Reading Roundup

Good afternoon and welcome to another edition of Wired For Music's Reading Roundup!  Here are a few cool things you might have missed.

• My Life Scoop profiles 10 Web Apps for Music Lovers (written by a Mashable writer).
  
  
• The New Yorker's Sasha Frere-Jones ponders what happens when you become the D.J.
  
  
• The Washington Post discovers NPR Music.  I beat them to it a few weeks ago.
  
  
• New York Magazine profiles comedian and musical improviser Reggie Watts.  (A bit of a stretch for Wired For Music, but worth reading.)
  
  
• Waste time with Smashing Magazine's list of Bizarre Websites On Which You Can Waste Time With Style [Editor's note:  points for grammar!].  The list includes a site where you can compose music using the sounds of Hamburg, Germany, a game that lets you control a beatbox or a cappella group, and a site where you can make a whale sing, among other cool things.
  
  
• Music Machinery (one of my favorites) shows off one of the results of last month's Music Hack Day, a tool that lets you add a swing beat to any song.
  
  
• Jason Freeman lets you create your own version of a piano etude by re-combining the parts (anyone familiar with Yahoo! Pipes will dig this interface).  The New York Times wrote about this as well.
  
  
• Play Six Degrees of Black Sabbath, an awesome tool from the Echo Nest labs that finds connections between almost any musical artists.  Menomena to Miles Davis in only 17 steps!
  

So, what are you reading this week?  Tell me in the comments.

Reading Roundup

Another roundup of news you can use...

• The Electronic Frontier Foundation writes about the disturbing recent trend of Blogger.com deleting music blogs based on complaints from third parties about the files they hosted. In one instance, the blogger in question had received explicit permission from labels and bands for every file he posted.
  
  
• This is old news, but with MySpace's acquisition of imeem late last year, about half the songs from my previously posted imeem playlists are no longer avaialable. Awesome. Turns out I'm not the only one, see the comments here.
  
  
• MediaShift covers the ongoing debate between renting music and owning it outright. In a related Mashable poll, owning music beats renting it (but many users prefer a mix of models).
  
  
• It would appear that Warner Music has chosen the ownership model in this debate, as they first announced they would be pulling all their tracks from free music-streaming services like last.fm and spotify...and then they became the latest big-ticket record label to sign a deal with eMusic, thus vastly expanding eMusic's offerings. (Way more exciting to this blogger are additions from Epitaph, Anti-, and Rhino.)

Any other music news to share? Let me know in the comments.

Reading Roundup

Here are some lists & articles you may have missed.

• Largehearted Boy continues to relentlessly update his list of best-of lists, including the lovely addition of yours truly to yesterday's update!
  
  
• eMusic Members pick their favorite albums of 2009.
  
  
• At O'Reilly Community, Peter Drescher writes an interesting piece on "the myth of music ownership."
  
  
• MediaShift's Jason Feinberg rounds up last year in digital music and adds some projections for 2010.
  
  
• Web comic HijiNKS Ensue highlights the dangers of telling Pandora the dark truth about yourself (link courtesy of Music Machinery).
  
  
• In case you're somehow still short on best-of lists, Obsessive Compulsive Music Disorder lists their favorite albums of 2009.

Happy Monday!

Lists!

It's list time! What with the end of the year looming, not to mention the end of the decade (well, not really - technically this decade ends next year, but whatever, it's the end of the Aughts), list season is upon us. I haven't made my own yet (working on it), but in the meantime, here are some tasty lists to tide you over:

• Paste Magazine lists the 50 best albums of the decade.
• NPR considers the decade's 50 most important recordings.
• NPR listeners pick their favorite music of 2009.
• NME names the top 100 albums of the decade.
• Stereogum rounds up all the other lists that are out there.
• Largehearted Boy rounds up what is apparently every list, ever (frequently updated!).

That's all for now! I hope this keeps you busy until I can get my own list up. Stay tuned...

Some Tidbits

Hi gang. I'm still working on my Pitchfork playlist, and I'll have it up by Friday, I promise! In the meantime, here's a few things you can do to keep yourself entertained:

• Check out this Halloween Playlist from culture blog Flavorwire (hat tip to Creative DC for the link).
  
  
• Watch Sherman Alexie read his poem "Ode To Mixtapes" on the Newshour Art Beat blog.
  
  
• Believe the hype about Google's new music service.
  
  
• Relive 2004 with the New York Times as they discover an online music service called Pandora (apparently they discovered it last Wednesday).
  
  
• Listen to a parrot sing death metal.

Anything else cool happening these days? Tell me in the comments!

Reading (And Listening!) Roundup

Get your ears and eyeballs ready, folks, it's time for the Reading Roundup!

• Pitchfork continues their year in lists with the final installment of the Top 20 Albums Of The Decade. You can check out all their lists here.
  
  
• NPR's All Songs Considered blog reviews Pitchfork's lists through the lens of a wonky statistics nerd, and concludes that Pitchfork is sometimes inconsistent, and sometimes isn't.
  
  
• As of this writing, Pandora is narrowly beating Last.FM in Mashable's head-to-head poll of the 2 services. Too bad they don't go more in-depth about their differences, but if you're interested, you can always read this if you haven't already.
  
  
• Logitech has released version 7.4 of the Squeezebox Server software (formerly SqueezeCenter, formerly something else before that, I think). You can read the release notes here, but so far the only real difference I've noticed is an inability to customize my menus the way I like. Boo.
  
  
• Add this robot to the list of things and people that will be famous for singing before I am. To be fair, she's using Yamaha's Vocaloid software, so she has the upper hand. I have to use my own lungs like a sucker.
  

That's all for today, folks. Stay tuned for this Friday's playlist, featuring my favorites from Pitchfork's Top 20 list!

Reading Roundup

Hi everybody. Sorry for the radio silence of late, but don't worry - I haven't forgotten you. And to prove it, I've rounded up some reading/viewing/listening material that I think you'll find interesting.

Enjoy.

• Jason Feinberg of MediaShift discusses what (if anything) record labels will look like in the future.
  
  
• Mashable shares some tips on finding new music via Pandora.
  
  
• Moby discusses the effect of technology on music. [VIDEO]
  
  
• The Future of Music Coalition Policy Summit is coming to DC in October! Featuring special guest Senator Al Franken.
  
  
• Paste Magazine picks their 10 Favorite Albums of 2009 (so far).
  
  
• Pitchfork lists their favorite 500 tracks of the Aughts.
  
  
• Lifehacker gives you some tips on making your playlists rock.

That's all for now, folks. But don't worry, the Friday Playlists will be returning soon to a blog near you!

Some Light Reading

Here's a quick roundup of some recent Music 2.0-related articles and blog posts that you might find of interest (I did):

• Pandora's Tim Westergren blogs about the long-awaited resolution to the Internet music streaming royalty "crisis." Key highlight: Pandora will stay in business (with some service cutbacks), some smaller sites might not.
  
  
• The Pew Internet and American Life Project recently released the (large) report: "The State of Music Online: 10 Years After Napster." Key highlights: No one has yet found a bulletproof way to make money selling music online, bands are leading labels in dropping resistance to giving away their music, piracy continues unabated.
  
  
• Geniocity.com has an interesting piece on why music is "the main battleground in the copyright wars." Key highlight: No record label wants to sue Girl Talk...because they're afraid he might win.

What have you been reading lately on this topic? Let me know in the comments.