wax&wires » websites

Is Streaming Music Our Shambhala?

admin — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:19:11 +0000

We are teased with glimmers of hope. We hear stories of how it could work, tales from the other side of how an enlightened music industry could embrace streaming music, brokering peace and harmony between music consumers and the RIAA. Yet with each account we hear, with each promising start up we watch tank, streaming music success begins to carry more of a mythological air than a grip on reality.

I read an article by Eliot Van Buskirk over at Wired that basically gives an update on the state of streaming music services, and whether or not they’ll fly in the US. It’s a good read for us Spotify hopeful who have been waiting for updates on a US launch ever since their CTO jumped ship right before the big release.

Music: Too Expensive to Be Free, Too Free to Be Expensive

MySpace, rumored to be on the verge of purchasing the free music streaming site imeem, is struggling to keep up with its own payments to music copyright holders, according to a top News Corp executive — a problem that has plagued every other licensed free music service.

The digital music doubters could be right with the contention that advertising revenue can’t cover the costs of licensing music. Meanwhile, illegitimate free music sources continue to proliferate, rendering paid music subscriptions irrelevant for most music fans.

Advertising was supposed to be music’s magic bullet, enabling fans to get the free music they’re going to find anyway while contributing at least something to copyright holder coffers. That dream is fading fast. As legitimate sources for free on-demand music dry up, fans will likely head back to file sharing networks, which is bad news for everyone involved in music — except for, perhaps, hard drive manufacturers.

Evidence and rumors are mounting to support the idea that free music websites are unfeasible.

MySpace Music — the on-demand, ad-supported music service not to be confused with the band pages on the site — is losing money and could soon add a subscription option. News Corp Digital head Jon Miller answered his own questions on the topic last week at a conference in Monaco. “Do I think the freemium model works, consistent with earlier discussions? Yes I do. Has that been figured out? No, it hasn’t, but it’s certainly something to look at,” said Miller. “Is [Myspace Music] profitable? No, it’s not. On an operating basis it’s getting in, but no, because of the payments due to the music companies.”

Ad-supported music service imeem, which has been the subject of considerable speculation related to its running out of money over the past year, is reportedly in late-stage discussions to be acquired by MySpace, which has its own problems, as mentioned above. Like MySpace, imeem’s biggest challenge has been covering payments to labels.

MOG, which planned to launch a free, ad-supported on-demand streaming service, decided that was impossible and went with a $5/month subscription instead.

Spotify pushed back its U.S. launch to early next year, with CEO Daniel Ek admitting that when the service launches in the states, it might not be the same as it was in Europe where music fans enjoy a free, ad-supported version of the software or a 10-euro-per-month subscription option that removes the ads. A bundled version of the service that comes with your smartphone or ISP is an increasingly likely option.

Google added play buttons to its music search results that allow anyone to listen to a song once for free through Lala or MySpace’s iLike service, after which they have to pay for it. If Google can’t figure out a way to support something with ads, it arguably cannot be done.

YouTube remains the only licensed, free, on-demand music service that promises to break even, mostly because the visual nature of the services makes users more likely to encounter advertisements on the site. When the labels launch their Vevo YouTube spin-off, they hope to generate even more money from ads than YouTube does.

The upshot of the labels’ licensing demands: Music will continue its transformation into something that accompanies a visual element.

[photo: Naughty Dog]

Google Music Search – One More Thing For Bing To Catch Up On

admin — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:15:37 +0000

So the rumors were true. As expected, Google announced a new music search service today, partnering with iLike, MySpace, Lala, the big 4 record labels and a venerable “who’s who” list of other internet music services. I’ll give you a quick list of what’s up so you don’t have to power through the dissertations on CNET or RS.

1) Google will not handle any licensing with the big 4 labels since its partners (LaLa, iLike, etc) have already brokered their own deals, and the streaming is funneled through their sites.

2) Google will NOT allow purchases through the search engine, but will push all commerce to its partner sites.

3) Users can stream entire songs within the search engine, as well as watch relevant music VIDEO clips via MySpace (kind of odd since Google OWNS YouTube…)

4) Song lyrics will be provided by GraceNote.

