ad++ blog

Japanese + Black

Missing iTunes widgets / charts

Maybe you´ve read about Apple´s foray into social networks and syndication of user behaviour titled My iTunes. The current set of widgets and feeds only features data for items purchased at the iTunes store. This maybe a good privacy trade-off since some people claim - wasn´t that Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer ??? - that most tracks on iPods are P2P downloads and thus stolen. (So that would be like pinpointing your hard-drive to the RIAA.)

Still I´d like to see a widget or list of my favorite tracks and - even better- the favorite tracks in a certain period, let´s say this past week. That would be cool - published as a weekly statistic on my weblog, like my person Casey Kasem show. Possibly with the option to exclude P2P downloads.

Good post-pop music

I have so much music on my computer - in iTunes - that I often don´t know what great treasures it includes:

Post human era is a pleasant mix of pop music and experimental stuff. Both suitable for the non-pop listener and probably quite surprising for the listeners of Ö3, if this netlabel release were ever played on radio. The best piece is "Before Guns" - a silent, cathedral-like begin, than a sudden euphoric, energic sequence and a really surprising end.

Here´s a quote from the review on the test tube website:

Mild, often happy - not euphoric -, mid-tempo - not too slow and definitely not too fast. It’s a pleasant blend of moments, from pop music to experimental stuff. It’s pop for the non-pop listeners (Post-pop electronic music if you want to name it). It’s more about instruments than voice, which has a slightly metallic touch (post-human).

Enjoy! I recommend that you check out the other release by monocromatica´s testtube netlabel. I downloaded all of them so far and enjoy most of them - encompassing rock, pop and electronic music of course.

Linda Linda Linda

Yesterday I watched the japanese movie Linda, Linda, Linda over at Kino unter Sternen, Vienna´s best open air film festival. A really very good movie, and very funny. The absolute star of the movie is korean actress Donna Bae (or Du-na Bae according to IMDB). She really has an interesting appearance. In the video below, she´s the lead singer of the band. Recently Bu-na Bae was also starring in the korean horror movie / thriller The host.

Below´s the title song from Linda, Linda, Linda - there´s more and more (The blue hearts original) and more (the soundtrack recording) at YouTube!

Update: Here´s the video of the blue hearts.

Dirty old men and young j-pop girls

Last summer in Japan I have seen promotions for Dirty old man new hit single "Saraba Natsu Yo" - the CD cover featuring a naked man with a watermelon as a head and a hat covering his “privates”. Great!

Now I found the video and dozens of other j-pop videos. J-pop musicians and singers are mostly young gorgeous looking girls, sometimes boys, and sometime also dirty old men - but I prefer videos like Nami Tamiki´s Cross Season. More on j-pop, japanese videos, doramas and japanese culture coming soon! It´s just more tempting to watch the stuff than blog about it. :-)

Dawned on me

This week I´ve tested Musicovery.com, a France-based music discovery service. Since Pandora closed it´s doors for us in Europe and the rest of the non-US world, Musicovery provides a great service and an exciting Flash based interface. You can choose between diffrent moods - dark, energetic, positiv or calm - verious or all genres and a certain time range and list to the tracks or find now similar tracks due to your selections. It even includes links to Amazon and iTunes (and gets the covers from Amazon).

Almost immediately I decided to pay the extra 2 EUR for one month to get better audio quality (128 kbps; low quality is 32 kbps) and a few days later discovered this piece I wouldn´t have found otherwise: It dawned on me from Brooklyn-based rock band Calla. Great!

Of course, with any of these services, you´ll need a broadband connection with any limits or at least without any stupid limits (like 2 GB per month). Also, I had this idea that you might use this service at your next party instead of carrying any CDs or a laptop for your favorite tunes. Should you try to do a lot of changing between songs, beware that there is some time lapse so your mileage may vary. Different than Pandora, Musicovery let´s you only choose a certain mood and or genre, but not a certain group, band or singer or title - there´s no guarantee that your favorite title is available.

It´s strange that there isn´t an about page or a blog at musicovery.

Best music 2006

Even though most media have presented their best-of-2006 statistics already one or two weeks ago, I waited for the year to pass completely to present my own completely useless chart breakdown. Here are the top song of the year 2006:

1. Where´d You Go - Fort Minor feat. Holly Brook and Jonah Matranga
2. Cosy In the Rocket - Psapp
3. Pump Up the Doorbell - White Stripes vs Eric B & Raki
4. Don´t Stop Me Now - Global Deejays
5. One - Mary J. Blige & U2

Well, it´s really useless, since all these tracks are bought or downloaded in the first half of 2006. The second half would include Depeche Mode, Venus, Parov Stelar, Snow Patrol and Chris Cornell.

