Stumbled upon an awesome remix of William Shatner and Conan O’Brien, which uses an interview and Shatner yelling in a car. Unlike a lot of other remixes that tend to get annoying within the first few measures, this is spot on.

Tippy recently got an offer through Stanford for a free year of Yahoo’s music service. At first, I was a bit skeptical about the service, but decided to take a stab. I was suprised to find that it wasn’t too bad. This was much more than I expected from a Yahoo music service.

Yahoo’s music (Y! Unlimited) represents a new wave of unlimited digital online music, where for a few dollars a month you can have access to a ton of music. Usually this entails that you can listen and stream an unlimited amount of music, but you have to buy tracks in order to unlock the DRM from the files. This lets you burn tracks and share them across as many computers or devices as you like.

My plan costs $5 per month and includes unlimited downloads and streaming of most tracks. I would need to pay for some exclusive tracks (which are rare) and for burning of any of the tracks. The rates are comparable to iTunes.

First, let’s get to the selection. The usual popular genres are well covered. But what was suprising was that my favorite genre (Indie Pop) was also well populated. Sure, a few very obscure bands were not available, but many who I would never think Yahoo would pick up were there. Other times, a page was available for the artist, but no tracks were available. This at least is better than not finding anything about the artist. In short, the selection is very satisfactory, and there’s plenty to listen to whatever your music preferences are.

As expected, the interface is bloated. It’s a weird amalgamation of IE, javascript, and Yahoo interfaces. Searching for and loading pages for artists can be slow. The music engine is still in beta, so hopefully in the future the engine will be snappier. On my 1GHz machine at home, the engine errors after about ten minutes of use.

The rating system is a direct copy of iTunes (stars and all). You can rate bands, albums, and songs. What’s interesting is you can also generate playlists that reflect a genre or artist similarity. I’ve been able to discover a few new artists this way. Also, you can generate a whole “radio station” from artists, genres, or songs. It’s handy to just let the station run, and, whenever I hear something I like, I’ll download the album.

All in all, Yahoo is doing many things right. The engine needs to be worked on, but the artist selection is quite good, and the price is right. I’m still getting used to the fact that I have a ridiculous number of songs available to me at any time. I’ve really started shifting my music listening habits by letting go of what I have on my harddrive.

I can’t stop listening to Coin Operated Boy by the Dresden Dolls. How can you resist band that claims itself as Brechtian Punk Cabaret?

Plus their music actually have Weimer chords and harkens the satirical story telling of the era. Supposedly, they are the next big thing (Beck fully backs them, and how can Beck be wrong?)

To top it off, she actually self references to the bridge in Coin Operated Boy. I’m sold.

Wilco came out with a smashing new album. Listen up.

Apparently the Postal Service (a regular in my playlist) is enjoying much success from their album. Gibbard, of Death Cab For Cutie fame (yet another regular), exclaims

The funny thing is that the USPS actually got on their case about their name.

I find that amusing.

PBS is doing a special on the state of the music industry. An interesting interview with David Crosby sheds some light on the issue of popular music. I hold many of the same opinions: popular music is more about the look than the music.

I used to be quite elitist when it came to music. I proclaimed certain bands to be trash, while uplifting others. Before, my excuses were based upon their music, and how certain bands “keep it real” and make more interesting music. Now, I’ve come to the conclusion that this isn’t the fundamental issue. The issue with popular bands is that they’ve been filtered by the music industry. The industry wants beautiful people who are eye candy to the camera. It’s no longer based on musical abilities (although, there are a few gems out there.. Norah Jones was mentioned in the article). As soon as the performance measure is not based on music, the whole system becomes “fake”, as many people would would say.

I always railed on the artist’s not being original and being “too popular sounding” (whatever that means). But now I must retract this. How can they possibly be original with the music industry pressuring their jobs? If they were original, then they would be forever banished into the indie universe. These people are playing the game, and yes, they have sacrificed the music to do this (with those few exceptions noted).