By Ryan Van Etten on 12/10/2010
Your band’s website design may not be able to make you—but it can break you. In no particular order, these five content-rich musician websites are The Chemical Brothers, The Knife, The Pineapple Thief, Belle and Sebastian, and Death Cab For Cutie. Their heavy weaponry includes HTML5, XHTML, WordPress, AJAX, jQuery, YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, Soundcloud, Beatport, Last.fm, TinyMCE, and more. […]
Posted in Design, Music, Music: website examples, Popular, Reviews | Tagged band websites, bands, Belle and Sebastian, Death Cab For Cutie, design review, examples, HTML5, jQuery, media-rich design, mobile wordpress themes, multimedia, music web design, non-Flash, review, screenshot, The Chemical Brothers, The Knife, The Pineapple Thief, UK, usability, UX, web design, WordPress |
By Ryan Van Etten on 07/02/2010
Last month I wrote about five tactics for finding music blogs. Let’s revisit this addiction with three more massive resources and a hit of punk rock. 1. MOG Music Network is a network of music blogs integrated with the social music community MOG. An estimated 800+ external music blogs are now part of MMN—including ours—so MOG it up.
Posted in Music, Music Flux, News, Reviews | Tagged album review, Alkaline Trio, blog aggregators, captaincrawl, Chicago, Matt Allison, Matt Skiba, MOG, MOG Music Network, music blog search, music review, punk, resources, rock/pop, search, This Addiction, video |
By Ryan Van Etten on 06/17/2010
Free streaming music sorted by urban scene? Powered by SoundCloud and packaged in a slick UI, CitySounds—dubbed ‘the music of cities’—is just that. Uploads are pushed to CitySounds in realtime—the music is fresh. Flickr adds style to the mix by displaying related photos. Listeners can see the most active cities and the most popular genres in each.
Posted in Apps, iPhone Apps, Music, Music Flux, News, Reviews | Tagged app review, cities, citysounds.fm, drum and bass, dubstep, electronica, flickr, local music, location, location-based music, London, mashups, music discovery, music mashup, music scenes, realtime music, SoundCloud, techno |
By Ryan Van Etten on 06/04/2010
Tune up, in sixth gear, for 10 bucks. Modeled after the popular pedal, the TC Electronic PolyTune has now cruised into the App Store. Two days ago they released the app with a promotional free price tag for the first two days. They’ve now curbed the promotion but considering the killer feedback we’ve seen so far, it will likely race into the top paid music apps.
Posted in Apps, iPhone Apps, Music, News, Reviews | Tagged app review, gear, iPhone, music apps, polyphonic, PolyTune, TC Electronic, technology, tuner, video |
By Ryan Van Etten on 05/28/2010
Think Death From Above 1979 meets The Knife. Call it noise pop…breakbeat rock…or dance punk. Sleigh Bells mixes heavy dance beats and lo-fi distorted guitars, produced/performed by Derek Miller, with the hi-energy vocals of female singer Alexis Krauss. This Brooklyn-based duo is blasting earbuds with their debut album, Treats.
Posted in Music, News, Reviews | Tagged album review, Alexis Krauss, alternative, dance punk, Derek Miller, dream crunk, electro rock, live music, loudness, Music, N.E.E.T., noise pop, review, rock/pop, Sleigh Bells, video |
By Ryan Van Etten on 03/30/2010
Ultimate-Guitar.com—if you’ve ever Googled for a guitar tab, then you’ve no doubt come across this tab mega-source. Well, tab addicts can now access the same database on a much sleeker interface with the new iPhone app, Ultimate Guitar Tabs.
Posted in Apps, iPhone Apps, Reviews | Tagged app review, guitar tabs, iPhone, music apps, Ultimate Guitar Tabs |
By Ryan Van Etten on 03/17/2010
Freematik (Tom Freeman) is a San Francisco-based hip hop music producer. But outside of his fully-equipped studio, he is armed only with his iPhone and imagination. For months he’s been experimenting with apps that let him make beats and riffs on the go. The iPhone’s limitations forced him to improvise and he found himself feeling “more creative than he had in while.”
Posted in Apps, Interviews, iPhone Apps, Music, News, Popular, Reviews | Tagged album review, app review, Bay Area, beatmaker, beatmaking, creativity, development, DJing, flare, freematik, hip hop, idrum, imatik, interface, interview, iPad, iPhone, jasuto, mobile, mobility, music review, phat beats, production, psychedelic, scratching, technology, touchscreens |
By Ryan Van Etten on 02/21/2010
These people are awesome: South African rap-ravers Die Antwoord (translation: The Answer) have dazzled the interwebs in a matter of weeks with their latest music video Enter The Ninja. A literal butterfly effect is happening here—Die Antwoord is rippling the music world with Zef flow.
Posted in Editorial, Interviews, Music, News, Reviews | Tagged art punk, arts, awesomeness, butterfly effect, Cape Town, counterculture, culture, Die Antwoord, diversity, enter the ninja, hip hop, music review, next level, rap, rave, south africa, video, zef |
By Ryan Van Etten on 02/18/2010
Bandcamp added artist/song tagging to its slew of features yesterday, and hopes are high that more social music features are in store. As a self-professed tag-a-holic I’m pretty stoked about the news, and especially so because I had emailed them suggesting a tagging feature. Bandcamp artists can now list themselves in up to five genres, they can add their location, and they can add specific traits to individual tracks in the form of tags.
Posted in Design, Discussion, Editorial, Music Flux, News, Reviews | Tagged Amie Street, bandcamp, behavior, community, crowdsourcing, data, Delicious, design review, geotagging, ideas, last.fm, location, music discovery, music intelligence, new features, recommendation engine, search, social bookmarking, social media, social music, tagging, thesixtyone |
By Ryan Van Etten on 02/10/2010
Paramore + Hulu = Awesomeness. A hi-fi artist channel that rocks. Paramore outperforms both on and off the stage. Why do I like Paramore? They are kick-ass live performers. But I’ve never seen them in person. Hulu delivered them to me last year and now again with the brand new Paramore channel at hulu.com/paramore
Posted in Editorial, Music, Music Flux, News, Reviews | Tagged access vs. ownership, Andrew Kendall, artist channels, artist-fan relationship, awesomeness, band, bands, brand new eyes, content, deals, EMI, energy, engagement, fans, generation, hulu, hulu channel, Internet Generation, live music, music review, MusicBiz, musicians, Paramore, partnerships, performers, performing, pop-punk, punk, rock/pop, social media, social music, storytelling, streaming, television, The Final Riot!, timeline, ustream, Vevo, video, WMG, youth, YouTube |