Bjork Releases The First “App Album” Ever

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With The Release Of The First “App Album” Ever, Bjork Is Creating A New Way For Musicians To Market Their Art.

It’s great to see that while some musicians waste their time blaming the Internet for their declining album sales, others are actually embracing the latest technology  and offering punters whole new ways to experience their music.

Bjork is one such artist. She has come up with the first “app album” in history. This app album is available both for iPhone and iPad, and it is basically made up of ten songs. Each of these songs has an app that goes with it, and which must be purchased individually. That is, you have to get the album itself (we could call it “the mother app”), and then buy the separate apps that go with each individual track.

The album/mother app is named Biophilia, and the first app (“Cosmogony”) is available for free. This is what you get when you launch the mother app:

In general, the apps themselves invite you to play games that relate to the theme of each song on the album (such is the case with “Crystalline”, the first “paid” app that has been released – video attached below), and also to create music of your own using your iPad (“Virus”, the second app that was issued). Which is quite fitting, really – Bjork composed “Biophilia” using one such tablet.

Personally, I think that Bjork must be praised for her inventiveness. And that’s regardless of how enjoyable one really finds this “app album” to be. If anything, she is showing us that the new and the old can blend and mix, without the detriment of either.

And you? What do you think of this new approach to music? Do you think other musicians will follow suit, and release their ver own “app albums”? Who is likelier to do it first?

JamCloud – Like Hangouts, But Strictly For Music Lovers

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Name: Jamcloud
URL: http://www.jamcloud.com

An application that is available internationally, JamCloud is here to let all of us play music and watch videos with all our friends in real time. No doubt inspired by the concept of Google Plus hangouts, JamCloud enables people in any corner of the world to create and join listening rooms for free. And the people who do convene in any of these rooms can not only listen to the music others are playing, but also communicate among themselves thanks to a built-in messaging tool.

What’s more, the music that is played in any room can be voted both positively and negatively. That should let people who land on any room which is mighty crowded figure out which music is worth a try, and which is not really worth the hassle.

Currently, JamCloud has a database of over 325 million songs and videos.

And support for services like YouTube, SoundCloud and Facebook means that it’s dead simple to have playlists and individual songs imported right into any room you have joined. It’s all done by clicking and dropping what you want to have shared with others into the relevant box

 

“Si Me Pierdo” by Laura Chinelli (Video)

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One of the sweetest songs from “Historias de Invierno” gets a guitar-and-voice treatment for this live performance. I actually like this version of “Si Me Pierdo” [If I Get Lost] better than the one on the original album – the brittleness that lies at its core has a much better chance to come through.

This video was recorded live at El Tartamudo, a well-known Uruguayan venue favored by independent and emerging artists. It was recorded and edited by Cecilia Dulce.

Creating Jazz Music From Random YouTube Videos

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No, I'm not stoned. That's an actual screenshot of the site!

And now, your weekly dose of madness on MusicKO…

Quite a curious site, YouTube Free Jazz can take random YouTube videos and use them to create sonic collages. The idea is that these should resemble the kind of music one can listen to when attending any outdoors Jazz concert.

That’s in theory. In practice, the site seems to create an almighty racket and little else. Only sporadically does it sound like Jazz. Hey, and I know what I’m talking about! I reviewed a social network for Jazz lovers recently, so I know what I’m on! And I even interviewed its creator.

Speaking of which, YouTube Free Jazz was built by a David Kraftsow, famous for creating a first person version of Tetris (which actually means businesses) and another music-oriented service that turns YouTube videos into parties. You might find these good or not, but you can’t accuse David of not thinking originally.

La Medio Siglo (Uruguayan Independent Artist)

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"Altos Con Rulos" By La Medio Siglo

It’s official: humankind is ending on the 15th of March, 2012, and the world will be left spinning like a loony balloon. Well, Facebook is going to bite the dust right there and then. Which for quite a handful of people is roughly the same thing. They won’t be able to spy on their exes, they won’t be able to insult others indirectly, they won’t be able to tag people in insalubrious pictures… they will have to learn to do without all that. Like my reclusive namesake in robes of white once wrote, “How dreary—Marbles—After playing Crown”.

Me? Since I’m a very balanced sort of fellow, and as calm as a fruit stand in New York, I won’t miss any of the things listed above. I will, however, miss befriending young bands there. My, the number of “musical” friends I’ve got easily offsets my “real life” friends. And my “real life friends” count seems to be dwindling, too. Last week, my two BFF (that’s “Best Friends Forever”, in case you don’t listen to Taylor Swift) said they were going to buy pizza, and they never came back! Sigh…

Well, I guess I’ll have to soldier on. And hold onto the remnants of the day, celebrating all these truly motivated bands I’m still getting to know through the Winklevoss twins’ main claim to fame. The most recent one is La Medio Siglo [The Half-Century], a Uruguayan unit that plays a very energetic mixture of rock and funk.