5) Yahoo! had a prepared statement trying to steal some thunder from Google, citing that they’ve had a similar music search for quite some time now.

So now, the RIAA is hoping when you type in “Taylor Swift” into your search bar, you see a music player and options to buy songs rather than a gaggle of torrent links. Let’s all welcome them to the 21st century.

If it’s snappy enough, I think it will be find strong success. iTunes is a slow and tough way to preview and find music since it’s a standalone program. Nobody wants to boot up an entire program to hear a 30-second clip of a song they MIGHT like. Most users always have a browser open, and likely with a Google start page, in which they can quickly look up and listen to entire tracks. Sure this was possible through Google’s partner’s sites earlier, but said sites did not have nearly the massive exposure that the king of search does.

I’m sure Google’s music partners are none too happy to collect the new exposure and potential revenue from added traffic.

How do you find your music? Do you think it will fly?

sources: Steve Knopper | Caroline McCarthy

VIDEO: Black Cab Sessions

admin — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:08:37 +0000

Have you checked out The Black Cab Sessions? Similar to La Blogotheque, which we’ve mentioned here before, The Black Cab Sessions capture artists in their truest form; one take, one song, on the spot. The cinematography is captivating in an indie sort of way; raw, shaky, and uncut. Where TBC differs is in that all performances take place in the back of a London black cab. The film makers just ask a cabbie for a lift and then film the artist right in the backseat, forcing the performer to get creative with how to execute their song in its simplest form.

Running since 2007, TBC has accumulated quite a library of performances, each unique and equally brilliant. They’ve now done a few sessions outside of London, thus escaping the trademark cabs, but the spirit is still evident through all of their pieces.

Here’s one of my favorites, Doves performing Kingdom of Rust. I actually kind of like the cab version better than the one on the album. Remember, it’s a true testament to the strength of a songwriter when their songs can transcend genre, sound great, and still pack an emotional punch even on an acoustic guitar in the back of a cab.

There’s some other great ones from Ryan Adams, Bon Iver, Death Cab, My Morning Jacket, Fleet Foxes, Cold War Kids etc. etc. Be sure to check them all out!

Google To Announce New Music Service Next Week

admin — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:50:27 +0000

There are rumors, and a few facts, floating around the internets that Google will be announcing a music searching service next Wednesday. The service will be called either “Google Music,” “Google Audio,” or “OneBox,” depending on who you ask, and will be premiered at an event at Capitol Records with performances by One Republic, Members of Linkin Park, Dead By Sunrise & Others. Partners in the new service, LaLa and iLike will also be present.

Some are reporting that the service will function like Google China’s Audio search, which allows users to find and download audio content for free. That’s doubtful stateside, especially given the partners of the service, iLike and LaLa. What the service will actually shake out to be will be a search engine that lets users type in the name of a song or artist, and then stream said song via either iLike or LaLa.

The brilliant side of it on the Big G’s end is that they shouldn’t have to work out too many legalities with the RIAA since iLike and LaLa will already be running interference for them. With said partnership, users can expect to find all of the content currently on LaLa, as well as iLike, which was just picked up by MySpace a few months back.

You can currently search for music on Google by typing “music:” before a search, but it does not allow direct streaming and is more of a power user function for the standard search engine.

sources: Eliot Van Buskirk | Michael Arrington

wax&wires tv – Episode 003

admin — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 20:44:14 +0000

EPISODE 3

In this episode:
- Skunks
- Royalties, Pandora and the New Deal
- Spotify U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A!
- EMI in the troubles
- The Bird And The Bee
- Promoting your band (get off the internet!)

If you missed the article on the new net royalties deal, you can find it here, as well as read the Pandora blog post I mentioned down in the followup section to that article, or go directly to it here.

You can find more info about Spotify’s US deal in this Forbes.com article, which I referenced on the show.

Since the taping, EMI has taken some steps to dig themselves out. They’re currently being advised to issue some high-yield bonds to repay the Citigroup loan. That worked for Warner a month or two back, so maybe that could help knock down the $4.2 Billion they need to pay off by 2015. Citi, as suspected, is quite reluctant to forgo the debt.

