Articles about Music

Taste in music is very personal. My favorite genre is Hip-Hop, but many people detest that music type. And really, that's OK -- not everyone has to like everything. However, it is nice for people to respect all music. Even though I listen to songs from Slum Village, Lil Wayne and Mobb Deep, I can respect others too. Hell, I went to the Beach Boys concert this past Saturday night and had a blast.

As polarizing as music can be, so too can music mediums and hardware. Some people still swear by vinyl, others by CD and people like me are OK with streaming music services and MP3. Sadly, when it comes to hardware, like speakers and headphones, it seems consumers are adverse to spending money on quality. It is crazy to see people listening to music with expensive smartphones and tablets with $10 junk ear buds. Today, I am looking at an expensive and polarizing set of on-ear cans -- Beats Solo2.

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Is there room for one more music app in the market? Radical.FM is hoping so, and it has big plans to become your service of choice, competing with the big names like Spotify and Rdio. Today the company is planning an ambitious app launch for the Android platform.

"The app is free, commercial-free, and available for immediate download in the Google Play Store", the company states. This is the first foray into the Google mobile platform, but the service was already available for iOS.

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Sony launched the first Walkman in 1979, and this is this week the tech breakthrough is celebrating its 35th birthday.

Nowadays there are iPhones, devices that one can use as a phone, a computer and a music player. Before that, there were just iPods that enabled people to put their favorite music all onto one device and create playlists to fit their mood or preference. However, what many younger kids today won't know is that what started this whole process and changed the way we listened to music entirely was the introduction of the Walkman.

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Amazon is now into the set-top box market, diving in full force to compete with the likes of Roku and Apple TV. Since launching the procduct, the retailer has already released a software update, and now a second is rolling out, but on a gradual program. Some users are reporting having already received it, though not all of us have.

The update takes the software to version 51.1.1, upgrading from the current 51.0.2 and adding music to the mix. This seems logical, given Prime has just added a streaming service. However, according to Dave Zatz, who already has the update, that is surprisingly not included -- an omission that seems a bit strange.

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Almost two weeks ago, retail giant Amazon added music streaming for Prime customers. This is in addition to the other awesome benefits, such as a solid instant video service, free two day shipping and a Kindle lending library. For $99 per year, customers get all of these features, and Amazon reaps rewards in the background.

Now the company is boasting of the big first week that its new music service experienced, claiming tens of millions of songs have already been streamed in those opening days. "Prime members across the country have been rockin' out this week, exceeding our expectations for how well this new benefit would be received," says Steve Boom, vice president of Digital Music for Amazon.

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This past weekend we wrote about music service Earbits shutting down, effective June 16th. The service sadly ran out of funding after making a good run, competing against the big players in the music streaming business. But rumors of the service's demise were greatly exaggerated -- nod to Mark Twain.

Founder and CEO Joey Flores sent out a message to customers with some good news -- the site will live to fight another day. In brief, Flores states "The sentiment of the community did not go unnoticed. Since then, a strategic partner has stepped forward and provided the necessary funding to bring Earbits back online indefinitely. The web service and mobile apps have been relaunched, effective immediately".

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Do you enjoy listening to a bit of Radiohead on YouTube -- well, perhaps "enjoy" might be the wrong word for Thom Yorke's compositions -- but anyway, if you do, you might find that your viewing pleasure is disrupted when the band's music videos are stripped from Google's service.

This could happen pretty soon, according to reports, because of a dispute between the video streaming giant and the independent labels which look after the likes of Radiohead and the Arctic Monkeys.

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Whole home audio does not come cheap, and the big player to date has been the Sonos system. Now Samsung is jumping into the market and has found a major music player to partner with in its implementation of the system.

The electronics maker and music streaming service Spotify are announcing the new Samsung Wireless Audio Speaker range (M7 and M5). "With Spotify Connect built in, you can stream your favorite music and playlists directly from Spotify. Hit play on your mobile or tablet, and the music booms out in any room of your home. You can even play through multiple speakers at the same time", the streaming service states.

