Lets face it iTunes could be so much more… hopefully iTunes 8 will go a long way (or a little knowing Apple) to correcting iTunes short falls. On the 9th of September Apple hosts its ‘Lets Rock’ event which is the official launch of aplles new iTunes 8 software, but some leaked details will give you a taster of what you can expect to find. The biggest talking point is the new ‘Genius’ element which is capable of creating playlists from songs in your library that iTunes reckons would sound good together. Of course Apple need their sales, so unfortunately a Genius sidebar will also sit alongside the interface hassleing you to download other tunes it thinks would work great with your playlist from the Apple store. Elsewhere a new grid view allows you to browse...

Music is an important element of the story here at The Price of Love. There are several good options for adding music to a WordPress.com site. Copyright law prevents you from loading many mp3 files directly onto your site, but you can avoid those problems by using last.fm and playlist.com. This post provides step-by-step user instructions to help you add music to your WordPress.com site using these two alternatives. I’m not a fan of sites with auto-start music, and so I’ve configured these instructions to avoid it. You have to click on the links here to make them play. last.fm last.fm is a personal internet radio and music social network site based in London, with worldwide reach. last.fm offers a range of flash-based widgets which can’t yet be used on WordPress.com. But...

This is the week that was in matters musical … 1956, Little Richard enters the Top 40 with "Long Tall Sally" … sample lyric: "Long Tall Sally she’s built for speed, she’s got everything that Uncle John needs" … Paul McCartney proved he could rock with The Beatles’ 1964 cover … who needs silly love songs? … couldn’t have done it without Mr. Richard Penniman … 1960, freshly discharged from honorably serving Uncle Sam, Elvis Presley records "Elvis Is Back" … a typical genre-spanning affair that includes rock, blues, and ballads … the best song is El’s take on Lowell Fulsom’s "Reconsider Baby" with a smoking sax solo from Boots Randolph … 1960, RCA...

Last month I was contacted my Steve Cater who works at vccp as part of O2’s Marketing Team. He asked me whether I would be interested in trialling one of O2’s new phones in a seeding program, similar to that of the O2 cocoon seeding program which gave developers and technology lovers a chance to trial the phone. The idea sounded interesting and it looked like the cocoon program did well so I said yes to testing this new O2 Phone (didn’t know the name of it then). Last week a package arrived, I opened it up and lo and behold it was an O2 Xda Orbit 2 Phone along with all the necessary accessories and a sim card. I got straight into taking some photos of this shiny new device along with testing it. Technical Specifications: General Name: O2 Xda Orbit 2 HTC Code name: HTC Polaris (HTC...

When you look at websites like lastfm.com which allows sharing of opinions and the ability to load a playlist that is increasingly personalised, it’s clear that music and indeed all media is becoming ‘pull’ rather than ‘push’. At the moment we can segment our media choices by choosing a channel that reflects our demographic and lifestyle. However, given the wide range of choices and pre-recorded...

Anyone remember Giant Drag, they where one of the more charasmatic bands that I saw last year at Reading when you could actually get Saturday tickets without them being stolen by rich middle class toffs with nothing better to do than tout tickets out of their ebay shop based in their Eton common rooms between extra Latin and lacrosse practise. Anyway I don’t know what triggered it. But I suddenly dug up their debut album and listened to that instead of the never ending playlist of mp3’s and podcasts. Its friggin boss. Some of their video’s are slightly pretentously retro but no ones perfect. Plus having one of the best gimmicks of the 00’s (remember the drummer played synth) fuzzed up by a rekindled love for the band i checked their website (more correctly her,...

Shrook is my OS X newsreader of choice. It’s never been a very popular choice, at least compared to NetNewswire, probably because it isn’t free. Well that’s just changed because Shrook is now freeware and I recommend you give it a whirl (it’s even got a NetNewsWire import function to make things easy). When I registered Shrook back in 2004 I did so mostly because of two important factors: Firstly is the synchronisation of feeds and item status between machines and the web-based reader on shrook.com. Secondly, and most crucial for me, was the interface – Shrook’s column view just seemed to work best. I didn’t get along with the Mail-shaped interfaces of NetNewsWire or PulpFiction. Their short and wide post panes seemed to make...

I don't know what Hockey Night Fever is. But I don't think I've ever had it. Google only knows 13 things about it. Musically, "Hockey Night" can be described as "watery vocal jams dripping hooks and glops. giant folk choruses and late evening wood-flutes. empty fire and echos, blazing over glistening drum shots and slippery hits." Hockey Night are a nice little band out of Saint Paul, Minnesota and I can imagine these tracks being the sort of tunes I wouldn't get fed up with hearing on my mp3 player when I'm listening on shuffle. There aren't any meaningless riffs or hooks to annoy you when you're listening on your way home and the sound is sufficiently upbeat to set a postive precedent for that tedious walk down to the shops in when it's starting to get dark. These are songs I...

Jamie @ Headphone Sex has 2 excellent tracks to download a roger sisters tune and one by a band called Electrelane who I happend upon searching the Music Genome Project @ pandora.com -- Pandora is a music recommendation system based on the makeup of artists work + rhythm; searching for the Go Team I stumbled on the excellent Electrelane, Tristeza and a Ratatat track called Seventeen Years. It's all great stuff . Tell me about your discoveries and the bands that prompted them.--The excellent Mystery and Misery Blog has recently started a podcast featured some excellent unsinged and independant artists as well as the occasional playlist of classic tunes.--The Festive 50 works to continue John Peel's legacy in highlighting some truly awesome music come to light in the last year. It's voted...