Here’s Bob Baker’s article on getting your music heard, as well as Trent Reznor’s blog post, both of which I touched on during the Wires section of this episode.

Here’s a link up to The Bird And The Bee’s album, Ray Guns Are Not Just The Future.

I would love your feedback (good or bad!), just shoot me an email: tim@waxandwires.com and be sure to check out the main site, waxandwires.com!

Music Making Gets Social – Indaba Music Now Open

admin — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:53:37 +0000

I briefly touched on Indaba Music several months ago when mentioning YoYo Ma’s use of it for his remixing contest. Here, I’ll get a bit more into it, as it is now up for public use.

Indaba is a DAW that works with Java within your internet browser. We’ve all seen a million little flash apps, my wife is addicted to some Facebook app game called Farm Town, but this is the first browser-based Java audio tool that shows a bit more promise because of the high quality audio, non-destructive editing, and integrated social element.

That is where Indaba needs to invest it’s resources. The social aspect of collaborating with other musicians online, and having a profile page where you can share your songs is where Indaba can find a niche in the overpopulated DAW market.

Should you not have an internet connection, you can download the mixer to your desktop to work offline too, so your creativity is not contingent on your amount of wi-fi. Though, if that’s your primary way of using Indaba, there are likely a million other DAWs that could give you more functionality for crafting your songs.

Indaba is subscription-based. They do have a free option, but it’s more for you to just test out the interface. With the free “Basic” plan, you only get 5 public sessions and 100 MB per session of storage space. You also do not get access to audio effects, the built-in sample library (which is a really cool feature), or the ability to work offline. For $5/month, you can step up to the pro account which gives you access to all of Indaba’s features, and a bit more storage space, and then at $25/month you get unlimited everything.

I don’t see this replacing my whole rig, plug-ins, and all the goodies I’ve invested in over the past decade; but the collaborative aspect of it is exciting to say the least. Ableton has started beta testing “Share” with Live 8, and that should be available soon. The primary difference is that Ableton requires you to make music, then upload your songs for your collaborators to pick up. Indaba lets you record directly to the net so your collaborators see it instantly.

Ableton has Indaba beat on current market-share and flexibility with third party effects though.

If nothing else, it ought to be quite apparent that music making is going online; and why not? Through my day, probably close to 95% of my functional communication is online, why not my music making? So whether you’re hyped up about Ableton Share, or wanting to test drive Indaba for a while, get ahead of the curve on online collaboration to see where your music might go.

wax&wires tv – Episode 1 Now Available!

admin — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:50:05 +0000

I’ve been sitting on this footage for much too long, trying to teach myself how to edit video, so that I could get a show up about music… is that irony or something else? Meanwhile, I haven’t had much time to post articles for you, since my time has been swallowed up with video. I will make a concerted effort to balance that out a little better. Now that I have a basic template for the show laid out, future videos should not take me as long to edit either.

I aim to crank out one episode every two weeks for you, and hope you enjoy. If you do, please be sure to comment it up and share with your friends!

Thanks!

EPISODE 1!

In this episode:
- Airquote Abuse
- Seattle-based rock group Barcelona
- Miles Davis – Kind of Blue
- thesixtyone.com

As promised, here’s a link up to Kind of Blue. You can also pick up the Legacy Edition for an additional $7, which is well worth it for the added tracks. If you can track down a mono recording on vinyl, be sure to check it out, as it brings a completely different experience to the album.

You can read a previous post about Barcelona, as well as pick up their album here.

Check out what I’m listening to at thesixtyone.com/timothydean!

Follow me on Twitter, where I will likely post nothing about music…

Email me questions, comments, suggestions, thoughts, anything you got!

TheSixtyOne – Game Theory Meets Music Discovery

admin — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:49:48 +0000

Check out thesixtyone.com. It derives its name from the famous “blues highway” Route 61 that runs between New Orleans up to Duluth, Minnesota. Mostly renowned for it’s mentioning in 1965′s Highway 61 Revisited, the song by Bob Dylan, the famed highway was also known to artists like Muddy Waters, BB King, Ike Turner, and Elvis himself.

