Posts Tagged ‘Music
18
Dec
11
Listen to this
10
Nov
11
Exfm: A Brief Review
Since the demise of Lala, which had previously been my favorite music site, I’ve been experimenting with different sites in an attempt to find a new favorite. Both Slacker and Pandora are adequate, although neither are very good at helping me find new music and despite numerous attempts to “teach” it my preferences, Pandora continues to slip in the occasional death metal tune even though I absolutely despise the genre. I like Last.fm a little better, since it gives users the option of indexing your library and listening history from third party programs such as iTunes or Windows Media Player and incorporating that information along with your activity on the site to give you more personalized recommendations. I had been using Last.fm almost exclusively until I learned about Exfm, a site that scours music blogs for MP3s. Exfm is fully integrated with Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Last.fm so that users can browse and collect MP3s and then share them with their social network, as well as follow other users to see what they are listening to and what new music they have discovered. Browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Safari and an iPhone app are also helpful. I’ve only used the site for about a month but so far I like what I see. Exfm is excellent for discovering new music and the fact that it integrates so well with Last.fm makes it easy to go to Exfm when you’re in the mood for something new and then switch back to Last.fm when you want to listen something from your library – and all of your listening history will be recorded. If you enjoy discovering new music and sharing it with your social network, Exfm is definitely worth checking out.
01
Mar
10
Down & Cried
“Down & Cried” was one of my favorite tracks on last year’s Dearly Departed: True Lies in Song Unearthed from Lone Fir Cemetery benefit CD so I was pleased to see that Holcombe Waller is including it on his upcoming album-in-progress. If you haven’t heard it yet, you definitely need to check it out…especially now that he has it available for free streaming and downloading on his website. It really is a hauntingly beautiful song…the kind that stays with you with long after you first hear it. Also, if you like what you hear, listen to some of the other tracks from The Winter Songs (Album-in-Progress) and consider a pledge or a pre-order to help Holcombe complete the project. If you’re like me, you’re sick of all the commercial, over-produced crap you hear on the radio and it isn’t often you come across something that truly resonates with you. We need to support these talented, independent artists who are bucking the system and doing things their own way, producing the kind of music we want (and need) to hear.
07
Jan
10
my lala forecast
I’ve been having great fun experimenting with Lala recently. After playing around with several different online music sites in the past few months, I think I’ve come to the conclusion that Lala is my favorite. Besides being ad-free (a huge plus!), the site also has the advantage of allowing you to add your own stored music from your computer to your online collection. If you want to search their library, their collection is extensive (over 8 million songs) and songs can be added to your online collection for only 10 cents each (if you want to download for offline use, the cost is higher). The site is very easy to use and has many intuitive features. I especially like the way you can follow other users, see what they’ve been listening to, make recommendations to them, etc. It also has a fun feature called a Music Forecast, which the site describes as “a group of four songs that you think everyone should hear”. Once you’ve selected the four songs for your Music Forecast, they appear on your Lala profile and can then be embedded on your Facebook profile, MySpace page, Blogger site, or any other webpage (although unfortunately not on WordPress.com sites). I spent far too much time agonizing over the selections for my Music Forecast before coming to the obvious realization that the selections were not permanent. These are my current Music Forecast selections, subject to change at any time:
1. Lua by Conor Oberst & Gillian Welch: http://lala.com/zmHY
2. I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues by Billie Holiday: http://lala.com/zeN6
3. He Doesn’t Know Why by Fleet Foxes: http://lala.com/z3T8
4. Schizophrenia’s Weighted Me Down by Cat Power: http://lala.com/zrgeI
There are currently several great “Best of 2009” playlists to explore on the site and if you’re looking for other recommendations, you can check out my collection. All in all, I’ve been impressed with the features and service Lala offers.
01
Jan
10
no drama in the new year
The last couple of weeks have been incredibly hectic, with way too much chaos and drama, but in the way that hard times often do, the recent difficulties have shown me once again how truly blessed I am to be surrounded by family and friends that love and support me. I know that no matter what, I have people that I can call on to cheer me up, listen to me vent, bounce ideas off, commiserate with, make me laugh, and just generally be there for me (as I would for them) and that means more to me than anything in the world. I appreciate all of you more than you’ll ever know and I can only hope that I can even begin to repay everything you’ve done for me.
All in all, 2009 was a pretty good year for me. Professionally, I’ve gotten to a place where I’m fairly satisfied: doing interesting contract work and also freelancing. I just began working for a new company in November and I’m pleased with how that’s going so far. I also began working on putting together some stories that I’d like to eventually compile in to a book, which has been something that I’ve been thinking about for a long time but haven’t actually done anything about so it felt good to actually take some first steps in that direction. Knowing my tendency to procrastinate, I’m sure it will take quite a while for me to complete the project but at least it’s started, right?
My son started high school this year (I’m still sort of in shock about that) and is doing amazingly well. My husband and I have had our ups and downs this year but we’ve gotten to a good place and I’m thankful for his love and support as well. Yes, it’s been a good year.
Holcombe Waller released this song from his soon-to-be released album yesterday and, given all the circumstances, I thought it was especially appropriate. It’s called “Risk of Change” and it’s available for free download on Holcombe’s site.
I don’t usually like to make New Year’s resolutions but I suppose if I was going to make one, it would be for less drama in the New Year. There’s enough drama and chaos that we can’t control so I certainly don’t need to invite any extra drama in. I wish the same for you as well. Happy New Year and all best wishes for a drama-free 2010!
06
Dec
09
my virtual mix tape
There was one bright spot in my exhausting and miserable weekend: while I was working, I checked out Playlist.com and put together a few different compilations. The site definitely has its flaws (mainly mislabeled tracks, broken links and, worst of all, some songs that seem to be hosted on painfully slow servers) but it functions well enough that I was able to spend an enjoyable evening listening to a wide range of music and arranging my own personal playlists, which I can now share with family and friends. I had no problem posting my playlist with its own player on my Facebook but unfortunately, I was not able to get the player to work on this site. I’m going to keep experimenting with the player to see if I can get it to work on WordPress but until then, you can check out one of my playlists here or on my Facebook.