So it doesn´t really matter. Just enjoy what you listen - just as I do.

Going to bed

Reason #3 why not going to bed earlier: watching music videos like this:

More of those videos can be found here. I´m just wondering: was Kelly Clarkson really first?

Music quiz

What´s linking these three tracks: Just Like Honey by The Jesus & Mary Chain, Sometimes by My Bloody Valentine and Girls by Death in Vegas. Actually it´s easy! Another hint? I´m looking for a word with  5 letters - starting with J or T (both answers are correct). Sadly, there´s no price - only 15 seconds of fame.

Music update

Once again I´d like to recommend some good music, electronic music: Grand Slam featuring Richard Dorfmeister vs. Madrid de los Austrias. You can get it at iTunes, but they have only 8 of the 10 tracks listed - maybe an iTunes exclusive? The tracks relaxin´at club f****n and my friend are missing, so you should consider buying the CD like I did. The best number I´d say is though Spanish Grease.

Next up: a short music quiz.

Favorite tunes

Here´s a list of my recent favorite tracks and CD´s. Most of them are available as online downloads and CDs. The music link here point to online downloads, though - nearly all of them are from iTunes.

The latest addition to my online music collection are a few tracks from Dublex Inc. from the album Pulver Records Label Compilation. Easy going brazilian tracks, electronic dance style, heavy drums, very good. The best track is Tango Forte. It´s amazing. Some tracks, especially Bienvenido (feat. Martin Ferres) resemble a dance version of Gotan Project - argentino style. Then again, Lunatico is essentially Tango with modern beats. Love it.

Watching Grey´s Anatomy one evening rather by chance on TV, I got addicted to that television show. Unfortunately, it´s not yet available on DVD - I´m not sure whether the US DVD available on Amazon USA is of any use here in Europe. Heck, in stores they only have Desperate Housewifes, Lost, Six Feet and other stuff, but not my beloved Grey´s Anatomy. Will have to wait till July.

But the soundtrack is available on iTunes. The title track of the television show, Cosy in the Rocket by Psapp, is one of the best tracks. I´d also recommend jazzy End of the World Party by Medeski, Martin & Wood, almost 70-ties style; and you probably remember Whatever gets you through today by The Radio as the best track for long work days. It´s also no surprise to find Such Great Heights by The Postal Service on this CD. Even after having listened to it a gazilion times following the release of Apple´s Intel commercial in January, it´s still amazing.

Some bands seem to have never entered the european music market. Such as Sister 7, unavailable at Amazon and only to be found through obscure sites selling used copies. Heck, let´s go digital. iTunes again. Actually, I first heard Fallen Angel trough the music recommendation service Pandora. The Austin, Texas-based band debuted in 1994 with a mix of hard rock, funk and hip-hop, with Wrestling over tiny matters - what a great title - being their last album released in 2000. If there´s only one additional song you are going to listen to, take Polishing the Looking Glas.

In December I also got the album CD ohne Namen from the austrian TV show Sendung ohne Namen (Vol.1) featuring music by Calexico (Quattro), Blur, Moloko (Familiar Feeling), The Dandy Warhols, Richard Ashcroft and others.

The best track is Do you Realize?? by The Flaming Lips. Best listened in the car. Too bad the TV show is not yet available on DVD.

One more album to recommend: this time music to relax your mind. Hauntingly ethereal pop, ambient soundscapes on Falling You by John Michael Zorko, featuring vocals of Dru Allen, Aimee Page, Jennifer McPeak, Sara Ayers, Krista Tortora, Victoria Lloyd, Erica Mulkey and others. This time I´d recommend the track the canoe and the waterfall. The CD is released by Magnatune and available for download in various formats. You can even choose the price yourself.

Unseen video

The unseen video combines local weather data with a music video. Nice idea, and clever technical implementation, but the video itself doesn´t impress me. Might even say that the loading of the data is more interesting that what follows.

French is good

Two time good fresh tunes: you gotta watch this Renault crashtest commercial by Hamburg agency  Nordpol - available either here or at sicher.de. The song is sung by Rina Ketty (Amazon.de) and called J'attendrai (Thanks Darja). via Werbewunderland

The other french musical surprise - though a bit similar to the music of Yann Tiersen (Wikipedia)- is the french newcomer band Lé0parleur. I saw a short introduction to their music on Arte tv. Their new album Tout Ce Qui Brille is right now out in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and will be released in March in the rest of Europe. On iTunes there´s the previous album Revoir la mer. Folk, jazz, akkordeon. Good!