Pull those roots to the now, and you have thesixtyone.com.

thesixtyone makes music culture more democratic: artists upload their work for review, but, rather than allow a stuffy suit in a boardroom to decide what’s good, thousands of listeners do. The best music automagically bubbles up on our homepage where you can listen to the most popular songs for any genre. It’s a quick way to find new music for your iPod powered by pure excitement as opposed to some contrived marketing budget.

Think you’ve got a good ear? Aside from customizing your experience, creating an account allows you to earn reputation, level up your influence, and collect badges for discovering and recommending good music that others may enjoy. On thesixtyone, tastemaking becomes fun, competitive, and trackable.

We’re on a quest to help people fall in love with something new while giving deserving artists an efficient channel for finding their audiences. To learn more about how thesixtyone works, please see our FAQ.

Don’t get this mixed up with Pandora, where you select songs you like to find recommendations generated by their staff. TheSixtyOne is a different animal. While it does stream music for free, that’s about where the similarities end.

TheSixtyOne allows artists to submit their own content, and have it voted up to the homepage by users of the site. There’s an incentive for users to vote too, as listeners get credits for discovering music and voting it up before it becomes trendy to. Users also get credits for various “achievements,” like reaching a particular play count, being the first person to favorite a song, or getting others to listen to your playlist. You can check out the leaderboard to see which users are the hottest trend spotters.

All of that creates a system in which the homepage reflects a current sampling as to what music is on the rise.

The interface is clean and easy to use, the sound quality is very good, and there are more than enough users to make it a fun site to use.

I could write a bunch more, or you could just check it out.

We Are Hunted – The Top 99 Buzzed About Songs On The Net

admin — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 21:57:35 +0000

If you’re looking for a great way to find new music, and not just any music, but music that people are actually listening to and talking about, WeAreHunted.com is a great resource. It crawls the net for online discussion and positive sentiment around particular artists, and then delivers the 99 most raved about tracks. You can filter the results by day, week, month, or year and even tell the app whether to look for the most popular specific songs, or the most popular artists.

From there, you can stream the songs in their entirety via an embedded player, or purchase the songs through iTunes links.

We Are Hunted is the Online Music Chart. We aggregate social networks, forums, music blogs, Torrents, P2P Networks and Twitter to develop a daily chart of the 99 most popular songs online.

I actually really like this means of finding songs. Obviously, there’s no way to accurately see what songs are truly the most popular overall, but rather what’s most popular for a given demographic (in this case, social network users). The same could be said for the Billboard charts though. In an age where people are favoring streaming music or file sharing rather than purchasing albums, it seems rather anachronistic to be ranking artists and songs solely by the number of sales. What you, as the music fan, need to be able to do is figure out which ranking source your tastes fall more inline with, and track that a bit more closely. For me, We Are Hunted provides a great way to discover new artists that I likely wouldn’t hear about from other outlets.

The biggest question I have is, how do they get all those random (yet song appropriate) pictures for each track?

FreeMusicArchive.org Makes Creative Commons Accessible

admin — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 06:27:26 +0000

I’ve been a big fan of Creative Commons licensing for artists of all mediums as a means of getting their content some decent exposure. The tough part with CC is that it’s always been tough for me to find GOOD content through all the dross you have to sift through released under CC licenses. Free Music Archive brings a fresh means of finding solid music released under Creative Commons by actually curating the content. This could go one of two ways. If your tastes gel with the particular curators they have selected, this could easily become your new favorite site. If you don’t really care for the curators’ selections, then the site won’t really do much for you.

Check out the site here.

The Free Music Archive is an interactive library of high-quality, legal audio downloads. The Free Music Archive is being directed by WFMU, the most renowned freeform radio station in America. Radio has always offered the public free access to new music. The Free Music Archive is a continuation of that purpose, designed for the age of the internet.

Every mp3 you discover on The Free Music Archive is pre-cleared for certain types of uses that would otherwise be prohibited by outdated copyright law. Are you a podcaster looking for pod-safe audio? A radio or video producer searching for instrumental bed music that won’t put your audience to sleep? A remix artist looking for pre-cleared samples? Or are you simply looking for some new sounds to add to your next playlist? The Free Music Archive is a resource for all that and more, and unlike other websites, all of the audio has been hand-picked by established audio curators.

