Spotify has just launched their upgraded Spotify Radio service that takes a direct shot at Pandora. Spotify Radio offers unlimited stations and unlimited skips, so it is a mile ahead of the competition (potentially makes Pandora and We7 pointless).
Features:
A unique radio experience
Thanks to our all-new intelligent recommendation engine and multi-million track library, Spotify Radio is a music discovery experience without equal.
Unlimited skips
Don’t like a track? Skip it. You can skip as many times as you like. It’s your radio station.
The new Spotify Radio is being rolled out as we speak but you can also get the preview now! The preview version available for you here.
The fabulously soulful Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings just played at NPR’s SXSW showcase, and are streaming their new album ‘I Learned The Hard Way’ for free through the NPR website. These guys knock Amy Winehouse into a cocked hat, and have a richness and fidelity of sound that has come straight from the seventies. For the purists among you, there’s an LP available from their record label’s online store here. Here’s why they think you should buy their album:
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.
The BBC is reviewing its channel and programming lineup across all media, and looks set to cut some TV, Radio and Web services to focus its budget on making “fewer things better”. The highest profile services in line for the axe are digital/online only stations 6 Music and the Asian Network, with teen-aimed services Blast and Switch also in the firing line. The Corporation is also looking at cutting chunks out of its main web services, dropping sections with poor online audiences wholesale to reduce costs. The narrowing of services is aimed at freeing up more of Auntie’s budget to be focussed into the content on the remaining services; making less, but better content.
Strong feeling is evident among the Asian Network and 6 Music’s listeners, who are relatively few in number, but passionate about saving their stations and have already started campaigns against the cuts. Their views are not shared by everyone; Peter Bazalgette, creator of Channel 4′s “Big Brother”, applauded the cuts, and called for the BBC to retreat from more programming areas to make room for independent production companies, who have been hard hit by the recent recession. Mark Thompson conceded that some of the audiences, particularly the Teen sector that Blast was aimed at, were being better served by Channel 4 and other independent and commercial providers.
The BBC has struggled with its public service remit over recent years, trying hard to find a balance between its need to create unique, informative and educational programming as per its charter, and calls to justify the license fee with which it funds itself by making more entertainment programmes with a wider appeal. In this blogger’s opinion, a refocussing on excellent rather than broad programming is a very positive step, and a return to the values that make the Beeb so precious a national treasure.
According to Universal’s blog Lady Gaga today hit the top spot of Billboard’s Airplay chart today, becoming the first artist in the chart’s history to get the first five singles to top of the chart since the chart’s archives began in 1991, all 5 tracks having been released in one year. “Bad Romance” is Gaga’s first hit from her second album, The Fame Monster, all the others being from her imaginitively titled previous release, ‘The Fame’… Presumably the next will be something like ‘The Fame Monster Goes Fishing’.
It has been reported yesterday that Pandora has secured a new round of funding. If you are not aware what Pandora is, its a personalised online radio service. Pandora lets users choose which artists they like and then suggests new artists to them with the hope that they will also like their music. Pandora currently is based in the USA and is only for USA users, which is why most people here in the UK and outside the USA havent heard that much about Pandora.
However, within the next few months we hope to offer a new option to only a select few of RouteNote users, which is going to allow them to get their music onto the Pandora service and help promote their music in the USA. The downside is that only USA artists who are signed up to ASCAP and BMI can receive royalties for their streams. However, here at RouteNote we still believe this is a great opportunity for our artists to gain a lot more exposure in the USA, plus Pandora provide one of the leading iPhone applications which links in very nicely with iTunes, so if users enjoy your music they can purchase straight away. In the future we hope to have a more all round deal with Pandora but this is going to be very difficult until they launch in other markets outside of the USA.
