Portishead.

Portishead is ranked among the precious few: They are a band who has created what I consider to be a "Perfect 10" album. Not only that, they made two of them. Then, they stopped.

The band went into seclusion for eight years after their last studio release in 1997, leaving rabid fans with little hope for a follow-up. Rumors of a new album, concert appearances and even a couple of downright hoaxes turned Portishead into the Loch Ness Monster of the indie music world. In January, Portishead put up a MySpace page devoted to a new album. This forum post seems to confirm the legitimacy of the MySpace blog entries.

Thanks to Piotr for showing me this.

Songbird. Again.

I may be beating this topic to death, but remember how I said that Songbird is unbelievably cool and important to the internet music scene? Here's a video that shows you some ways to use it.

Ah, yes.

My brother Piotr reminds me of why I'm moving to the West Coast. Good concerts, obviously.

Crowd Pleasers.

What makes a hit song? Why does popularity rocket certain tunes to the top of the charts, while others linger under the radar? This short article discusses the methods being used by Sociologists to study the mimetic forces which go into shaping hit music.

Songbird ( Update ).

Here is another story which discusses some of the possible implications of unleashing Songbird on the internet.

Also, here is the roadmap for Songbird releases up to 0.3. Again, I can't stress how important this is for internet music culture. The OS X and Linux installers are listed as being "just a few weeks" away.

Songbird.

Songbird is both very cool and very important.

Up until now I've been completely unimpressed with music purchase websites and programs. Most are inconvenient, and all are limited in some way. The only one worth mentioning is iTunes Music Store, which itself is crippled by Apple's DRM encryption standard, known as Fairplay. Purchasing music online should be easy. Pay the fee, download the mp3 or ogg file.

Now it is.

Songbird is a new online music purchase/download utility which is going to have a dramatic impact on the internet music scene. With an interface modeled on the iTunes paradigm, Songbird will soon allow people to set up non-proprietary music stores on the internet. Indie music buffs rejoice. This is the program that will free your labels. Not only that, it works as an interface to mp3 blogs as well ( here is one of my favorites ), giving you a slick interface for your browsing pleasure. Any website which contains mp3 files becomes a playlist as you browse it. If the major labels want to take part, so be it. If not, they can't sue the creators of this software. They can only sue the store owners.

This BoingBoing article has shown me yet again why open standards are generally superior to proprietary standards. Sadly, Songbird is only available for Windows right now, so I can't use it ( I swore off of Windows ages ago ). The creators are promising versions for the Mac and Linux very soon and I wait with baited breath.

I am a huge music buff. In college, friends and I would trade mix tapes ( yes, on cassette ) of Sonic Youth, Nirvana bootlegs, Cibbo Matto and the Afghan Whigs. I own more Compact Discs that I'd like to count.

Napster changed everything. It was both a blessing and a curse. In Napster I found an enormous trove of music at my disposal; Not just the popular music, but the niche stuff too. Convenience was only part of the attraction. Napster opened a whole new world of music to me, and community as well.

The music companies didn't get it. They were quickly becoming obsolete, and they didn't want to lose control. They shut down file sharing sites, sued consumers for file sharing, built copyright protection systems into CDs. They began to remove my newfound freedom. Recently I made the decision to stop purchasing CDs from major label vendors. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with paying for music. I simply believe that once I've made my purchase, I should be able to do as I like with it: Play it for friends, put it on a server, burn a disc for my car. Songbird is the first step in the direction of technological equilibrium for the music industry.

Gnod.

Yet another recommendation site, this time devoted not only to music, but also to books, movies and social networking. This site uses different methods from those of my earlier posts.