Music

Words of the day

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I have the [W:OED] Word Of The Day pop up in my RSS thingy. Yesterday’s word was, predictably, [W:Shrovetide] – c1425 Orolog. Sapient. vii. in Anglia X. 386/39 {Th}e sondaye In Quinquagesime, with {th}e tweyne dayes folowynge, {th}at is clepyd Schroftyde.

Todays, by contrast, is [W:Drum and bass] which dates back as far as – 1990 [W:The Face (magazine)] Nov. 53/2 ‘Dub Be Good To Me’..is Beats International‘s most characteristic creation. It’s drum and bass culture, the sound of downtempo Britain after midnight. 1997 S. BARROW & P. DALTON Reggae v. 204/1 But the first vocal record with a full dub version on its flip..is usually recognised as the [W:Little Roy] ‘Hard Fighter’ track on the [W:Lloyd Daley] Syndicate label, recorded in March 1971, with the splendid ‘Voo-doo’ as its strictly drum and bass counterpart from [W:The Hippy Boys].

The OED Rocks! But, alas, no Little Roy or Hippy Boys on Spotify yet. 🙁

The best word of the day has to be ricockulous, which describes something a degree or two worse than ridiculous but not quite as bad as ripenisulous. It was used by [W:Ben Goldacre] writing about the Facebook causes cancer nonsense on his Bad Science blog. Splendid.

Spinning around in the Spotify catalogue

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Whilst enjoying the wonderfulness that is Spotify one can come across the occasional cataloguing anomaly. Clicking on an artist’s name offers a brief biography and a list of Similar Artists. Normally this is a great way to explore but….
Clicking the minimalist composer [W:Steve Reich] gives you the New Orleans jazz band leader [W:George Lewis (clarinetist)] as a Similar Artist. Perhaps I am missing something but I do not really see the connection. That George Lewis should not be confused with this [W:George Lewis (trombonist)] who can be found on the Nine To Get Ready album but clicking his name linked with the album takes you back to the other George Lewis :-\

The Leaves were a 1960’s band who recorded “Hey Joe”

The Leaves – Hey Joe

which [W:Frank Zappa] parodied in Flower Punk and [W:Jimi Hendrix] later reworked.

Hendrix – Hey Joe

Spotify has the right biography….

The Leaves - Hey Joe
The Leaves - Hey Joe

But the wrong [W:Leaves (Icelandic band)] music. Or vice versa.
:-\

The Spotify blog keeps you well informed and a recent listing of new additions (yes I am the kind of person who scrolls through them all 😉 ) included the [W:Sun Ra] Second Star To The Right album (a favourite of mine). Searching Sun Ra fails to find it. But searching for the album’s title does find it. Apparently it is by Sun Ra & His Intergalactic Arkestra which is obviously why searching for Sun Ra fails to find it :-\

Spotify – 21st Century Radio

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Wowie Zowie! OK – we are talking kid in a sweet shop here 🙂 but Wow! Spotify is a free music streaming service that changes everything. Imagine your own personal radio station. You select the playlist without the inane disc jockey and (so far) minimal advertising. The music is presented in an [W:iTunes] like interface with a wonderfully eclectic selection. There are a few glaring holes… of course [W:Gail Zappa] has missed yet another boat so there is no Frank Zappa although there is a little Dweezil (pass along nothing of interest here 😉 ). There is no Beatles (but there is an interview with their hairdresser!) nor Pink Floyd. In general you can find what you are looking for. Sometimes you are spoilt for choice. With over one hundred versions of [W:It Don’t Mean a Thing] which do you select? Let’s listen to them all – It’s free!

Spotify
Spotify

How they are going to make this pay remains a mystery. There is an option to upgrade to an enhanced (advertising free) Premium service for £9.99 a month. Hmmm… 120 quid a year to listen to the radio (even a personalised one – did I mention [W:Escalator over the Hill]) seems a bit steep. Right clicking on a title does reveal a Buy From… option but this is always greyed out; perhaps I am clicking on the wrong tracks (no commercial potential 😉 ) or this is a feature to be added later. But with such an extensive library available would you bother to buy anything anyway? I guess only if you needed to stick it in your [W:iPod] and take it away with you.

Right clicking also allows you to add a track to your Playing Queue or you can copy the address of the track and send the link to someone else with a Spotify account to enjoy.

Fun things to do…. Type random words into the search box and listen to everything that comes up. Cabbage = 86 tracks. Browser = 1 track.

Explore. Enjoy.

Surviving

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A splendid rendition of the [W:Gloria Gaynor] classic [W:I Will Survive] performed by [W:Aleksey Igudesman] and [W:Richard Hyung-ki Joo]. Note the enthusiastic audience participation…

Igudesman and Joo