Shouty UK based provocateur MIA has made her controversial politica views very clearly known, both in her music and in the media, and her new video for the track ‘Born Free’ is a Swiftian satire (or perhaps that should be Morrisian), seeming to single out America for very strong criticism on foreign policy, but decrying racism more generally.
It’s impossible to disagree with the sentiment – prejudice and racism are universally execrable – but to what extent is the rapper using the ‘shocking’ content of her video to transmit a message, and how much is for the purposes of increasing her own notoriety? Whatever the case, the idea in the video is unoriginal: British comedienne Catherine Tate has already covered this issue in a somewhat less ultraviolent manner – see the vid below.
Spotify released a major update to their service today, integrating a massive set of social and functional features, including the ability to linkn your Facebook and Spotify accounts, and the option of using to play all the music on your computer’s hard drive.
The new features will be available to free and premium subscribers alike; full list after their little introductory video. All of this new functionality makes Spotify an even stronger contender in the battle for dominance in the online music market, which will be put to the test if and when they launch in the US later this year, going up against already established services like MOG, Sirius and Pandora.
Social
Connect to Facebook: you can connect to Facebook inside of Spotify, instantly adding all your Facebook friends who’ve selected the same feature. Your friends’ profiles will appear in a new ‘People’ sidebar at the right of the screen, with your personal profile at the top.
Add usernames: you can also add people by typing their Spotify username, should you know it, into the Spotify search field. For example searching ‘spotify:user:username’ will bring up their profile (if their profile is published).
Publish your Spotify profile to the web: easily publish the link to your Spotify profile on your blog, Facebook page, website or anywhere else on the web and allow others to follow your musical journey. For example here’s a link to the official Spotify profile.
Inbox: a new ‘inbox’ folder on Spotify’s left sidebar lets you send tracks to friends directly within the platform, simply by dragging and dropping a track to their name in the People sidebar. Alternatively, just right click on the track and select the new ‘send to’ option.
Facebook feed: music your friends have posted on Facebook will be visible on the Spotify ‘What’s new’ page and via a new ‘Feed’ tab.
Popularity count for playlists: all playlists will show how many other Spotify users are currently subscribed to that playlist. By clicking on the number, you can even see the usernames of those who added the playlist.
Track playlist changes: see who and when a track was added to a playlist with the new ‘Added’ and ‘User’ columns in playlists.
Library
Local files: missing any music in Spotify? Now you can import a link to all the music files stored on your computer with a simple click of a button.
Gracenote: As with any good music media player, if you have missing or incorrect track information you need software to check those files and automatically correct them so that you can better organise and link them to our catalogue. Gracenote does just this.
Local file linking: we will check your local files and see if we have that track/artist/album in Spotify. If we do, we’ll make the file linkable so you can easily go from that file into an artist or album page. This allows for better sharing of playlists that contain a mix of your own music and Spotify’s.
Starred: every track and album on Spotify can now be ‘starred’ – allowing you to tag all your favourites into a special sub-folder.
Wireless sync: you can copy your music files to your mobile without connecting a USB cable with our new wireless sync feature.
Filter bar: the library has a permanent filter-bar at the top so you can easily type in what you’re searching for. In all other lists the filter bar is visible when pressing cmd-f (mac) or ctrl-f (windows).
Additional features
Mosaic images for playlists: the artwork from the first nine tracks in a playlist will create a cool mosaic image for your playlist
New toolbar in headers: Sharing music to Facebook/Twitter and your friends is much simpler. Easy to subscribe or unsubscribe to a playlist as well as view information about how popular a playlist is.
A share icon in ‘Now playing’ artwork: makes sharing what you’re currently listening to much easier.
Automatic track replacement: Spotify will now automatically try to find a replacement for any track you can’t play. So if a friend in another country sends you a playlist with tracks you can’t play or a local file, we’ll search our catalogue and link to a playable track when possible. A ‘link’ icon next to the track name represents replaced tracks.
Social
* Connect to Facebook: you can connect to Facebook inside of Spotify, instantly adding all your Facebook friends who’ve selected the same feature. Your friends’ profiles will appear in a new ‘People’ sidebar at the right of the screen, with your personal profile at the top.
* Add usernames: you can also add people by typing their Spotify username, should you know it, into the Spotify search field. For example searching ‘spotify:user:username’ will bring up their profile (if their profile is published).
