musick_in_the_head's Journal

MyStrands.TV on Your Wii by musick_in_the_head

2007-12-26 12:09:52.075337

For those of you that just got a Nintendo Wii for the holidays (or like me you claim to have gotten for your kids but somehow you seem to be the one that is always playing it), I highly recommend that you download the Opera Browser (aka "Internet Channel") for 500 Wii points and then fire up mystrands.tv on it. It works great and now easily brings personalized music into your living room.

Ho, ho, ho!

Song of the Day: Manchester Orchestra - Where Have You Been? by musick_in_the_head

2007-11-14 09:07:50.378265

I am a fan of Simplify Media, and their iTunes plug-in just got better by now also supporting Winamp. Now I can stream songs off my friends' machines regardless of which media player they use.

Today, I was trawling a friend's collection and saw an artist I had never heard before...Manchester Orchestra. So I just clicked and listened. It turns out that it was a great discovery, so I thought I'd share.

Manchester Orchestra - Where Have You Been? (mp3)

A nice side-effect of this use case is that the MyStrands client tracks these so if I'm streaming off an friends machine and I missed what I had played, I can just go and check out my play history.

A Tale of Two Cats, A Diamond and Commercial Success by musick_in_the_head

2007-11-02 04:44:23.396034

There is a diamond commercial that is playing right now that has the web abuzz. The commercial is simple... a man quietly puts a diamond necklace on his wife while she is sleeping. The entire tone and emotional power of the commercial is provided by Cat Power doing a cover of "How Can I Tell You" by another Cat... Cat Stevens.

I don't go out of my way to buy Cat Power albums, but every time I hear any of her songs I like it. So, I went to search for it and you can find post after post of people asking "who does that song, I love it!". Well, the song is not available in anything more than the 30 second snippet from the commercial.

Cat Power - How Can I Tell You (mp3)

The word is that there is a Cat Power album of covers coming out next year. This commercial may very well turn Chan Marshall (aka Cat Power) into a mainstream star. Some people may call this a sellout, but I think when done right commercial soundtracks can be a very powerful tool. Nick Drake and Volkswagen. Feist and Apple. Israel Kamakawiwo'ole and eToys.

What to get a Cat Power fix to hold you over until the album comes out?
See the video at Cat Power Channel on MyStrandsTV

Speechless by musick_in_the_head

2007-10-29 07:49:26.957903

What on earth is going on here?! Coldplay playing live on a morning show as a musical backdrop to octogenarian Dancing with the Stars?!

See the video at The Frames Channel on MyStrandsTV

The Moby Equation - How to Calculate Musical Sellouts by musick_in_the_head

2007-10-15 13:23:29.890998

I was reading the Washington Post this morning and came across this article and calculation. I thought it was amusing, albeit a bit harsh to Moby. Take a look...

Sellout Songs | washingtonpost.com: "The Moby Quotient, generated by the formula below, determines the degree to which artists besmirch their reputations when they lend their music to hawk products or companies. (The name salutes the techno artist Moby, who took the practice to new extremes with his 1999 album 'Play.' The Moby Quotient is designated by the Greek letter mu.) Each factor is ranked on a scale of 1 to 10; the number assignments can be subjective, but the formula is useful in gauging the relative outrage fans should feel with each instance of this continuing cultural blight. The higher the result, the greater the degree of selling out. Read more about the Moby Equation."

Check out some of the recent reader submissions too.