Lala is dead. Sorry for all the unsightly No Longer Availables and frustrating dead links throughout the site, but until I can find a comparable service, they'll be around.
Stay tuned for some new posts when I figure out a new plan for embedding music.
PB
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Ghosts
New Fall album today. I wanted to post their "Victoria" cover, but no luck on Lala. That's fine, because thanks to the AV Club's "Gateway to Geekery" column last week, I figured out for the first time that this Fall classic "There's A Ghost in My House" is a cover! From their Elvisly titled greatest hits(!!!) collection...
Album covers via Wikipedia.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
The end of Lala
Lala.com will shut down at the end of the month. There was understandably lots of talk yesterday about what the closing of the site meant for users, but, with the exception of this AV Club story, I didn't see anything about the effect on music bloggers and similar sites.
I had wanted to start SftD for a long time, and it was Lala's combination of track embeds, ease of use, the large and legal catalog, and reasonable restrictions—a genuine sample-before-you-buy model—that made it possible. Pitchfork was an early adopter clearly seeing all of these advantages and I've been seeing the service pop up more and more on music blogs recently.
Apple seems likely to integrate some of Lala's feature into iTunes (or a new service), hopefully the track embeds will continue. In the meantime, it will be interesting to see what a site like Pitchfork—Lala's top "influencer"—does. (And wouldn't it would be great if Apple's new service includes some legacy links for the old embeds so that I don't have to rebuild the last six months of posts?)
I had wanted to start SftD for a long time, and it was Lala's combination of track embeds, ease of use, the large and legal catalog, and reasonable restrictions—a genuine sample-before-you-buy model—that made it possible. Pitchfork was an early adopter clearly seeing all of these advantages and I've been seeing the service pop up more and more on music blogs recently.
Apple seems likely to integrate some of Lala's feature into iTunes (or a new service), hopefully the track embeds will continue. In the meantime, it will be interesting to see what a site like Pitchfork—Lala's top "influencer"—does. (And wouldn't it would be great if Apple's new service includes some legacy links for the old embeds so that I don't have to rebuild the last six months of posts?)
Friday, April 30, 2010
Buzzardses
After hearing the story of Mingering Mike earlier this week, I've been thinking a lot about fictional bands. When Guided By Voices released their first rarities boxset, Suitcase: Failed Experiments and Trashed Aircraft, they created pseudonymous band names for different phases of the band's career. Here is the Antler version of "Buzzards and Dreadful Crows".
As a bonus, I've included a demo collage from 1992's Propellor that starts with this "Buzzards".
More on fictional bands to follow.
As a bonus, I've included a demo collage from 1992's Propellor that starts with this "Buzzards".
More on fictional bands to follow.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Sample Maps
Blogger/author/musician Ethan Hein has created some sample maps, graphically illustrating the paths of artists and the music they create or sample. Here is one he made for the music of Beyonce, by which I learned of this Betty Wright sample on "Upgrade U".
Many other sample maps can be found on Ethan's Flickr page here. Including a map of all the sample RZA uses on the GZA album "Liquid Swords"—I never would've heard the Frank Zappa in there without this.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
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