The band is made up of the communal mystique of Paul Higgs (guitar, vocals), Thomas Bate (guitar), Pablo Deferrari (bass) and Manuel Souto (drums), and its first EP has just been issued. It’s titled “Altos Con Rulos” [Tall And Curly], and it’s available for free on La Medio Siglo’s official website.

Leaving aside the title track (which is just a spirited way to start proceedings),
the EP has got four songs where teenage staples are articulated over music that is muscular and very well-written, with exciting dynamics and histrionics. I recall that the first time I chatted with Paul Higgs (the band’s guitarist and singer) my first remark upon listening to one of the cuts on the EP (which they were recording and mixing back then) was “Shit, you guys have got quite a swing!”. I actually said that aloud as I was typing the words down, and I swear I sounded as earnest as Samuel L. Jackson when he went “Snakes in the motherfuckin’ plane!”. Continue reading →

Spotify Has 1.4 Million Users In America

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It’s been four weeks now since Spotify launched in the US, and statistics are beginning to surface. Just last week I told you about these songs being shared more recurrently by users of the service. Well, now I’ve got something even yummier for you: the actual number of people who have signed up for the service.

According to All Things Digital, Spotify has captured the eardrums of no less than 1.4 million American users.

“Wait, what’s the deal?”, I hear you say. “Facebook has got more than 700 million users! That’s a tiny drop in the ocean!”

To that I can answer categorically “No, it’s not”.
Just to put things in perspective, Rhapsody has 800,000 registered users. And it took Rhapsody 10 years to get there. So, Spotify is doing things right so far. Specially when we take into account that out of these 1.4 million users, 175.000 have bought a subscription. That’s a conversion rate of approximately 12 %.

If Spotify manages to keep the momentum going, one year to this date it should have hit 20 million users. And if the conversion rate remains the same, about 3 million of these are going to be paying for the service.

Nogeno – Free Pages For Artists

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Name: Nogeno
URL: http://www.nogeno.com

Nogeno is the latest site to be released that makes having a profile page where to promote your music an absolute piece of cake. Thanks to Nogeno, just any musician can have an active presence on the Internet, and include everything from a short bio to a calendar listing his every upcoming date. And all the songs he has recorded so far, of course. He can stream these online by way of the provided player, and also sell them for good money. Any musician who uses Nogeno can start generating a direct income, without A & R men getting in the way of what is rightfully his.

A Nogeno page can be created in a breeze, there’s just nothing technical to do or handle – such is the beauty of sites like this and Onesheet. All you have to do in order to get started is sign in using your Facebook account.

And note that if you already have a Bandcamp or a MySpace profile then you can have all your data imported into Nogeno, and be up and running within minutes. In no case will you have to pay anything – Nogeno is free, and (by the looks of it) will remain like that for good.

The Most Shared Playlists On Spotify

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Now that Spotify is firmly established on American soil, it’s time to see exactly the kind of music that people are not only listening to but also sharing through it.

This infograph (from ShareMyPlaylists.com) sheds some light on that subject. It basically highlights these songs that have been featured on the largest number of Spotify playlists so far.

Michael Jackson’s “They Don’t Care About Us” is on top with a whooping 7567 total shares. And the second and third place are taken by “Like A G6” (Far East Movement) and “Sexy Bitch” (David Guetta and Akon).

MPlayr – Listen To Music Charts On Your Browser

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Name: MPlayr
URL: http://www.mplayr.com

MPlayr is one of the best ways to stay abreast of what is being played on some of the most representative music charts the world over. On this site, you can tune into the US and the UK music charts, and learn what sounds are trending there. And I mean it – the site lets you do more than just read a list of songs ranking in either territory, it actually lets you listen to them online. That can be done directly on your browser. You won’t have to download anything, and you won’t have to pay anything either.

What’s more, the site has a chart devoted to iTunes. Again – you can see what’s hot in there, and listen to it straight in your browser.

Other meritorious aspects of MPlayr include letting people look up both new and old songs and have them played on the fly, and letting users create playlists they can then share with all their friends on Facebook (the one service which is used for signing in). Continue reading →

Month In Review – July 2011

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More Uruguayan artists than you could shake a stick at were featured on MusicKO this month. These included Andrea Deleón Santos, Casablancas, ELSANTOREMEDIO and Closet. The videos for “Decidir” (Andrea Deleón Santos), “Please Don’t Be Like Me” (Casablancas) and “POU” (Closet) were all listed on the blog as the month ran its course. And the download link for ELSANTOREMEDIO’s first album was made available on this post.

I also managed to cover a good range of web apps and sites for musicians/music lovers on July. In order of appearance, these were LYRICSnMUSIC, OneSheet, Jazz Cypher and Fuse Trade. And as far as interviews were concerned, I did the digital equivalent of sitting down for a chat with Anton Naumovets from PitchImprover and Chris from Jazz Cypher.

And if you’re looking for an outright chance to relieve some tension, then check Incubattle out. By jingo, these Incubus folks do know how to promote an album!