Go on. Admit it. You like classical music. It’s your dirty, little musical secret. Well why be ashamed? I’m not. I have a healthy respect for classical, and my best compositions are of a genre I call “electrorchestral”. Well, I stumbled across a great website, Radio Swiss Classics, that streams classical music 24-7. I’ve literally been listening 24-7 for several days, leaving it the content streaming as I sleep (since my computer stays on for weeks on end).

Most of the DJ announcements are in French, though some seem to be in Italian. But the composer names are pretty recognizable classics. You have your choice of RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, iTunes, Winamp, at varying degrees of quality.

Anyone remember MP3.com? Well they’re back and this time their free downloads are legit. Main thing I remember about them is that they paid indie artists for downloaded content and some were making over US$1,000/mth. That doesn’t sound like so much, but for a new concept in the late 90s, it was a significant enough concept that I literally spent thousands of dollars in 2000-2001 to put together a home recording studio. I’d hoped that with the level playing field of the Internet, there’d be enough people out there interested in my music. Surely other people felt the same way.

Mp3.com were one of the pioneers of the idea, so bravo that they’re back and hopefully too legit to quit. Though I’m personally really digging the iLike website and their iTunes sidebar.

Pandora QuickMix
If you like Pandora as much I do, you might like to know about the new QuickMix feature which shuffles all of your defined “radio stations” into a random playlist. [via LifeHacker]

Authenticating Music Memorabilia
Are you planning to buy music memorabilia from collectors or auctions? Are you sure that the items are authentic? RFID Ltd. is using RFID (radio frequency identification) technology to authenticate [RFID Journal] Jimi Hendrix’s guitar strap and wah-wah pedal, not to mention sassy hottie Jessica Biel’s autographed photos. Despite his popularity, Hendrix was not on Forbes list of top-earning dead celebrities/ rock stars.

Kazaa Settlement Reached
Kazaa, the peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing network started a few years ago by the founders of the Skype VoIP software, has been the subject of a copyright infringement lawsuit for a few years. The two inventors of Kazaa sold the company to Sharman Networks, who have now come to a deal with a number of music publishers through the National Music Publishers’ Association. [via Globe and Mail]

The Microsoft Zune music player is out and reactions about the UMG (Universal Music Group) copyright levy are negative, from two top tech blogs, Technology Evangelist and GigaOm, and no doubt others. Microsoft is giving US$1 from each $250 Zune device to UMG to share equally amongst their artists. Fine, but as Ed Kohler (TechEv) asks, if he listens to non-UMG artists and independents, will he get a discount?

I also have to agree with Om Malik; I’m offended at UMG CEO Doug Morris’ comment about stolen music. I buy all my CDs and rip some to my hard drive for easy listening (so to speak). I also download freebie tracks from official websites and indie promo sites such as iLike. I do not steal music. When I used to manage, promote and book local bands, I spent $4,000+ of my own money, none of which I recovered. While I support musicians getting their fair share, I don’t support the notion that we’re thick as thieves. Then again, I have an iPod, which was a gift, and I’m unlikely to buy a Zune, so never mind.

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Robert Johnson had a bit of tribute from my fave weekly scare show, Supernatural, on tonight’s episode. Johnson’s music has many references to a possible deal with the devil, in order to become the best Delta Blues man ever. The episode starts off in the past, 1938, with a young man that actually made me think of Johnson before I realized what the episode was about. He had a steel guitar, and made a deal with a beautiful female with glowing eyes. Fast forward to the present, and some invisible black demon dog is killing people. Sam + Dean (yeah, seriously) Winchester determine that all of the people the demon is after have made a deal with the devil.

Sorry, no link to this Supernatural episode, but if you’ve ever wondered why Robert Johnson has two graves, watch the video above.

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The previous post talked about iLike, a web2.0-ish music recommendation service with an iTunes sidebar and a social network. The general features have similarities to Pandora and MyStrands/ Musicstrands. This post expands a bit on some of the features, namely the “related music” option.

As a test, after downloading and installing the iLike sidebar, I played my copy of Ben Harper’s Alone from the Burn To Shine album from iTunes. iLike’s “related artists” feature suggested specific songs from Jack Johnson, John Mayer, Dave Matthews Band, Dave Matthews, and Jason Mraz. It also suggested 4 free tracks by new artists. (The Ben Harper song Steal My Kisses generated similar related artists and music suggestions.

For the related music, I could play the songs right in the iLike sidebar. It only plays a preview, however, not the full track. But iLike did a great job of suggesting songs with similar moods in this case. The free tracks were pretty close in mood as well, and full length and downloadable besides. If you want the “related music” tracks, click the arrow icon on the far right of a song, and your iTunes main window goes to the music share where you can purchase it for US$0.99.