* Publish your Spotify profile to the web: easily publish the link to your Spotify profile on your blog, Facebook page, website or anywhere else on the web and allow others to follow your musical journey. For example here’s a link to the official Spotify profile.
* Inbox: a new ‘inbox’ folder on Spotify’s left sidebar lets you send tracks to friends directly within the platform, simply by dragging and dropping a track to their name in the People sidebar. Alternatively, just right click on the track and select the new ‘send to’ option.
* Facebook feed: music your friends have posted on Facebook will be visible on the Spotify ‘What’s new’ page and via a new ‘Feed’ tab.
* Popularity count for playlists: all playlists will show how many other Spotify users are currently subscribed to that playlist. By clicking on the number, you can even see the usernames of those who added the playlist.
* Track playlist changes: see who and when a track was added to a playlist with the new ‘Added’ and ‘User’ columns in playlists.
Library
* Local files: missing any music in Spotify? Now you can import a link to all the music files stored on your computer with a simple click of a button.
o Gracenote: As with any good music media player, if you have missing or incorrect track information you need software to check those files and automatically correct them so that you can better organise and link them to our catalogue. Gracenote does just this.
o Local file linking: we will check your local files and see if we have that track/artist/album in Spotify. If we do, we’ll make the file linkable so you can easily go from that file into an artist or album page. This allows for better sharing of playlists that contain a mix of your own music and Spotify’s.
* Starred: every track and album on Spotify can now be ‘starred’ – allowing you to tag all your favourites into a special sub-folder.
* Wireless sync: you can copy your music files to your mobile without connecting a USB cable with our new wireless sync feature.
* Filter bar: the library has a permanent filter-bar at the top so you can easily type in what you’re searching for. In all other lists the filter bar is visible when pressing cmd-f (mac) or ctrl-f (windows).
Additional features
* Mosaic images for playlists: the artwork from the first nine tracks in a playlist will create a cool mosaic image for your playlist
* New toolbar in headers: Sharing music to Facebook/Twitter and your friends is much simpler. Easy to subscribe or unsubscribe to a playlist as well as view information about how popular a playlist is.
* A share icon in ‘Now playing’ artwork: makes sharing what you’re currently listening to much easier.
* Automatic track replacement: Spotify will now automatically try to find a replacement for any track you can’t play. So if a friend in another country sends you a playlist with tracks you can’t play or a local file, we’ll search our catalogue and link to a playable track when possible. A ‘link’ icon next to the track name represents replaced tracks.
So U2, Muse and Stevie Wonder top the Bill, and Dizzee Rascal moves up to the second slot having rocked the Pyramid hard in the daytime last year. Good old LCD Soundsystem share the Other stage with humourous rockers We Are Scientists, and waaay down the bill on the Croissant Neuf stage are our Cornish countrymen the People’s String Foundation. If you’re lucky enough to be going, you should definitely check them out.
We reported on seminal rapper/poet Gil Scott-Heron’s new album a few months back, and others took a far more active interest in his new work, including one Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones, AKA Nas – the famously controversial Hip Hop artist. He’s remixed one of the tracks from GSH’s album ‘I’m New Here’, called ‘New York Is Killing Me’, and you can download the file via Pitchfork’s website by clicking here: Gil Scott-Heron: “New York Is Killing Me” [ft. Nas].
Grizzly, possibly pretentious, definitely idiosyncratic, not-quite-40 electronic wizard James Murphy is lining himself up for a year of pain. Having spent the last year and a half working on the soundtrack to Noah Baumbach’s new film Greenberg, and his own forthcoming album ‘This Is Happening’, he’s got a rather full looking touring schedule up on his website, including a lot of European festival dates (his UK shows are mostly sold out).
Let us fuel our excitement about these upcoming events by watching the newly released video for the first single, which is titled Drunk Girls. The album will be released on the 17th of May, and there are more odd videos up on the LCD Soundsystem website.
An interesting article from the Guardian on the same line as we harp on quite a lot through this blog, making the point that fans are as essential a part of the music industry as the musicians, and that they are selfishly altering the marketplace, mixing piracy and avid legitimate consumption to make a very confusing but vibrant place for artists and labels. A brief snippet:
…if anyone’s a “new partner” in the music business these days, it’s the fans. They’re the ones promoting the music on social networks, uploading fan videos and homebrew remixes. They’re creating the atmosphere that makes live music more of a draw than ever before, they’re the ones buying – yes, buying – more singles than at any time in British music history. And they’re doing this at the same time as they’re downloading whole discographies via BitTorrent and sending leaked MP3s on Gmail. Underlying UK Music’s report is the assumption that the licensed activity and the unlicensed activity are separable, that you can punish the latter without hurting the former. But what if that’s not true – what if, as several studies of piracy and music purchasing seem to suggest, the good fans and the bad fans are the same people?
