Monthly Archives: April 2010

SingAndStudy – Learn A Language By Listening To Songs And Playing Word Games

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SingAndStudy

Name: Sing And Study
URL: http://www.singandstudy.com

For students of foreign languages, songs are one of the perfect frameworks for capturing new vocabulary. The reasons are obvious: songs lasts only a couple of minutes, and some sections repeat themselves over and over. And you have a melody to begin with – a melody that can dote whole segments of the composition with instant catchiness, if not the whole song.

I already reviewed one site for learning languages using videos, but this one is a bit different. Named Sing And Study, it stands as a (paid) Adobe application that you download and launch from your desktop. This application will let you create word games with these videos that you like. That is, you will define which words are missing from the lyrics as the song is playing. This has the immediate advantage of letting you set the difficulty level as specifically as you want. A song can be suited to just anybody, since you will determine what will be removed from where.

For instance, you could take “Like A Rolling Stone” and make filling the gaps something easy:

You never _____ around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all come down and did _____ for you
You never _____ that it ain’t no good
You shouldn’t let other people get your kicks for you
You used to _____ on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain’t it _____ when you discover that
He really wasn’t where it’s at
After he took from you everything he could steal Continue reading →

Auto (Mateo Moreno) – Uruguayan Music

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"Auto" Is The First Solo Album Issued By Former NTVG Member Mateo Moreno

"Auto" Is The First Solo Album Issued By Former NTVG Member Mateo Moreno

The debut of Mateo Moreno (the former bass player for No Te Va Gustar, and one of its founding members) hit the shelves in Uruguay in 2009. Mateo is actually a multi-instrumentalist, and he handled the majority of guitars (including charangos) and also some percussion on his first solo offering. He also arranged all woodwinds and strings.

I became interested enough to buy this album upon listening to its first single (the outstanding “Simple”) on the radio. The song is a true capsule of sensibility and sensitivity in which different facets of affection are studied as if they were in the same plane, concluding in each case that love is a simple manifestation in itself. You can try to overcomplicate it, and you can also try to make it stand even simpler than it is. It will be all to no avail.

“Simple” is the best cut of the whole disc, and I also have a lot of time for the unbridled folk of “Souvenir” and the moody “Princesa Oscura” [Dark Princess], a song that mixes electronic passages with autochthonous sections in a surprisingly spontaneous way. And those who long for Mateo’s own evolution of the sound of No Te Va Gustar can always check out “Anestesiandote” [Anesthetizing Yourself], the best exponent of rock & roll the disc has to offer. Continue reading →

How Much Do Artists Who Market Their Music Online Really Earn? Read On…

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We hear so much about Lady Gaga causing an online sensation that nobody would be blamed for believing the Internet has shifted everything in ways that clearly benefit musicians. However, this study (by David McCandless) puts it all into perspective – how much an artist earns by selling a physical CD, how much by marketing his music online… It is interesting to say the least, and I advice you to give it a good perusal. Continue reading →

Jump Up! (Elton John) – Album Review

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1982' "Jump Up!" Was A Misstep After "The Fox", Although If Featured The Massive John Lennon Tribute "Empty Garden"

1982' "Jump Up!" Was A Misstep After "The Fox", Although If Featured The Massive John Lennon Tribute "Empty Garden"

Those who claim that Elton’s albums through the ‘80s were collections of substandard songs that had only a couple of substantial cuts thrown in can point their fingers at albums like “Jump Up!” and goad fans of Captain (formerly) Fantastic to no end.

The record was dominated by songs like “Dear John” and “I Am Your Robot” – cuts that were fluff at best (although “I Am Your Robot” achieved a nice, crunchy guitar sound), whereas bathetic material like “Blue Eyes” basically redefined the meaning of the expression “show me an open window and I’ll go through it”.

Most of the troublesome numbers were penned by Gary Osborne, one of Elton’s most frequent lyricists during the ‘80s. But Bernie Taupin also had some input on the album, and it was him who ultimately provided the best material for Elton to work upon. If we leave aside “I Am Your Robot”, that’s it. “Where Have All The Good Times Gone?” (not to be mistaken with the song by The Kinks of the same name) might have been clichéd, but Elton sounded truly at home when singing it, and the same went for the album closer “All Quiet On The Western Front”.

And the indisputable achievement of the whole record (and one of the few compositions that always receives praise, even from big detractors of Elton) was the work of the diminutive lyricist from Lincolnshire. Of course, I am speaking about “Empty Garden”, John Lennon’s eulogy, and a piece that anchors the whole album on a territory that is somehow more respectable. I consider it the best John/Taupin tribute, way ahead of “Candle In The Wind” and “Cage The Songbird”, and a song that proved that while Elton could only produce sporadic hit material during the ´80s, when he did deliver the goods the result was masterful. Continue reading →

Ryan Fyfe (Eyeball.fm) – Interview (Part 2)

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This is the second (and final) part of the interview with Ryan Fyfe from Eyeball.fm. If you haven’t done so already, read Part 1 by clicking on this link.

