Quite newly launched, www.sideload.com offers free msuci to listen and download over the web. Looking at it, it offers quite some interesting music – I was able to easily find Johnny Cash, Bob Marley, Nirvana, U2 and a lot of other high-profile bands in there.

Also, the site integrates with mp3tunes.com, using a plugin called Oboe Locker which you can easily download for free.

So, I wonder how this can all be legal, with allowing you to freely download music. Well, it’s quite simple. Looking at their terms and conditions, it’s written: “Sideload.com does not store any music, but rather links to files publicly available other places on the net. Sideload.com respects the intellectual property of others, and we ask our users to do the same.”

Might be an interesting model, I wonder how long this will last before somebody sues them, as it seems this is getting quite a popular practice in the industry.

My Old Kentucky Blog made a top of the best songs released this year. While I must admit my “ignorance” in not listening to all those tracks, it is hard for me to understand why none of David Gilmour’s songs on Island never made it to that list.

Good thing that at least Regina Spektor is there.

Update: Thinking more about it I realize that neither Red Hot Chilli Peppers latest release – Stadium Arcadium – is not there. Nor is Tool, Johnny Cash and a lot others.

The Observer published the top 50 albums that influenced music. It is a very nice review, describing each album and mentioning to each of them what whould have/have not happened wihout it.

I think the list is pretty well put up, even though, as music is highly subjective, a lot of comments can be added to. For example, Metallica’s Kill ‘Em All album is missing from the list, while it influenced a lot of future (speed) metal bands.

Likewise, Oasis is missing, while they influenced Brit music greatly. 2 PAC influenced hip hop a lot and is not there, Madonna or Elton John are not in the top 50 either and this could go on and on…. but it is a very nice effort and I think a lot of the albums deserve to be where they are – even though I would put Bob Dylan‘s higher in the list.

I know someone will feel very good finding Velvet Underground on the first place :)

It seems I finally discovered a Dimmu Borgir song which I like – Perfection or Vanity. Probably because it’s instrumental :) Thanks to Mada.

 

Some while ago, there started this big buzz around the media with the music publishers going to sue the websites which publish music lyrics without any approval or – to be more exact – without paying any copyright fees.

Some actions were taken against software tools which search for lyrics – like pearLyrics - and it seems they had the effect the publishers aimed for, as now websites started buying licenses for publishing the songs lyrics.

Gracenote took one of the first steps in this directions and bought the right to publish the lyrics of around 1 million songs from Bertelsmann AG’s BMG Music Publishing, Vivendi’s Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing and other publishers.

Now, this seems quite stupid to me to charge for publishing the lyrics of the song which is something everybody hears, they are meant to be this way. Plus, knowing the lyrics of a song is, in my opinion, quite likely to make you buy it and maybe the whole album. I myself found out a lot of nice artists and songs just by searching on Google for the lyrics of a song heard on the radio or in

Hopefully it won’t end up with the companies charging money from the user every time you read the lyrics or start humming them in the street.

And I wonder…how much money can you charge for the right to publish the lyrics of this song ? :)

Deb, one of my favourite designers – very professional and creative guy – just launched a new website dedicated to the recruiting of “flash geeks” for the company he is working for  – one I used to work for like 3 years or so. As the message is written from the heart – from one flash geek to the other – I recommand you taking a look if you are interesting in a flash-geek job or similar – www.flashgeek.ro.

And as any passion needs a song, the one which should go for a flash geek I guess is a very technologic song. It sounds like being made by a bunch of IT-oriented guys, and as a result it has been used in commercials for iPod or Motorola phones for example. The song is by Daft Punk and the name says it all – Technologic. You can listen to it here.

Write it, cut it, paste it, save it,
Load it, check it, quick- rewrite it,
Plug it, play it, burn it, rip it,
Drag it, drop it, zip- unzip it.

[download]: Daft Punk – Technologic

 

I am lucky enough to work in a company where everybody uses “Thanks”, “Thank you”, “Multumesc”, “Mersi” or “Danke” as often as they can. For example, you go to someone and ask for something, he says ok, you say “Thanks”, he says “Thanks” back.

I think this is one of those small things which create a positive attitude inside the office…even though sometimes it sounds kind of funny.

Thanks !

Muse, the UK band which not long time ago was mostly reffered to as the new Radiohead, just released their fourth album – Black Holes and Revelations.

Having the opportunity to listen to it, it provides a great feeling starting with the first track – Take a Bow – a powerful song with a space-like feeling made with a complex orchestration in the beginning which leaves space to a more powerful drums sound to the end of the track.

This feeling carries on to the next tracks, all having a complex sound with powerful orchestrations until the 5th track – Soldier’s Poem, where the listener can take a brake and enjoy mostly the lyrics of the short, 2:01 minutes, ballad.

