Turntable.fm Alternatives

Tired Yet of Turntable.fm? Here Are Some Alternatives | Billboard.biz:

TT was having problems on Friday, so my office buddy and I were looking for alternatives. I previously tried (and enjoyed) Listening Room. Unfortunately, it seems that project has been discontinued.

We ended up trying Rolling.fm, and found that to be pretty fun. It doesn't have the selection of public rooms that Turntable does, it really only had one public room with any listeners. We had trouble using cloud sourced music, but were able to play songs that we had stored locally (on our hard drives). Oh and the website seems to be down now, not sure what that's about. It was neat to see a different interface, but the lack of public rooms and the trouble streaming cloud sourced music, will probably keep me on Turntable for the foreseeable future.

--Ohso

'via Blog this'

Best of 2011 - Music

This is typically the main focus of this blog, and one of the reasons I started this blog.

Here's a link to: http://sharemyplaylists.com/pete-s-best-of-2011. This will let you launch a playable version of the list in Spotify if you're interested (and subscribed to Spotify).

On to the list! (in no particular order)
# Track (click for lyrics) Artist
1. Victory Dance My Morning Jacket - Great slow, building pump-up song.
2. Pumped Up Kicks Foster The People - I first heard this in early january 2011, and immediately loved it, so much so that it's been my ringtone since then. It's starting to get a little over played, and I've been searching for a new ringtone for a few months now, but it is still a great song (can't hate the band for getting too popular).
3. I Don't Wanna Care Right Now - feat. MDMA Lupe Fiasco - Lupe is always awesome. I think there are other more meaningful songs on Lasers, but this one is super catchy and imho the most fun.
4. Hey - Milk & Sugar Club Mix Milk & Sugar vs. Vaya Con Dios - I heard this while in SA for a friends wedding. Catchy, hip, incredibly cool video.
5. Young Blood The Naked And Famous - Good song, not much more to say.
6. Firework Katy Perry - This became my wedding anthem. 3 to 4 times this year I found myself jumping wildly on the dance floor to this song. Only once was I captured on video.
7. MoneyGrabber Fitz and The Tantrums - Cool retro sound, also bordering on omnipresent.
8. Ten Cent Pistol The Black Keys - After watching the videos for Tighten Up and Lonely Boy, I'm kind of tempted to pick one of them, but I wanted to go a little off the beaten path here. It's great to see the Black Keys finally getting their due.
9. Tears Dry On Their Own Amy Winehouse - I always kind of liked Amy Winehouse songs without ever listening to a whole album. Then I heard this and absolutely loved this song, and decided to go back and listen to all of her albums. Great stuff. Sorry it took her death to make me appreciate her music.
10. Sim Sala Bim Fleet Foxes - So many great songs on Helplessness Blues, but I had to pick one.
11. Midnight City M83 - Everyone else's song of the year. Definitely a great track from a great album.
12. Barton Hollow The Civil Wars - I saw a video for this on Palladia.
13. Gangsta Tune-Yards - Everyone else has Powa on their best of 2011 list. I might even like Powa better, but I heard Gangsta first (via a friend's Spotify playlist).
14. Art Of Almost Wilco - Had to get Wilco on here, according to Last.fm, they're my favorite band.
15. Revolving Doors Gorillaz - The first all iPad album was much better than I expected, but I am partial to Gorrillaz.
16. Shake It Out Florence + The Machine - Couple of great tracks from Florence this year.
17. Super Bass Nicki Minaj - Ironically not particularly bass heavy, but Nicki Minaj is great.
18. We Used to Wait Arcade Fire - Technically came out in 2010, but I'm in a holding pattern right now. Waiting is my every day.

Album of the year goes to Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues. Loved this album. 8 of my top 10 most listened to tracks in the second half of 2011. My second most listened to artist over that period.

Best of 2011 - How to Get out of a Car

In a close race, my favorite method for exiting and entering automobiles in 2011, was 2 legs at a time. I kind of took this for granted in early 2011, getting in and out of the car 1 leg at a time, pretty much every time. Post surgery it was a little too much of a struggle and I was forced to use 2 legs to get out of the car. While I have regained the ability to exit or enter a car 1 leg at a time, I still think that 2 legs at once was my favorite way to get out of a car in 2011.