PART II

MUSIC & YOU

When did you become interested in music? What was the first album or single you ever purchased?

Music has been in my family since as long as I can remember. My dad has one of the biggest collections of music that I know of. Most of it is digitized now, and all of it’s on Eyeball.fm 😉

If I can remember well enough the first music CD I ever had was one of the very early Dance Mix compilations.

Are you in a band yourself, or have you been in a band in the past? Is there a clip on YouTube or elsewhere we could watch?

Unfortunately not, would be hilarious if there was!

Musical likes and dislikes? Favorite artists?

I can do you one better – http://www.eyeball.fm/ryan/library/ Continue reading →

Ryan Fyfe (Eyeball.fm) – Interview (Part 1)

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Ryan Fyfe from Eyeball.fm (reviewed here) was kind (and patient!) enough to sit through the MusicKO interview in full. Thanks, Ryan! This is the first part of the interview, the second section (“Music & You”) is here.

Ryan Fyfe

Ryan Fyfe

Full Name: Ryan Fyfe
Age: 24
Startup: Eyeball.fm
Position: CEO

PART I

THE STARTUP

Tell us a little about your startup. How was it conceived? What are its most distinctive features in your opinion?

The idea for Eyeball.fm came to me when I was working on my personal homepage. I wanted a way to quickly share the music I was listening; both in real-time, as well as show people what was in my library. As I researched more and more and started tying this into my homepage – I realized the wealth of music information/content that is readily available; At that point I scratched my personal project, and drew up a plan of an all-inclusive model that would wrap this information together in a way that hadn’t been done before. Eyeball.fm was born.

What was the original launch date?

November 2009

What has been the response so far? In which countries has it been more successful?

I’ve received an overwhelming response from people who have uploaded their iTunes, for example into the site. These people are addicted to browsing through their old favorites and re-discovering their music along with the videos and all the other content.

The majority of our users come from North America, although there is also a big spread around the world in places like Europe and Latin America. Eyeball.fm isn’t bound by any of the regional copyright restrictions that affect most of our competitors; which is a big advantage for attracting international users who are shut-out of other services like Pandora,etc.

Tell me a little about the tagline, “Music you can watch”. How does it apply to your startup? Because (as much as I liked it) I failed to see a direct connection when reviewing it.

Eyeball.fm is for people that want to truly discover & re-discover music, as it’s build on the principle that ‘music is more than music’. It’s more than what we listen to, which is where the name and tagline come into play. All music on Eyeball.fm is in a video which is where the tagline comes from, but it’s also about images, bio’s, lyrics and more! Continue reading →

Eyeball.fm – Another Way To Share & Discover Music Online

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Eyeball

Name: Eyeball.fm
URL: http://www.eyeball.fm

The amount of services to discover (and recommend) music online has no end. If someone asked why, we could but reply “Elementary, my dear Watson” with a smirk. “There is no end to these services because today absolutely everybody can upload his songs to the WWW and make them available to just everybody. These services are vital – or do you fancy sitting for a whole week chained to your PC listening to newcomer after newcomer?”

I have already reviewed a couple of these services, and you (being the diligent reader of MusicKO that you are) already know how they work. I will simply enumerate some of the most notable (and in some cases unique) features of Eyeball.fm for you.

For starters, it is more than merely a service for recommending music – it is a true backup service since you can upload your whole iTunes library to your account and access your music from there. And when you do that you are automatically gaining access to information such as bios and song lyrics.

Integration with services like Facebook is also accounted for, so that you can get down to recommending songs with your already existing circle of friends.

Best of all – in contrast to services like Pandora and Rhapsody, Eyeball.fm is available globally. This means that someone like me (who resides in South America) can use it to the full from the word go. Continue reading →

The Band (Album Review)

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The Band's Eponymous Record Is Also Known As "The Brown Album"

The Band's Eponymous Record Is Also Known As "The Brown Album"

One year after releasing a debut album that made them the talk among musicians everywhere, The Band was to release an album that would also made them the talk among the buying public. The year was 1969, and their eponymous disc was to produce their only top 30 hit in the US (“Up On Cripple Creek”), while the record also featured the successful European single “Rag Mama Rag”.

It is easy to see what the hoopla was all about. The group had crafted a quasi-conceptual album about Americana in which different characters came alive in songs where the history of the country was revised time and again, and a clear debt was paid to genres like ragtime, blues, gospel and (most of all) country.