The seventh song, Assassin, starts with high pressure and follows up the same, being one of the best pieces of rock on this album. Still, I think the lyrics could be more outspoken in this track to deliver more power.

One of the last songs, Hoodoo, gives a strange feeling of both a poem with some instruments in the background until it strikes with some powerful drums riffs towards the end of it.

Overall, I found it a consistent album, it is clear that the guys from Muse worked a lot for it to bring it to this shape. If you are a fan of the genre, it is very likely you will find it a great piece of work.

Only for sample purposes – not to be distributed – you can listen to the first track here: Muse - Take A Bow.

 

Who would have thought that the first Romanian production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s famous rock opera “Jesus Christ Superstar” would be staged by a group of students from professor Florin Zamfirescu’s class at the National University of Drama and Cinematography “I. L. Caragiale” (UNATC) in Bucharest, lead by professor Adrian Pintea? Well, it’s true ;)

I guess most of you have already seen one of the movies with the same title from 1973 or 2000, or have at least listened to a recording of it. This modern opera is a masterpiece – the more you listen to it, the more you begin to understand and love it. But anyway, this is not my main point here ;).

The first time I went to see the show at the Arcub Theater (because I have to admit I already went three times and, who knows, maybe I’ll go again ;) ) I was completely blown away. I imagined the show would be ok – but nothing more. Yes, I had the preconception that it can’t be exceptional, because I knew the actors were only students, still preparing for their big acting careers. But I was so wrong: nothing can beat a year of hard work, the professionalism of all the people involved, these students’ optimism and great attitude, their talent and – most of all – their unspoiled enthusiasm. Combine all of that with a modern opera as brilliant and as powerful as Webber’s “Jesus Christ Superstar” and I guess it’s obvious that they can’t go wrong.

Most of all, I would have never guessed that young people preparing at UNATC can have such great voices – I would have thought that their acting skills are their biggest asset, but it’s obvious that they have a lot more to show. From this point of view I would totally mention the two leading actors who play the roles of Jesus (Daniel Dobre) and Judas (Dan Rădulescu) – some of their songs gave me serious goose bumps ;). Mihai Niţă (in the roles of Peter and Herod), Darius Daradici (Caiaphas) and Marius Miron (Pilate) are also very good.

However, I think that the greatest merit of the show lies most of all in the excellent interaction between the actors – you will most likely find several of them very gifted but you will probably be the most impressed by the way their group songs turn out, so uplifting and powerful.

Oh, and they dance really cool, the orchestra (Conservatory students) sounds very professional and the costumes and scenery are also very appropriate. Need I say more? ;)

Big “congrats” to them all – for their hard work and accomplishment of a difficult project – but most of all for the great feeling that they manage to translate to the audience.

 

If you haven’t seen it yet, there are four more shows left, on the 13^th, 15^th, 17^th and 19^th of july, at 19.00. The address of the Arcub Theater is Batistei str., nr. 14.

Enjoy ;) I know I definitely have.

You can find some of mtx’s pics of the show on his blog, on my blog or on the official website of the project.

 

I’ve been wanting to write about this for a long time now and finally I feel like it. There is this great artist whom I find listening to more and more since some years now, almost never getting enough of, even if at one point I am just repeating them songs.

Wyclef Jean – it’s him whom this post is about – is widely known both for his contribution to the Fugees and also in working with artists like Santana, Mary J Blige and lately Shakira. Comming from Haiti, with a reggae background and writing mostly hip-hop songs, he has proved in numerous times to know and be able to produce excellent pieces of music, either by himself or when working with another artist.

Unlike most hip-hop artists / bands, in Wyclef’s songs you can really hear and feel the music, together with some of the most inspired / inspirational lyrics in the industry – and if you find them a little bit strange in writing is, as he confesses, because his first language is still Creole, not English.

After studying guitar and jazz in New York, he formed the Fugees group together with his longtime friend Pras and another classmate, Lauryn Hill. They all ended having a huge success, both as a group and in solo projects.

Wyclef’s first solo album after the breaking up of the Fugees, entitled The Ecleftic, is an amazing album as it was rated by most critics, with an impressive guest line-up by Whitney Houston, Mary J Blige, Kenny Rogers, The Rock and more. And, to top it all, it ends up with an excellent cover of Pink Floyd’s Whish You Were Here. The album combines slow tracks like “911” with dirty hip-hop – in “Thug Angels” -, party songs like “Perfect Gentlemen” and an excellent guitar solo on “Something About Mary“.

I am not going to write much more about Wyclef and his career, instead here are some samples of his works:

• One of his excellent remixes – Another One Bites The Dust from Queen.
• One of his most famous hits – I’ll Be Gone Till November – performed together with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
• A song from his Ecleftic album – Da Industry.
• Whitney’s Huston praise to Wyclef Jean in the Dub Plate song.