Unless everyone around you took a vow of silence the moment you were born and you spent the intervening years in a sensory deprivation tank, a sound isolation chamber of some kind, or one of our planet’s rare, ultra-quiet environments, your hearing is already damaged, at least a little. It’s a part of life.
Most people probably remember having a song, album, or band change our lives. It's a fairly common experience, even for those unfortunate beings who don't live and breathe music. It's a good thing to have happen to you (unless you've become too obsessed).
Paul Lamere, who earlier wrought havoc on Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," has trained his song-hacking sights on (what else?) "Gangnam Style," the pop sensation from Korean popstar Psy that continues to sweep the globe and inspire awkward analogies.
You're innocently going about your day when it happens: You hear a song you've never heard before. It rules. You need to know what it is.
In this corner, we have recording artists - those beleagured believers clinging dearly to the notion that they can quit their day jobs, just like their tune-slinging forebears did. As many have pointed out, they don't make much per stream from even today's most popular streaming services - about $0.003 from iTunes…
We often think of listening to music with headphones as creating "a soundtrack for our lives." But when you think about it, the music in films usually plays in the background to enhance the setting, not drown it out. Unless you live in a persistent montage scene (where the music comes to the fore) or you're having one…
In Philip K. Dick's book Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep? (a.k.a. Blade Runner), the lead character Rick Deckard and his wife alter their mental states with devices called Mood Organs. Rising in the morning, Deckard dials in a "businesslike professional attitude," while his vengeful wife selects no fewer than six…
Music fans who were reluctant to replace boomboxes, turntables, and shelves of physical media with digital music players and spreadsheet-like displays of their music collection have plenty of new reasons to change their minds and get onboard. Or, if you embraced digital music from the get-go, well, now you have new…
In the early days of Web 1.0 beta (i.e. the '90s), most of us who were paying attention thought music middlemen were on their way out.
Apps for iOS, Android, and the web grab a lot of attention these days, and with good reason. They're changing the world.
When the MP3 revolution hit its stride, the coolest thing about it was how much control we were given over our music. Weightless files and tiny players let you carry your entire library around with you, all the time. Anything you wanted to listen to - so long as you had already hunted it down - was available…
Was this prophecy about 2012 true? Or perhaps this prediction about 2008, if belatedly so?
If you're any self-respecting music fan, there was probably a point in time where you wanted to make music yourself. And then you realized you didn't have any talent. And then you realized you couldn't afford the instruments. The Guitar Collection: George Harrison won't solve your talent or instrument problem but at…
Selling out! The biggest fear of any musician. And maybe it sucks for purists and for people who don't like money or something but for the rest of us? Getting paid to do what you love to do is the dream. Artist Growth is an app that helps real musicians organize themselves. Like a responsible manager without the…
If you like music, you probably know the NPR is a pretty solid source for the good tunes. NPR Music has long served as a nice little app for the iPhone, but today they've expanded on the idea, making a little bit bigger and more unique.
Listening to new music on the iPhone with nice headphones is a wonderfully personal experience. Listening to new music on the iPhone with your friends through the tiny speakers sucks. And the last thing you want is to share your earbuds. That's just gross. The Sprd the Note app will keep your ears disease-free by…
I'm old enough to remember using cassette tapes but also young enough to know it was already ancient technology. But still, there's something about cassette tapes that interested me more than CDs or mp3s. A strip of freaking tape can hold music? And now that they're pretty much dead, it's sad. Thats why AirCassette is…
KCRW, if you're not familiar is a LA-area public radio station. KCRW, if you are familiar is a wonderful place to discover new music and new bands. It's like the corner of the radio that hasn't been pummeled with noisemakers and hype machines.
It's a cold day in the life, so you've decided you need yet another music discovery app. One that gives an ear to lesser known talent. You hipster you. Well, Band of the Day lets you listen to some admittedly cool below-the-radar bands and learn all about them.
Fact: my music taste is terrible. Fact: I'm also a very lazy person. Combining those two traits together means my music taste stays terrible and will never improve because I never go searching for new stuff! It's okay though, Gimme Music introduces me to new music without me doing ANY work.
