I want two dozen of whatever he’s taking.
Bollywood Deciphered
Warning: the subtitles are not an official translation.
Musicovery: Music For Your Mood
Musicovery is a streaming music service with a twist- instead of picking songs by artist, you tell it what mood you’re in and it picks the tracks for you. It allows you to refine your selections by music genre or era and clicking on the song in play allows you to buy the music from various sources such as Amazon.com, iTunes or eBay. There are two versions of the site. One is a free, ad-supported version with playback quality that’s a little too lo-fi for my tastes (although it may not bother many people, especially if only played through small computer speakers). The other version requires registration and a 4 USD fee per month. That will give you high quality sound and remove the ads.
What I love about this site is that it allows you to discover new artists while still allowing the music to remain within the realm of your present mood. In essence, it does one thing and does it well. However, the layout is a mess and an absurdly large ad space dominates the right side of the page, actually covering up some of the non-ad content (unless you have your browser window stretched as wide as the Grand Canyon). The visual representation of music tracks would have been a great idea, if it weren’t for the confusing cacophony of colors, patterns and inter-connecting links that had me reaching for an Aspirin within a whole 10 seconds.
Violin Hero
Just like this beat-boxin’ flutist, Alex DePue likely takes revenge on his classical music teacher by performing extra flashy versions of two songs composed by artists that were actually born after 1750. In case you’re wondering, the tracks are Owner of a Lonely Heart by Yes followed by Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal.
SongBlitz Music Game
An addictive little game that tests your music knowledge by having to match the right album cover to the right song. Your time is limited, giving you bonus points for how quickly you guess. Go on, I dare you to play it only once.
iPhone Meets IR-909 Beat Maker
IR-909 brings old school beatmaking to the iPhone:
Back in 1984, Roland released the TR-909 drum machine as a successor to their legendary 808. Over the years, the 909 became one of the most influential and widely-used instruments in the history of electronic music, right up there with the Minimoog and the AKAI MPC sampler.
Now you can pick up IR-909, a free iPhone / iPod Touch version of the 909 over at roventskij.net. It has the 909’s 16-step sequencer, eight drum sounds, and four pattern storage.
Star Wars Theme Remixed
Apparently, the brass section in the Star Wars theme just isn’t “spacey enough”. I proudly present to you Michael Machell, a virtuoso “electronic keyboard” player that has re-arranged the ultra famous score into something decidedly more, umm, oh hell, let’s say galactic and call it a day.
Britney Spears Video
Ok, here’s a little surprise for you, click to see the latest Britney Spears video, but don’t read the rest of this post until you’ve seen it, ok?
Absolut Music Robot Likes Ping Pong Balls
The Absolut Quartet is a giant electromechanical sculpture which somehow manages to combine ping pong balls, a marimba and brandy glasses to produce sweet, sweet melodies. This dazzling piece of musical engineering was created by Dan Paluska and Jeff Lieberman. For those of you living in New York City, you can visit this crazy contraption in person at 186 Orchard Street.
Via Make