The Free Music Archive is a platform for collaboration between WFMU and a group of fellow curators, including KEXP, dublab, KBOO, ISSUE Project Room, and CASH Music. The site combines the curatorial approach that these organizations have played for the last few decades, with the community generated approach of many current online music sites.

Inspired by Creative Commons and the open source software movement, the FMA provides a legal and technological framework for curators, artists, and listeners to harness the potential of music sharing. Every artist page will have a bio and links to the artists’ home page for users to learn more about the music they discover via the Free Music Archive. We also seek to compensate artists directly. Artist, album and song profiles will contain links to buy the full album from the artist and/or label’s preferred vendor(s). Users can also “tip” an artist if they like what they hear, sending a donation directly to the artists’ PayPal account. Artist profiles include tourdates, encouraging users to step away from the glowing computer screen and see some real live music.

While the Free Music Archive is free and open to anyone regardless of registration or other requirements, written and audio content is curated, and permission to upload/edit content is granted on an invitation basis.

Spotify Everywhere… Except The U.S.

admin — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 23:00:40 +0000

Spotify, the streaming music App that has U.S. music fans squirming with anxiety for it’s stateside debut, recently put up a blog post about how it would be releasing an API enabling any developer to access Spotify’s monstrous music database for any approved device. Imagine every song carried on iTunes, beamed for free to your phone, PS3, Xbox, Slingbox, and whateverelseBox comes out next. Yeah. It’s kinda like that. Here are the details from Eliot Van Buskirk:

[via wired.com]

Spotify, already the best music app on the planet, is coming to a device near you. We’re talking XBoxes, PlayStations, Slingbox, mobile phones, networked audio players, SlimDevices — any place developers want to put it.

The release Tuesday night of libspotify, the company’s Application Programming Interface, means that the sky is the limit: Any developer (for approved devices) can build apps that access Spotify’s massive music catalog and use its P2P architecture, which streams Ogg Vorbis files between users like a streaming version of BitTorrent.

The bad news: It’s still not legally available in the United States and lots of other places, though there are ways to fake being in another country. In fact, this is great news at the moment only for music lovers in Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

But those who have tried Spotify know it’s like a magical version of iTunes in which you’ve already bought every song in the world — and it’s free to use if you can put up with a 20-second ad every half an hour.

“With the release of libspotify, we hope to empower our users to build upon what we’ve started and come up with imaginative and innovative new ways of interacting with Spotify,” reads the blog post announcing the program. “There are hundreds of features that users have suggested to add to Spotify and by taking this step, we hope to encourage the developer community to expand our service.” (Developers should note that the API key cannot be shared, so resulting programs can’t be open source — thanks, Sander.)

As a journalist and beta tester, I’ve had access to Spotify for months, and my valid Spotify username should mean I’ll be able to use whatever programs result from this API. However, anyone who can’t use Spotify will also not be able to use apps developed with the API. According to a line in the agreement, “You may not make the API, Service or Content available to any person who is not a User having valid login credentials for the Service issued by Spotify.”

All four major labels and indie consortiums The Orchard, Merlin and CD Baby already allow Spotify to play their music in these supported European countries.

Hopefully, for the sake of U.S. music fans, this delay in rolling out the service stateside is a mere matter of getting ducks in a row, rather than another frustrating instance of the music industry dragging its heels on new technology. Otherwise, Spotify could be available on videogame consoles in Europe before it’s even available on computers in the states.

NIN iPhone App Demo

admin — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 07:11:39 +0000

The much anticipated NIN iPhone App is here, and just in time for the NIN/JA tour. Check out Trent Reznor, Rob Sheridan and Kevin Rose giving you a quick look at the features here.

You can find more over at wired.com.

What MySpace Local Means For Musicians

admin — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 20:18:11 +0000

A lot has been made the past few days about MySpace Local, the NewsCorp response to sites like Yelp. Not to be outdone by CitySearch’s integration into Facebook Connect, MySpace local marries MySpace and CitySearch to offer users info and reviews of local businesses. Starting off, they’ve mostly focused efforts on restaurants and night life, with Coors and Outback as the main sponsors of the new venture.