That was specially palpable in compositions such as “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” and “King Harvest (Has Surely Come)”. “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” centered on the end of the Civil War, and its aftermath was seen through the eyes of different characters. A verse that mentioned Abraham Lincoln was not used – Robertson (the composer of the song) was advised to leave that out by Helm, the one American member of the band and a southerner at that – he hailed from Arkansas.  I already posted the best live version of the song available as part of The Band’s general introduction, and what I would like to share with you now is the most famous cover of the song. The artist is no other than Joan Baez. Here you have the video:

Sharing this video is important since it truly brought the song to a wider audience in the same way that Smith’s cover of “The Weight” (featured on the “Easy Rider” soundtrack) became as popular as the original version itself. Continue reading →

The Band – General Introduction

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The Band: Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson, Levon Helm, Robbie Robertson & Rick Danko

The Band: Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson, Levon Helm, Robbie Robertson & Rick Danko

There were not that many performers whose beginning was as shrouded in mystery as that of The Band. They were known as Bob Dylan’s backing group during his early electric tours, and they were in fact the ones backing the master onstage during the infamous “Judas!” incident. They issued their first album in 1968 (“Music From Big Pink”), and the cover illustration was actually done by Dylan. After the album was issued, they gave no interviews. And a twist of fate dictated that they were not to perform live for some time since one of their members (Rick Danko) was involved in a car accident that left him out of business for a couple of months.

One of their most popular songs, from “Music From Big Pink”:

Gradually, the mystery was lifted and what we found was an ensemble of musicians that redefined the concept of collectiveness, and the idea of a performing unit taken as a whole. Their second, eponymous album was a major step forward. Released in 1969, it is now regarded as a seminal work in the history of Rock & Roll.

Upon its release, everybody knew who they were and the way they operated. The names of the five members of The Band were on the lips of everybody within the scene and the industry: Robbie Robertson, Richard Manuel, Rick Danko, Levon Helm and Garth Hudson. With the exception of Robertson, everybody could play multiple instruments. Three members also handled lead vocals: Manuel, Danko and Helm. Still, Manuel is traditionally considered “the” lead singer of the group.

Epochal songs dealing with American themes (like “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”) constituted the backbone of that breakthrough album, and that was all the more remarkable since all of them (except for Helm) were Canadians.

The albums that succeeded had The Band gradually expanding their sound by approaching producers like Todd Rundgren, and working on elaborate arrangements with New Orleans musician Allen Toussaint among others. And their penultimate record together (“Northern Lights – Southern Cross”) offered a truly updated sound thanks to the addition of synthesizers into the mix.

The Band Performing Live At "The Last Waltz" Concert

The Band Performing Live At "The Last Waltz" Concert

As good as they were, those albums began showcasing some strains and rivalries within the group, as Robertson emerged as an authoritative figure – he took the credit for most of their compositions, and that caused serious problems in the long run, with other members accusing him of claiming authorship of what was essentially a collective effort. Robertson would be the first member to quit – his last performance with The Band was on the famed concert movie “The Last Waltz” in 1978. Continue reading →

Kyle Jenkins (Songr) – Interview

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Kyle Jenkins from Songr (the social service for the discovery of music that I just reviewed) was kind enough to sit through my interview the same day my original post was published. Thanks a lot, Kyle! You will find his answers below.

Songr
Full Name: Kyle Jenkins
Age: N/A
Startup: Songr
Position: Owner

THE STARTUP

Tell us a little about your startup. How was it conceived? What are its most distinctive features in your opinion?

Oddly enough, the best ideas come when you least expect it. I was simply singing to myself in the shower (yes..yes..) when I realized I had sung the same song over and over for the past week! This led me to my hunt for better songs, which, to my dismay, brought me no results.

After hours of Googling, the only good source seemed to be YouTube, which, as we all know, isn’t dedicated to music. This got me thinking. I mean, I couldn’t be the only one with repetitive shower songs right?

Since I had some free time, I started on the design and, after 5 tries, finally got one that seemed decent. Working from that, I utilized my limited PHP skills and coded the site.

Eventually, I hit a wall when I was coding the rating system. I received help from a good friend on this part – which he coded our perfectly.

After 3 days of work, I finally got the site together. Over the next couple of days I started implementing features slowly, but efficiently. We are now working on a community system which allows for user registration and interaction.

I mean, the whole point of Songr is that it’s community powered, right?

What was the original launch date?

It was originally planned to be in late April, but additional allotted time allowed us (well, me) to complete it sooner.

What has been the response so far? In which countries has it been more successful?

It’s been pretty successful actually. We’ve received around 300 unique visitors daily since launch, but it doesn’t seem as if the majority of them are voting. Hopefully, the planned community features will encourage this. Continue reading →