There are a few things on our tools page to help you reach out to fans, and more on ReverbNation, but if you’ve found something cool and useful, drop a link in the comments for everyone to use.
Those of you not lucky [Ha ha] enough to live in the UK may have missed this Easter Monday’s broadcast of The People’s Artist Chart on the Beeb. Based on plays reported to Phonographic Performance Limited, AKA PPL, a body that licenses broadcast and other performances of tracks that are signed up to its catalogue (and charges mysteriously priced licensing fees to venues), the chart detailed the artists that had most plays in the decade 2000-2009. Here they are:
1. Madonna
2. The Beatles
3. Robbie Williams
4. Queen
5. Take That
6. Sugababes
7. Elton John
8. Elvis Presley
9. Abba
10. Coldplay
Incredible to see Elvis still topping the play charts after almost 40 years since his death, and that the pop bands of yesteryear are still more active on the airwaves than current acts. Does this list really define the decade? Listen to the programme via the BBC iPlayer here, and make your own mind up.
Given the diversity of the music that we get uploaded to RouteNote, this might be of niche appeal, but then that’s what RouteNote is about – helping the little guys. Enough of our own trumpet – Bootsy Collins, Parliament Funkadelic’s bassist (among other roles) is taking the head lecturer’s chair at the online Funk University being launched by SceneFour, a PR house that works on corporate events and launches for groups like NIN and Al Gore. Soul and Funk music has more on this:
As Funk University’s Lead “Professor,” Bootsy will provide extensive lectures on funk, the bass, and his body of work with James Brown, George Clinton, Parliament Funkadelic, and solo projects. In addition, Collins has arranged an impressive ensemble of the music world’s finest players to provide an intense curriculum designed to promote and teach funk to intermediate and advanced players. The lectures, lessons, and exercises will be accessed through streaming video, with tablature downloads available. Bootsy’s bass school will also hold “office hours” where students are able to get their questions answered online. The entire staff will be reviewing and holding regular competitions throughout the year.
The university will feature video lectures and classes, practical tests and all the traditional coursework featured in more conventional courses, but they haven’t released details of any course fees, requirements or qualifications, so perhaps the term University might be a little grand, but it still looks like good fun at this early stage.
Produced by Bosco Mann and recorded on an Ampex eight-track tape machine by Gabriel Roth in Daptone Records’ House of Soul studios, this record drips with a warmth and spontaneity rarely found since the golden days of Muscle Shoals and Stax. Sharon’s raw power, rhythmic swagger, moaning soulfulness, and melodic command set her firmly alongside Tina Turner, James Brown, Mavis Staples, and Aretha as a fixture in the canon of soul music. From the lushPhilly-Soul fanfare that ushers in “The Game Gets Old” at the top of the record, to the stripped down Sam Cooke-style“Mama Don’t Like My Man” at the tail, the Dap-Kings dance seamlessly through both the most crafted and simple arrangements with subtlety and discipline. I Learned the Hard Way is the “Daptone Sound” at its finest.
You may have heard of Chatroulette, the internet’s favourite new way of showing your genitalia to strangers. Well, it’s not all anonynmous wang; this increasingly famous chap called Merton has been entertaining his video partners with improvised songs about them as they appear on their webcams:
His musical stylings were widely compared to a certain Mr. Benjamin Folds, who obviously got to hear about it, because Hypebot picked up the elaborate high-five he pulled by opening up Chatroulette during a live concert he was performing and copying Merton’s antics, making up the same sort of jolly little song.
Now, what I really want to see is a fully improvised version of Trapped In The Closet in this style, or possibly U2 doing the same thing at their next massive arena gig. Mind you, probably too much wang around to do it for an audience of 100,000 people.
Shouty UK based provocateur MIA has made her controversial politica views very clearly known, both in her music and in the media, and her new video for the track ‘Born Free’ is a Swiftian satire (or perhaps that should be Morrisian), seeming to single out America for very strong criticism on foreign policy, but decrying racism more generally.