The main difference between MySpace Local and Yelp is that MySpace Local will prioritize reviews and rankings based on your friends and interests, as gathered from your MySpace profile. “That’s a critical difference,” claims Jeff Berman, the MySpace president of sales & marketing. Reviews mean “a heck of a lot more when you know the reviewer.”

So let’s bring it home. How does this impact the local musician?

1) If you’re in a band that plays regularly at a club, users can review the music at venues for better or worse, so bring your best. Conversations regarding the bands at various venues can be opened up on MySpace Local for the rest of the world to see, creating a great opportunity for artist promotion. If you see that clearly you’re pulling in 200 people that wouldn’t otherwise come out to that club, maybe it’s time to show the club owner the reviews and ask for a raise. If you see that people are saying, “The sound sucks here, it’s so much better at Venue X.” Maybe it’s time to move the gig to Venue X. Make sense? Keep your finger on the pulse of what’s going on around your music.

2) If you’re looking to increase your fanbase, but don’t know where or how, you can tap into MySpace Local as a means of finding gigs. There’s no magic “gig finder” or anything, but because you can see reviews on venues and how different music was received at various locations, you can run a search to find venues that you might do well in and snag their contact info right off the MySpace Local page to get booked. That’s a heck of a lot better than randomly picking a club halfway across the country and hoping they have crowds and a decent sound system for you.

While all of that is an unintended side effect of MySpace Local’s intended purpose, it’s a great way to harness a new tool to promote your music. The most successful musicians will be the ones that hustle, and are not just simply keeping up on new trends, but constantly thinking of the ways in which every little thing could help their musical career.

You can check out a demo of MySpace Local here.

MuZoid – MusicMetric’s Twitter App

admin — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 17:56:27 +0000

It’s incredible to see the complete ecomony that twitter has created around itself. I can’t even count the number of twitter-specific applications I’ve come across over the past month.

MusicMetric is getting in the game with MuZoid, which lets you tweet the name of a band to @muzoid, and within a few seconds MuZoid returns a link to MusicMetric’s file on the band. The link includes upcoming shows, a discography, similar artists, and the most interesting, similar gigs.

What I like about the similar gigs, and the twitter incorporation combined, is that if you’re out and about, you can shoot a quick tweet out to see if there’s any music you might like in the area. While not perfect, as you would have to send a seperate tweet out to represent each genre you might like, the mobility is key.

A quick tweet out to @muzoid with “M83″ returns this.

I’m not sure it will work its way into my list of go-to apps, but it’s a good concept that rides on its immediacy.

Muziic Player Streams Free Music From YouTube

admin — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 09:49:03 +0000

As if my quarter-life crisis wasn’t already in full force, a 15-year-old whiz kid has coded a music player called Muziic that lets you stream the music of your choice to your computer, all for free. David Nelson and his dad Mark started Muziic a few weeks back, and it’s already generating buzz all over the net.

Muziic keeps things legal by taking advantage of YouTube’s Content ID system, which is how label compensation is calculated on the back end. I’m not sure how YouTube generates revenue to pay those label fees though. If that money stems from ad revenue, and Muziic robs YouTube of site hits by streaming the music directly to end users rather than forcing the users to visit YouTube’s site, YouTube would be losing potential revenue to Muziic. Needless to say, I doubt YouTube would be too thrilled about that.

Provided that Muziic and YouTube stay on the level, Muziic is a pretty ingenious idea, similar in functionality to Spotify.

Muziic Player puts millions of songs right on your desktop, free and legally. Interested?

To use Muziic Player, simply type the name of the song or artist you wish to hear into the player’s search bar. Muziic then searches and returns the most relevant results from the world’s largest music database – YouTube.

While traditional media players only allow you to import and play music from your own collection, Muziic Player streams all of your favorite songs directly to you, 100% free and legally. Through YouTube’s state of the art Content ID recognition system, major record labels are fully compensated for each song play.

What were you doing when you were 15?