can play on Guitar Hero.

My wife — who is also Jewish, but likes music sans edge — is completely crazy about Christmas music and has passed on her insanity on to my kids. My wife and kids practically count down the days to when the radio stations start playing Christmas music.

From the middle of November til the end of December, I am totally overwhelmed with Christmas music. I really get irritable when I’m stuck in the car with my family and I hear the same songs over and over and over again. I can tolerate about 5% of Christmas songs and maybe about 10% of that I actually enjoy.

Thanks to my daughter, I found a way to enjoy Christmas music by making it more “interesting” and giving me a reason to listen. The other day, she suggested that we each name our favorite Christmas song and then we get a point every time it plays. My daughter picked “All I Want for Christmas is You” by Mariah Carey. I picked “Do They Know It’s Christmas Time?”, the “We Are the World-like” song with all of the British music stars. My son picked “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” My wife picked “Walkin’ in a Winter Wonderland.” Then, I realized that this game won’t work. There are about 50 versions of  “Walkin’ in a Winter Wonderland” and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” so of course, my daughter and I have no chance of winning. In other words, our pot odds are no good.

I thought of a better idea for the game to make it fair. I told my daughter to write down 20 song titles on pieces of paper and put them in a hat. Then, my wife, my daughter, my son, and I took turns picking 5 songs each and Fantasy Christmas Music was born. We are keeping track of each time one of our songs plays. We don’t know what the prizes will be yet, but we will award prizes for highest total, highest total for one song, and lowest total.

We may have to change the rules a bit because my daughter falls asleep with the radio on and I think listening for the songs on our list is keeping her up at night. We’ll probably have to cut the game off at bedtime.

I don’t have the official list in front of me, but I was pretty happy with the distribution of classics with multiple versions vs. newer songs with only one version.

I’m even finding myself turning on Christmas music when I’m alone. By the way, we are using the honor system, so if I hear somebody else’s song and I’m alone, I have to award them points.

I actually think I made Christmas music fun for the whole family…including me.

Decimated

I have always been a fan of hard rock and some heavy metal. However, I never understood how people can like the genre Death Metal or Thrash Metal (by the way, I’m lumping them both into the same genre although I have a feeling they are two distinct genres and I probably just offended somebody). Typically, singers in this genre sing in this very hard to understand shout-growl and the music is just complete noise. Unlistenable, if you ask me (oops, I think just offended someone again). If you ever perused the Death Metal aisle in a record store — assuming such an aisle existed (oops, I did it again) — you would just laugh at the names of the band, the names of the albums, and especially the names of the songs.

When I was in college, my good friend and I decided to come up with a fantasy Death Metal band because of the ridiculousness of the genre. Armed with a thesaurus, we went to work crafting what would probably be a masterpiece in the Death Metal genre if our band actually existed. I think we even got another friend of ours who was a good artist to draw the album cover for our fantasy band’s fantasy album.

This was just one of those things that you never forget and over 13 years after graduating college, it still occasionally comes up in conversation. We laugh about it just as hard now as we did then. My problem is that my memory always fades and I can never remember the name of the band and I can only remember a few of the song titles. During an e-mail exchange with my friend the other day, I was reminded of our “band” and I e-mailed him to see if he still had the album. Less than an hour later, he sent me all of the details. I don’t know how he was able to respond so fast as this was in the middle of a workday.

I told him I would record the details in my blog for posterity.  If he still has the album cover, maybe he’ll scan it and send it to me, so I can post that, too.

Artist: Decimated
Album: Writhing in Excrement

1. Lairs of Mephisto
2. Trapped in Ribaldry
3. Rendezvous with Death
4. Eternal Suffering of the Damned
5. Crucified
6. Tormentor of Souls
7. Sepulcher of Blood
8. Wretched Entombment
9. Wrath of Abudadeen
10. Writhing in Excrement

The funny thing is that a few years ago, I came across an article in The Washington Post that talked about Death Metal bands and the names of the bands and the titles of the albums were eerily similar to our creation.  Either we’re just really talented or it just doesn’t take much talent to come up with song ideas for a Death Metal band (there I go again).