Tuesday, March 24, 2009

The Grauniad's 1000 songs You must Hear

Every so often the Graun runs a week long list of 100 such and such things you must read/hear/choke on, with a conscience absence of the "before you die" suffix, presumably to absolve themselves from liability for condemning some poor hure to purgatory for not getting around to getting round to buying that obscure Icelandic band's fourth album that only came out on vinyl.

Anyhoo, last week, they did songs, and the accompanying website had a nifty Javascript thing that allowed you record your progress, so in a characteristic swathe of self-aggrandeur, the Egodeity presents the tracks he has heard, thus far:

1000 songs everyone must hear

Love: part one of 1000 songs everyone must hear

My selection of 55 from the Guardian.co.uk list of 139

Love: part one of 1000 songs everyone must hear





1000 songs everyone must hear

Heartbreak: part two of 1000 songs everyone must hear

My selection of 46 from the Guardian.co.uk list of 145

Heartbreak: part two of 1000 songs everyone must hear





1000 songs everyone must hear

People and places: part three of 1000 songs everyone must hear

My selection of 33 from the Guardian.co.uk list of 145

People and places: part three of 1000 songs everyone must hear





1000 songs everyone must hear

Sex: part four of 1000 songs everyone must hear

My selection of 43 from the Guardian.co.uk list of 131

Sex: part four of 1000 songs everyone must hear





1000 songs everyone must hear

Politics and protest: part five of 1000 songs everyone must hear

My selection of 50 from the Guardian.co.uk list of 141

Politics and protest: part five of 1000 songs everyone must hear





1000 songs everyone must hear

Life and death: 1000 songs everyone must hear

My selection of 35 from the Guardian.co.uk list of 131

Life and death: 1000 songs everyone must hear





1000 songs everyone must hear

Party songs: part seven of 1000 songs everyone must hear

My selection of 58 from the Guardian.co.uk list of 162

Party songs: part seven of 1000 songs everyone must hear

(Permalink) Tuesday, March 24, 2009 0 comments

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Bobby McGee's promote Channel 4

The Bobby McGee's are another perrenial favourite of the Egodeity, and he rejoices at any indication that they are getting more exposure. Today is one such day. You know Channel 4, the channel who once was the bain of middle England because of the risque nature of its output, but has sinced mellowed so that it is now considered mainstream, yet still tries to convince people that its edgy and and uses racists on Big Brother to try to prove it? Well, they have produced a trailer for their film channel, Film4, and guess whose music provides the background?



Now it is up to you, the legions of Egodeists to pester Radio 1 and other such outlets of popular music with emails and texts asking, "what's that song in the new Film 4 ad?" You are free to ask other questions related to this subject, such as, "What film is Steve Martin in?" "Why does Steve Martic still insist on pursuing a career?" "Is there any form of appropriate retribution for Cheaper by the Dozen, Cheaper by the Dozen 2, or The Pink Panther? Public hanging seems to tame."
(Permalink) Wednesday, February 11, 2009 0 comments

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

iTunes 8: the tunes are the lowest priority

I recently downloaded iTunes 8, when it was released, in fact, and it's becoming increasingly clear that the music is the lowest priority for iTunes nowadays. In the last few major releases (from about version 6 onwards), iTunes has merely been a vehicle for the software improvements in the iPod and iPhone, to the point where playing music is being sacrificed.
Now my Apple iBook G4 isn't exactly top of the line - it was the most basic model when I bought it in Autumn 2005 - but iTunes 8 is crippling it. Simply scrolling through my (admittedly large - 9000+ and counting) selection of songs causes iTunes to freeze for up to 40 seconds at a time. I tried to counteract this by downloading an older version of iTunes, that doesn't have all the useless add-ons that I won't need, since I don't have an iPhone (and have no particular intention of getting one), but this was scuppered by the fact that I can't find one on the internet that will actually install onto my machine.
This can easily be fixed by Apple - all they have to do is release an iTunes Lite, that simply plays songs and syncs iPods - as was the intention of the software when it was created. I like iTunes, but the increasing excess baggage the updates are loaded with is wearing my patience thin. I may have to switch allegiences to another media player, but frankly, I don't want to - I just want my iTunes to function.
(Permalink) Wednesday, February 04, 2009 0 comments

