There are plenty of shitty things about the first of every month (housing payments, a reminder that I’m one month closer to dead, etc.), but the list of $5 records available from Amazon isn’t one of them. And despite my recent post complaining about their cloud storage privacy policy, Amazon is still my go-to online music store.
They’ve never sold DRM’d tracks, the music is encoded at high quality variable bit rates (which equals quite good sound – not “rip a CD to FLAC” good, but good all the same) and MP3 is the gold standard of compatibility. The fact that you can snag a boatload of records every month for only a fin just makes the whole thing that much better.
This month’s list has quite a few excellent selections, six of which I’ve listed here. I’m not saying these are the best records on Amazon.com; I’m not even saying that they’re the best on the list. But I do think that if you don’t have them, they’re well worth the cost of a cup of coffee and some pumpkin cake from Starbucks.
I mentioned just a few hours ago that Amazon has just launched a cloud-based music streaming service, and is the first of the big three (those being Google, Amazon and Apple) to do so. And in that piece, I also talked about the fact that the uploader requires Adobe Air, and that was a bit irritating to me.
What I didn’t mention (because I just found out) was that the privacy portion of the terms of agreementsucks out loud.
You can go ahead and hit the link above, or just read section 5.2 right here:
So Amazon has beaten both Google and Apple to the punch in the race to be the first kid on the block to offer cloud-based music storage and streaming, despite the fact that Google has pretty much owned the cloud space (Gmail, Google Docs), and Apple has controlled MP3 sales (iTunes – duh).
But today Amazon has made Cloud Player available to the general public, which will allow users to stream whatever music they store in their Amazon Cloud Drive to any PC, Mac or Android phone on which it’s installed. Not too shabby, really. The first 5 GB of music storage is free, with paid plans starting at $20/year for 20 GB and going as high as $1000/year for 1000GB, which is nuts. Of course, music purchased at Amazon.com doesn’t count towards your quota, so as long as you’re really not addicted to iTunes for purchases, it’s a pretty damn sweet deal.
When you first check it out, Amazon asks you to install the Amazon MP3 Uploader, which will find eligible files on your hard drive (DRM-free MP3s and AACs only) at the expense of installing the Adobe Air framework. But you CAN avoid installing it by going directly to the Cloud Drive page and clicking on the “upload files” button. Nice: I like to avoid installing more “helper” software whenever I can.
One assumes Google and Apple won’t sit idly by and let Amazon own this space, and the lack of an iPhone app leaves the door wide open for Cupertino, but this is still a coup for Bezos and Co.
If you’re in Miami this coming weekend for Ultra, I’m confident that you’ll be tempted to sleep in on Saturday morning, particularly if you hit any of the Ultra after parties on Friday night. Set an alarm instead.
Saturday’s first performer on the Tower of Ultra stage is well worth losing sleep over: producers/VJs/DJs Eclectic Method will be taking the stage from noon to noon-plus-forty-five minutes, and if that’s not worth getting up for I’m not sure what is (I’ll surely be there). Take a gander at their remix of King’s Speech and tell me you’re still not dragging your asses out of bed.
The Ultra Music Festival in Miami is already worth staying up for three straight days to attend, even without the new “Carl Cox + Friends Megastructure” (in which Mr. Cox will be joined in performing by the likes of Afrojack, Fredde Le Grand and Moby). Sadly, buying tickets for the event c’est impossible: they’ve plum sold out.
All, however, is not lost. If you can’t stand the thought of missing Deadmou5, Tiësto, and even Duran Duran (yes, it’s true, so feather your hair and get ready) you may still be able to cop a free pair, courtesy of the mighty Mr. Cox and the good people at UMF: they’re giving away one set for the weekend, and all you have to do is toss your name in the hat. Oh, and explain why you think YOU deserve them – so there appears to be some judging involved. I suggest you put down your vaporizer and get creative – last chance to enter is March 15.
Well, he does look like he's been hitting the bottle...
This article originally appeared in “The Mashup,” my weekly newspaper column for Florida Weekly.