Best of 2011 - Books

I gave myself a goal to read a book every month in 2011. I didn't quite accomplish that, but I did read 14  books, so I got there on average. I tried to alternate fiction and non-fiction. Here's the list:

January
On the Road - Jack Kerouac
Outliers - Malcom Gladwell

February
The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell
The Road - Cormac McCarthy

March
Blink - Malcolm Gladwell
Choke - Chuck Palahniuk

April
The 4 Hour Body - Tim Ferriss

May
Galore - Michael Crummey
Born to Run - Christopher McDougall

June
Freedom - Jonathon Franzen
Long Way Round - Ewan McGregor

October
Solar - Ian McEwan
Lost in Shangri-La - Mitchell Zuckoff

November
Robopocalypse - Daniel H Wilson

I really enjoyed all the books, and I think the fiction vs non-fiction balance really worked well in keeping me interested. I intended to pick a favorite, but it's a lot tougher than I thought it would be. The social science aspects on the Gladwell were really fascinating (and I'm not a guy who is normally interested in the soft sciences). I did read a good amount of quality fiction, Solar was a bit of a slog, taking me several months to finish, but the payoff at the end was worth it (I am a sucker for universal messages, broad philosophical statements about the nature of man, etc.).

I guess if I was held at gunpoint and had to pick a favorite, I'd pick Long Way Round. Ewan McGregor's adventure tale was captivating and inspiring. I started researching getting a motorcycle license, looking for international adventure etc. Of course, I read this right after we found out my wife was pregnant, and while recovering from a torn ACL, so I did not get to do much adventuring, but it still was a great read.

More on Music Services...

Great cnet article on music services

Music on the Web

Subscription Music Services

I've been a Rhapsody subscriber off and on for a for 6 or 7 years. Anything you want play but you need to pick the music. I really like the availability of music and the web and mobile interfaces, but the social aspects are somewhat lacking and their recommendation engine is not good . Unfortunately they've done away with their free aspects and it's subscription only, $15 / month.

Spotify - Seems a lot like Rhapsody, but still has free offerings. I subscribed to the premium service to get mobile access and Last.fm scrobbling. It is a little more forward looking in regards to social aspects of music than Rhapsody. The best thing about Spotify is that other people are using it and we can share playlists

One of the things that makes  both of the services big winners for me is Apple's AirPlay. Being able to select music from my phone or iPad and throw it to my stereo is really cool, future tech kind of stuff. 

I've heard good things about MOG and Rdio, but haven't tried either myself yet.

Good write-up of subscription services on Auxiliary Memory Blog

Recommendation Engines

Last.fm - I really like Last.fm in concept. I like the idea of keeping statistics on what I'm listening to, but I'm kind of a geek that way. My profile shows all kinds of numbers over what I've been listening to. This is really what I'm looking for from the social aspects of Spotify. It would be cool if more people were using Last.fm. I think a subscription is required to listen to the radio stations on mobile.

Pandora - I don't use Pandora all that much. I used to think it was kind of lousy at what it did, but I got into a lot earlier this year. I think the algorithm had gotten much better. I think if you really worked on tuning your stations, it could be great. Also, Pandora has a lot of integrated clients: blu-ray players, TV's, game consoles

Turntable.fm - This is pretty cool. I love the idea of playing music with friends of long distances. I can just listen in to a public room ( I haven't DJ'ed in a public forum) or I can set up a private room for those with the URL (e.g. PW @ Work). I'm not using it a whole lot, but I like the idea of simultaneous gatherings on separate coasts with the same soundtrack.

My default recommendation engine is Pitchfork's Best New Albums. They are a little persnickety, and they like Kanye way too much, but in general if they say they like something, I tend to like it as well. 

--PW

New Music Thursday

Listening to Alpocalypse. Figured I owed it to Al after all the joyous hours he gave me as a youth.

I wasn't blow away with the first few tracks. I found myself struggling too hard to identify the inspiration for a parody or the relevance of the lyrics. Clearly a bunch of songs didn't get the formal buy in from the original artist and the music was changed just a bit too much to be clearly recognizable, "Skipper Dan" took .

"Polka Face" is priceless. Anytime pop music is played with an accordion it makes me smile. You gotta listen to this one.

While "Craigslist" is vintage Al, riffing on the Doors seems a little dated.

"Party in the CIA" might be great or it could just be my love of that one piece of Miley's repertoire. Who doesn't get fired up by "Staging a coup like, yeah!"?

Overall, it's about what you'd expect, but if that's what you're in the mood for, it's worth a listen.