Monday, February 02, 2009

Iggy Pop sells insurance - the final insult to music and its fans

Music lovers have often had to suffer the cuntishness of Adland hijacking their favourite artists, in order to plug their crap, often without the artists' consent - where was Jimi Hendrix when Audi decided he would endorse their latest mid-life crisis mobile? Or Nick Drake when Volkswagon used his Pink Moon to flog their new line of City-boy smug-mobiles?

Then there was Muse having to sue Nescafe to stop them using Feeling Good in one of their ads, only for Nescafe to hire a sound-a-like to finish the job.

Of course, all the above examples (and countless more) are usually down to record company pricks (the same ones that are determined to stop music fans enjoying music) seeing an opportunity for quick financial gain, as well as easy exposure for the track to the masses, and thus licensing the soul of a song to an advertising wonk.

Now though, a new trend has emerged - rock stars appearing in the ads. Usually this cardinal sin is committed by prats to whom the music is a distant last on the priority list of groupies, drugs, alcohol, general vice, money, egotistical posturing, music - Ozzy can't believe it's not butter, Alice Cooper likes high-end golf clubs, and Madonna and Missy Elliot plug that Gap (pun was accidental, but I'm keeping it).
But when punk icons start selling out, you know the world is doomed to capitalist mundanity. John Lydon (aka, Daily Mail-bothering Johnny Rotten of the day) poses as an upper class twit for Country Life, and now the man who invented punk as far back as the 60s, whose band was responsible for some of the dirtiest guitar riffs known to man, is selling car insurance... Car insurance... car insurance. And not a particular brand that is particularly known for being industrious towards their customers either, it's one of those scummy exploitative ones that advertise on daytime TV. The Egodeity is not going to link to a video of the ad, or even mention the name of the company, because they surely have enough publicity amid the blogosphere for the ad, he's simply registering his disgust, and building up supplies for the forthcoming apocalypse. Although it does remind the egodeist of a line from the Dark Knight. "You either die a hero (Hendrix, Cobain, Drake, Morrison, Joplin), or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
(Permalink) Monday, February 02, 2009 0 comments

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Google mail offering SMS Text Messaging

Official Gmail Blog: SMS Text Messaging for chat

The Egodeity has laboured long and hard to get his casual computer using accomplices to defer to his enlightened technological advances. 'Switch to Apple', 'use Firefox', 'everybody uses Facebook now', and for a long time 'get a Gmail account'. Sometimes financial issues would halt his conversions, other times it would be fear of the unknown. Most often it was just laziness, with most people just content with struggling with what they've got.

Now though, Gmail is offering a truly spectular update - one that is surely newsworthy (in the youth-orientated radio stations' "...and finally" sort of way) - free SMS from within webmail. At GBP0.10 per text message the best offer in Britain, and more and more people getting web-based phones, this update gives the consumer a nice little pin to prick at the cell phone companies with, given their unchallenged oligopical extortion over the last decade or so.

Unfortunately, Google retains it's almost self-defeating Amero-centricity, and is only rolling the service out in the United States. They have a few little in-jokes, such as all texts eminate from the l33tish 406 area code (Goo if you look at it right), but once a number is assigned to a particular address, it is assigned permanently and indivually to that address, so it can be saved as a phone number on a friend's phone. Particularly nifty. However, it does raise the spectre that they will run out of numbers to assign very quickly.

Anyway, the egodeity looks forward to this rolling out to these shores, and will plug it like a fiend until he converts SOMEone to the magesty that is Google's web-based mail service.
(Permalink) Thursday, December 11, 2008 0 comments
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