Actually, due to my non-speaking of the french language, I had some problems when subscribing to the concert newsletter (to check out whether one day there will be a concert in Austria). The site is available in a french and english version, but the newsletter subscription is only in French. Usually, when you subscribe to a newsletter on a website, you have to confirm by clicking the link provided in the welcome message. But what did that message mean? (I deleted part of the code and the link here)

Bonjour,

Vous recevez cet email parce que vous  vous êtes inscrits à
la liste de diffusion du site www.leoparleur.com

Voici le code associé à votre compte :
cd324f.............................a640

Merci de vous être inscrit et à bientôt.

I hope that the newsletter will be bilingual. :-)

Trouble at the iTMS

Dave Winer rants about the iTunes Music Store. Well, I really like it, but I agree - it´s annoying that you can´t re-load your purchased music in case your harddisk crashes. After all, you purchased the music.

But then again, as with CD´s, it´s the old question - do you buy the music (the right to play the music) or the CD (the physical item)? With the CD it´s the latter, because otherwise if you´d scratched the CD you could ask for a (free) new one at the store. Then again, if you´d own the rights, you might give the CD to someone else who doesn´t mind playing it without owning the right. Strangely, in this case DRM would (or might) permit you playing the songs on the computer or MP3 player while denying those rights to the other guy. Brave new world!

Parov rocks!

A few days ago I stumbled rather by chance upon Parov Stelar´s track Kiss Me Twice from the CD Spygame. Then today I downloaded / bought his album A night in Torino and the tracks KissKiss and Wanna Get. Sort of ´cause working long hours this week and having no dates.

What kind of music? Electronic club musics with Jazz elements. Heavy Jazz elements. Oh this music is great - absolutely recommendable! Enjoy! (Also available at Amazon.de).

Go to war

Long ago, at the beginning of the CD age, I had a LP of Frankie Goes to Hollywood´s legendary album - err, don´t remember the title - heck, it was Two Tribes. Anyway, zoom back into 1984. Remember Spitting Image? Margaret Thatcher? Ronald Reagan? Imagine him or someone with a similar voice saying this

Ladies and Gentleman, let me introduce Frankie Goes to Hollywood, must be the most important thing this side of the world.

I found a remix of the track on the iTMS which sounds very much - yet still different later on - to what I remember from 1984: Hibakusha Mix, available here.

Remember this?

Mine is the last voice you´ll ever hear. Don´t be afraid?

A surprise in the mail

Long ago, in 2004, I´ve order a CD from Julian Petrin, whose track "Embrace" was featured on Mixed-Tape Vol. 1. I guess I´ve order the CD - € 10 via Paypal - sometimes between July and October 2004.

Today I got mail from Hamburg, a CD and with a note saying:

Sorry für die Verspätung, habe die Bestellung vom Vorjahr in den Unterlagen gefunden
(Sorry for the delay, found last years´order in the papers)

Doesn´t matter. I forgot it anyway. Thanks a lot for the CD and greetings to Hamburg.

Music Tuesday

There´s a lot music out there on the net which you can download for free. I added today a bunch of tracks to iTunes:

- Mixed-Tape 8 has been released today, with another 15 great tracks.

- Just by chance I´ve downloaded Down Low by Mr Epic, available either from iTunes (only this one track from Mr Epic) or Magnatune, featuring "sultry ecletic beats with soulful melodies". Magnatune offers you a wide range of format include FLAC and uncompressed WAV, but I can´t hear any difference between small MP3 and huge WAV. Great tracks!

- What else? I didn´t listen to it all yet. I´d recommend: Safety Position by Alvaro Ruiz (mexican electronic music) and Red Horse by Embarce (simply french electronica; you´ve got to listen to "Catch the light"). Find more yourself at De:bug pod.

Audio vacation

I think it´s better to go on real vacation than just listen to it, but your mileage may vary. Right now I can´t go on any vacation, both physical and musical.

And - I´m writing this while listening to Walking In My Shoes (William Orbit Random Carpet Full Length Mix) by Depeche Mode at nearly full volume. That´s my audio vacation. :-)

Don´t buy this product!

I would like to buy this album in the iTMS. It´s pretty good music and no trash.  It´s listed and available for purchase, it seems. But, it isn´t. I´m not allowed to purchase it.

Apple iTMS customer service promises to have a look at the problem, but it warns not to try buying again for 2 weeks. That´s service!

Bitte versuchen Sie es nicht diesen Titel innerhalb der nächsten zwei Wochen runter zu laden.