I did another test on a more obscure style, This Lush Garden Within by Lycia [iLike], and the “related music” tracks were way too heavy in comparison. So the “related” criteria must be different than BPM (beats per minute). There also were no free tracks. But this is a new site, and I suspect the database will grow.
Read the rest …

iLike is yet another music recommendation service. But this one works as a sidebar to the iTunes software instead of in a web browser window like Pandora. (It’s probably closer to MyStrands/ MusicStrands.) The general principle is that, given your library of ITunes tracks, it will recommend a few other tracks that are related. You can create playlists for your own music, download free promo tracks of new artists, and build a social network with whom to share your musical tastes. Because it’s a social network, you can see who else liks the same song that you’re listening to, recommend songs, sample a friend’s library, discover music you didn’t know about, etc. (You can also use iLike without iTunes, but you won’t have access to the full feature set.)

At least in principle, I think that this is a great way for:

• New bands to promote themselves.
• Find friends around the world with similar music tastes.

Don’t underestimate the value of using these two ideas together as a promotional technique. I’ve managed a lot of bands, written hundreds of music reviews, and recommended music on radio shows I’ve co-hosted + produced, as well as verbally telling people about bands they might like. If you are part of a young band and want to promote yourself using a service such as iLike, start by creating personal profiles for each band member and build your network. Invite people you already know and ask them to do the same.

If the music you are listening to in iTunes represents your band’s influences, then when you start to accumulate new friends, start slipping in your own tracks as a recommendation. If your social network likes your track, let them know it’s yours. If not, ask them for some constructive criticism (unless you can’t handle the truth). It’ll take time, but this could be a great way to builid buzz about your tracks. Also read the FAQ for musicians, which tells you how to get your (original) music promoted in iLike.

There’s even a convenient feature to help you build your network quickly. During the signup process, iLike lets you specify any or all of your MSN Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL Mail, or Google Mail accounts. it then logs into your account, checks your contact list, and presents to you as an option for inviting them to iLike. If a contact is already an iLike member, it’ll let you know. I’m not personally big on giving out my email passwords like this, but obviously you can decide for yourself.

By the way, iLike has recently add YouTube music videos to the list of features, adding another experience for music fans. If you want to try iLike, make sure you have iTunes (free) first. ilike currently runs only on Windows XP and Mac OS X 10.4+.

[sources: TechCrunch]

Audacity, the free audio recorder and editor that can handle industry-standard Cubase VST plugins, has a new 1.3.2 beta release with tons of new features. One that should catch the interest of anyone who wants to promote their voice-over work or simply do podcasts is a new FTP client. It hasn’t been integrated into the main program yet, but it will be. When it does, you’ll be able to record something, edited it, then FTP it to your web server. You can still do that, but you’ll have to start up the FTP client.

If you are working on a bunch of files and need to do the same thing to all of them, there is a new batch mode. There are loads more features. And it’s still one of the best audio editors out there, even though it’s free.

By the way, if you are not comfortable with betas, the most stable version is 1.2.5 for all platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux/ Unix).

Forbes magazine has a list of the 13 dead celebrities that earn the most money yearly. Collectiively, they earned $247M. Without looking at the list, here are a few guesses for candidates: Elvis Presley, Andy Warhol, Curt Cobain (although an image of him is at the top of the article, this is an easy guess). Marc Bolan of T-Rex might be on there, too.

Now it should be noted that the list says “celebrities”, not rockstars. However, three of the top four earners are rockstars (Curt, Elvis, John Lennon), with one being a cartoonist (Charles Schultz). And of course this being October, with Hallowe’en not far off, they probably chose “13″ for the list for that reason. Warhol is on the list, though he comes after Albert Einstein, whose estate made US$20M over the past 12 months licensing his image out. (And I always thought people were violating his likeness, putting them on shirts and posters.) There are four more famous musicians in the list (though not Marc Bolan), two writers (you may be surprised), and a filmstar.

See the NY Times piece for the rest. However, to parallel their photo/illustration list, I’ve searched YouTube to come up with a parallel video list for you, in the same order. #1 is Curt, above. The rest are below. You should be able to tell who is who. Just click on the “more” link to see the rest of this post. See if you can find the references in some videos to other people on this list, or to whom they may be connected.
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Peter Gabriel, a founding member of Genesis and a fave of mine, is offering a remix contest of his Shock The Monkey hit song. Gabriel even posted a sample pack of audio snippets for fans to use. The contest is being judged this month, though, so it may be too late to enter. However, there are 5 sample packs (at the time of this writing), so you can have some fun. Most packs are either in uncompressed .WAV or compressed .MP3 files. You will need some sort of audio sequencer, such as Acid, to lay out the tracks and remix.

Even if you are not interested in remixing the songs, you should check out the Real World label. Anyone who has an interest in music from all over the world will appreciate the talent on this incredible label.

Note: The video above is the original for Shock The Monkey. Below is a Ozzy Osbourne +Coal Chamber version, and several fan videos set to the song.

[sources: Business Week via 21 Talks]