Category: Music
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When The Music’s Over…lyrics ain’t poems
I just finished reading Danny Sugarman’s biography of Jim Morrisson, No-One Here Gets Out Alive. It’s quite a few years old, but Jim’s been dead since before the book was written (even so, this is the second edition), so I reasoned that I probably wasn’t missing much. I enjoy reading biographies and autobiographies of the artists I like – I find it gives me a better insight into their work, and I enjoy the music more as a result. But with this book, although I still enjoyed reading it, I wish I hadn’t read it at all, because I came… Read more
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Anyone for a quick game of scrobble?
Ever since I got my iPod I’ve wanted to find a way to list my ‘recently played’ tracks on this Blogsite. There are a few WordPress plugins and widgets that claim to do this, but they all seemed overly-complicated, requiring additional e-mail accounts, modified server permissions, and god knows what else. So what with having a life to live and all, I never found the time to dig into them and get any of them working properly. Then last week a buddy responded to a post of mine in the Music category, mentioning Last.fm which he said tracked people’s listening… Read more
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Best-selling vs. Best
This week another chart/list is published. Television music channel VH1 has compiled a list of the ‘Best-sold UK Albums of All Time’.  Compiling such lists seems to have become a major preoccupation with the music press over the last couple of years – something I can only attribute to lazy journalism (and the main reason I cancelled my subscription to Q after 10 years). VH1 claims their new list has more credibility than most because it is compiled purely from actual sales figures for the past 50-some years. The full chart runs to 100 albums, but for brevity, the top… Read more
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iTunes Saved The Radio Star
Another month, another 10 free downloads from the iTunes Store courtesy of Belgacom. Last month I went for building the perfect compilation from my youth. This month I took a diffferent approach. Regular readers will know that I listen to 3wk Internet Radio quite a lot. Whenever I hear something I really like, I make a note of it on my handheld, and then whenever I’m next in a record store or on Amazon.com and stuck for something to spend my hard-earned moolah on, I’ll whip out the list and pick something from it. Sometimes I hear a couple of things… Read more
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The Best Free Compilation From My Youth…Ever! (Plus One)
Although I’m an iPod owner, and an avid iTunes user, until this morning I’d never downloaded a song from the Apple Music Store (or anywhere else for that matter). Call me old-school, but I like having the CDs.  I do have all of my CDs ripped to my iPod, and some I’ve never even heard straight off the plastic, but I still feel happier having the physical backup. A couple of days ago I read a buddy’s ‘blog entry describing how he’d recreated a vinyl-only compilation from yesteryear by purchasing the individual tracks online. Co-oncidentally, at the same time, my service… Read more