When someone takes the time to pair wines with breakfast cereals, as Gary Vaynerchuk did last year (if you’re wondering what to pair with Cap’n Crunch, it’s the 2007 Von Kesselstatt Spatlese Scharzhofberger Riesling), I think it’s time to admit that the obsession with pairing has gotten a bit out of hand.
Don’t get me wrong: I certainly like food, and I’ve been known to enjoy an occasional glass of wine with a meal, but the obsession some people have with claiming that the notes of fruit from the wind passing over the pear tree in the field adjoining the grape arbors sets of some part of the steak sauce is lost on me.
Call me unsophisticated, but for me wine pretty much comes in two varieties: wine that tastes delicious and wine that doesn’t. Picking out the subtleties of why it’s good or bad isn’t my bag, though I might well pretend otherwise if I were to sit down for dinner with the Queen of England (“why yes, your highness, I do find this to be a delightfully playful glass of the ol’ grape”).
This article originally appeared in “The Mashup,” my weekly newspaper column for Florida Weekly.
The topic of moving came up at my house recently. Nothing definite, just a preliminary chat between spouses, but it’s a worrisome thought all the same. Years ago, before I was married, well before I had children, moving was a fairly common occurrence for me.
One year I moved to Washington DC and lasted almost nine months before packing up and moving back to New York. Not much time, I’ll admit, but longer than I had been able to stay in Houston the year before. Of course in my defense, I might have lasted in Texas a bit longer had I not come home from work one day to discover a mysterious set of tire tracks leading to my front door, and approximately one half of the objects that had been in the house that morning missing. CU349CP3GUUG
Ah, memories. With 2011 SXSW just around the corner, I’ve gotten all misty eyed over my time there last year (highly doubtful I’ll be returning this year, much as I want to). Here are a few of the many Tweets from my SXSW 2010 coverage, many of which were picked up by New Times and other assorted Tweet-picker-uppers.
Adrian Grenier (or whatever his name is) from Entourage makes small screen glories real @ #sxsw gifting suite (http://plixi.com/p/15210423)
Having the gifting suite bartender call me sweetheart was oddly comforting. Then she said it 2 the guy next to me. Whore. #sxsw
Overheard Thomas Erak from The Fall of Troy @ Cast Spells#SXSW show say: “he’s like ‘it’s too gay it’s too gay’ and I’m like ‘YOU’RE gay.’”
Something hypnotic about siting in #sxsw gifting suite watching alt-rock heroes pose with sneakers. Or is it the vodka/rum cocktails?
By my estimate, roughly 16% of the dudes @ #SXSW look and dress like the unibomber.
This article originally appeared in “The Mashup,” my weekly newspaper column for Florida Weekly.
It’s human nature to remember the positives from past experiences while conveniently forgetting the negatives. I’m not talking about aspects of experiences that were generally unpleasant: it’s doubtful that a nice receptionist is going to be foremost in your mind after getting a root canal that required 20 ampoules of Novocain to keep your yelling down to a level that wouldn’t empty the waiting room.
But it’s different when an experience was generally positive. In those cases, people tend to view the past through somewhat rose-tinted glasses. If you think about it though, there are probably excellent reasons your broke up with your exes, your first car likely broke down a lot more than you recall, and Wallabees weren’t the most stylish footwear on the market. So in general, it’s not a bad idea to enjoy the memories but leave the past behind.
Except, that is, when it isn’t. There are moments, usually completely unexpected, when rediscovering something from the past delivers an experience much better than remembered. This happened to me recently, and it was enjoyable enough to warrant creating the following short list.
This article was originally published by New Times as part of my SXSW 2010 coverage.
Backstage after Thursday night’s Kashmir show at Maggie Mae’s, an awfully tall fellow could be seen laughing with Kashmir’s lead singer, Kaspar Eistrup.
Turns out it was Paul Dempsey, lead singer and guitarist of Australian band Something for Kate. SFK and Kashmir toured together, both in Australia and Denmark, and spent an awful lot of time taking each other out to eat meat.?
There are plenty of shitty things about the first of every month (housing payments, a reminder that I’m one month closer to dead, etc.), but the list of $5 records available from Amazon isn’t one of them. And despite my recent post complaining about their cloud storage privacy policy, Amazon is still my go-to online music store.
