Caitlyn can rock a todo list is an mp3 blog for busy people. She regularly posts zip files that are the equivalent of a mix CD, with short to-the-point impressions. Consider it your indie-music cocktail chatter cheat sheet. 
Stereomood is a streaming internet radio site that, provides "music that best suits your mood and your activities." Click on the mood and listen away.Seeing these men adopting the roles of both men and women in classical paintings really serves to highlight the Guerrilla Girls' points about how women frequently appear in art: naked. Another lesson in why drag can be so powerful. It really makes you see gender norms in a new way.
Plus, seeing semi-naked Swedes is just fun. Anyone remember this? (think of it as a 2-for-1 TOTI)
The Rent Is Too Damn High Party is a political (?) party running in the upcoming General Election for the City of New York and County of New York. Hands down, it's the most awful website in the history of websites. It was made by a time-traveller from 1996, complete with bursting firework gifs. Precious.
uPlaya is an online service where independent music artists can upload their songs and be given an automated score of the hit potential of that song. Boom. You no longer need humans to run record lables. Or something.
I dislike how the "success stories" section has no success stories. Okay, I want song examples, people.
Also, best question from the FAQ: "Isn’t music supposed to be art?"
Also, one metafilter commenter notes,
"This strikes me as a high tech version of the old songwriting competition / modeling agency scam, the kind of thing where almost everyone is assured they are primed for success, and they have some fees you can pay to enter contests for a chance to make it big. I feel like a rube just for giving them my email address.
This is snake oil. We have been uplayed®."
"This cover is a VideoSong, a new medium with 2 rules:
1. What you see is what you hear (no lip-syncing for instruments or voice).
2. If you hear it, at some point you see it (no hidden sounds)."
And now, obligatory comment:
This blog is about rap and hip-hop lyrics that are absolutely absurd, ludicrous, nonsensical, ridiculous, basic, basically stupid, basically bad, basically basic, or preposterous. We also take some lines and examine them literally. In the words of one of our critics, we are "willfully obtuse". Call it what you want. Hopefully we don't get capped. You have to understand that we really do love rap and all of these artists that we kid about.
"Is our response to music hard-wired or culturally determined? Is the reaction to rhythm and melody universal or influenced by environment? Join host John Schaefer, Jamshed Barucha, scientist Daniel Levitin, Professor Lawrence Parsons and musical artist Bobby McFerrin for live performances and cross cultural demonstrations to illustrate music’s note-worthy interaction with the brain and our emotions."In my friend Justin's words, "music + neuroscience + a capella + audience participation = awesome. (This is part 4 of 5 - with the other parts being either music theory heavy or neuro heavy.)"
Pregnant Women are Smug is a cracked.com video showing a singing duo Riki "Garfunkel" Lindhome and Kate "Oates" Micucci. It takes a jibe at clichés women use when they're pregnant.
This song is true.
Excep for my friend Lolita. She's a warrior.
(From mjg)Death to All But Metal is a music video by Steel Panther. I'm just posting it here because of 1) why stop the juvenile jokes and 2) the Sarah Silverman bit at the end.
According to wikipedia, Steel Panther (formerly known as Danger Kitty, Metal Shop and Metal Skool), is,
"a Los Angeles, California parody glam metal band.
Originally formed as Metal Shop, they have the longest running heavy metal show on the Sunset Strip. Onstage, the band both pays tribute to and lampoons the heyday of 80's glam metal. The band's between-song comedy includes jests at conflict between band members, discussions of drugs, sex, and improvised humor with the crowd."
In B flat is a collaborative music and spoken word project that utilizes YouTube videos tiled side by side. You can play them all at once or set them in motion individually. Very interesting. And soothing.
According to the authors,
"In Bb 2.0 is a collaborative music and spoken word project conceived by Darren Solomon from Science for Girls, and developed with contributions from users. The videos can be played simultaneously -- the soundtracks will work together, and the mix can be adjusted with the individual volume sliders."
The instructions for video submissions were as follows:
-Sing or play an instrument, in Bb major. Simple, floating textures work best, with no tempo or groove. Leave lots of silence between phrases.-Record in a quiet environment, with as little background noise as possible.-Wait about 5-10 seconds to start playing.-Total length should be between 1-2 minutes.-Thick chords or low instruments don't work very well.-Record at a low volume to match the other videos.-You can listen to this mix on headphones while you record.-After you upload to YouTube, play your video along with the other videos on this page to make sure the volume matches.Enjoy!(From Guy )
"In 'Hotline,' Fulks imagines himself calling a telephone crisis line where panicked songwriters and producers in a pinch can get access to Fountains of Wayne-sanctioned operators. The pop technicians on the other end proceed to talk the distraught songsmiths down from their musical ledge, suggesting solutions such as "employ the radical dynamic shift" and "slather the holy hell out of the thing with a semi-ironic Beach Boys vocal pad." All this is set to music, including an announced "slightly distorted melodic solo," that would fit snugly on the Fountains' resplendent 'Welcome Interstate Managers' album from 2003 (with Fulks twisting his usual twang into a dead ringer for FOW's Chris Collingwood)."The whole thing kind of caters to musicians and Fountains of Wayne enthusiasts. The telegraphed vs. gratuitous inside joke is explained by Metafilter reader unSane:
"The ninth is a whole tone above the octave, so a C9 would be C-E-G-D (usually with a Bb thrown in there) and a CAdd9 would be a straight C-E-G-D. In either case the D is the ninth. A telegraphed ninth would mean the D had been established as a strong tone before the ninth chord was hit whereas gratuitous coloration would be a ninth chord where the D had never featured as a significant tone in the melody before.Now you know, and it's probably not funny anymore. Oh well.
It's an insidery joke because most non-musicians (and a lot of musicians) would have no idea whether the ninth had been telegraphed or not, but to anal harmonizers it would be equally obvious whether the ninth was a throw-in or if it was an integral part of the melody.
I can remember an similar bitch-session in the pages of either NME or Melody Maker where Roddy Frame was ripping Edwyn Collins a new one for simply moving a diminished shape up the neck of the guitar, which is kind of a neat trick the first time you discover it but gets old pretty fast even if you are only about 17 at the time, as Roddy must have been."
Spotify is a desktop-based streaming music service, currently only available in Europe. It's in beta, invitation-only mode... (Unless they *think* you're in the UK, tehee!) You download their widget thing, register, and start listening.
I would say it's less like Pandora and more like unlocking the iTunes music store. You can skip with abandon (including to the middle of songs!), repeat segments of songs, make playlists, listen to radio stations stratified by decade, etc. etc. etc.
"Spotify offers you legal and free access to a huge library of music.
Why do I have to install Spotify?
By installing Spotify as a stand alone application you get a much better user experience and audio quality compared to web-based sites.
Do I need to pay to use Spotify?
No, the advertising-funded version of Spotify is free of charge, however, for now it requires that you receive an invite to register unless you are in the UK. Visit our invitation page to sign up to the waiting list. Alternatively, you can pay for an ad-free premium subscription to Spotify.
What countries is Spotify available in?
Spotify is currently available in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France and Spain. We hope to launch in more countries in the future.
Can I scrobble the music I play to Last.fm?
Yes, Spotify has built in support for last.fm that can be enabled from the preferences menu. For more details have a look at this blog post.
How do I get new invites?
Getting invites is one of the benefits of being a Premium subscriber in one of the countries where Spotify Free is available. You receive two new invitations each time your Premium account is renewed (yearly or monthly, depending on your payment method).
(From Slate)