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Just this week Amazon rolled out Prime Music to all subscribers of its video and shipping service, adding one more competitor to an already crowded market. However, tempering that good news was a bit of sadness, as one other service has announced it will be closing its virtual doors very soon.

Earbits, an up and coming competitor in the space, is announcing it will close up shop on June 16th. Earbits was never a major player in the field, but it provided an alternative option, and was a benefit to aspiring artists, so the loss will be felt by many.

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Earlier this year Amazon announced it would be raising the annual fee for its Prime service, with the price jumping from $79 to $99. It's still a reasonable deal, given that customers receive access to Netflix-like streaming movies and TV shows, free two-day shipping on orders and access to the Kindle Lending Library.

To help soften the blow of the increased price, and to perhaps grab more customers, Amazon is announcing that a music service is now part of the Prime deal.

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As the world trends towards digital streaming and downloads, people seem to care less and less about music. I hate to sound like an old man, but kids these days listen to the worst "artists". Justin Bieber? One Direction? Really? It's understandable that music has become less important for today's youth.

While I am not an audiophile by any means, I appreciate quality audio. More importantly, I appreciate value. Today, Logitech announces Multimedia Speakers Z213 -- a 2.1 speaker system. The big news though is that it is priced at $29.99. Whoa.

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Style Jukebox is a cloud player that lets you upload your personal music collection to the cloud so you can stream it to your Android, iOS, Windows and Windows Phone devices. It is designed to work both online and offline, so users can listen to their songs even in areas without cellular coverage.

Style Jukebox has been offered in a free, albeit ad-supported, version as well as in a premium one, the latter of which comes with more storage space, support for a higher number of linked devices, and support for more file types. Now, following a new round of funding, the startup's co-founder Ionut Antiu tells me Style Jukebox is improving its free plan so users will no longer see ads.

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YouTube has become the defacto place to find just about anything and, while cat videos remain popular, music is also a big part of the service. Users seem to flock to the place to watch music videos by major artists that sometimes go viral, as well as unknown people who become memes.

YouTube spent some time reminiscing about its memorable past in an announcement of the birthday celebration. "To call out just a few highlights in YouTube history, there are more than 120,000 videos inspired by 'Let it Go' (based on videos posted with that title), half a million by 'Gangnam Style,' and a stunning 1.5 million videos by 'Harlem Shake' (that’s a lot of motorcycle helmets). These inspired riffs got us thinking about those magical moments when songs become bona fide trends—and people all over the world start remixing, covering, parodying, dancing, and lip-dubbing", says the company's Claire Stapleton.

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Streaming music is the future, there is no question about it. The concept of buying, downloading and storing music is so passé. This is a natural evolution of the music market as the world heads to the cloud. Strangely, Apple was absent in the initial boom. While Spotify, Google Play Music All Access and Xbox Music were on the forefront, Apple was stuck in the past with half-baked services like iTunes Radio.

Apple's failure to lead in this segment has cost it dearly -- $3 billion dollars. You see, today, the company announces that it is buying Beats Music and Electronics for that much. In the blink of an eye, Apple is a leader in music again, but was it worth it?

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Having been born in the 80s, I've seen a lot changes in technology. Believe it or not, our first VCR was a hand-me-down with a wired remote -- yes, wired. We also did not have a cordless phone for quite a while. Instead, we had a phone with a 50-foot cord. My first Walkman, a non-Sony portable cassette player (they were all called "Walkman" back then), had crappy corded headphones. Are you seeing a trend yet? Cords, cables and wires were a necessary evil.

Luckily, nowadays we have wireless everything. The coolest technology for me is Bluetooth headphones. The fact that I do not need to strategically run a cable down my shirt or jacket is a godsend. Unfortunately, the quality of Bluetooth devices vary wildly. It is easy to buy a wireless set of cans that sound terrible. So, are the VOXOA HD Wireless Stereo Headphones terrible or great?

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