Billboard convened a panel of six experts to create a list of the top 5 worst and best songs featured in TV commercials. I like the idea behind this feature but the online user experience is horrible. ReadersUsers have to click through 10 pages to see the list when the content could’ve been presented in a much better way. Unfortunately, Billboard’s parent company, Nielsen Business Media, is still stuck in the ’90s and struggling to understand digital media. Desperate for page views, the content has also been vomitted on the website of their sister publication, Adweek.
Photographer Christopher Wray-McCann formed Operation Aloha by inviting a group of friends, including members of Gomez, Maroon 5, and Phantom Planet, to shack up in Maui for a month to see if they could make music together. “The end result is a collection of songs that captures the tranquility, freedom and spirit of Hawaii.” The group’s self-titled debut will be released tomorrow. Buy the CD at the Operation Aloha Official Online Store ($12.99) or download all of the MP3s on iTunes or Amazon ($5.99).
Operation Aloha Musicians:
Dajon Everett (Gomez)
Ian Ball (Gomez)
James Valentine (Maroon 5)
Jesse Carmichael (Maroon 5)
Olly Peacock (Gomez)
Sam Farrar (Phantom Planet)
Christopher Wray-McCann (Photographer)
Charles Danek
Fil Krohnengold (All Spots To Black)
Mathew Chaney
Maureen Wray-McCann
Nadav Kahn (Kahn Brothers)
Saam Gabbay
Will Nash
Watch Ian Ball performing “Failure” below and see the band on Last Call With Carson Daly on Thursday, May 14th.
Mobius Band released their sophmore album Heaven in the US in 2007, but I’ve never heard it until today. Editors became friends and fans of the Brooklyn-based Band when the two toured together in the UK in 2008. Editors liked Heaven so much that they partnered with MBs US label, Misra, to release it in the UK today. Mobius Band’s biography on Allmusic describes their music as “hard to place, lying somewhere between bittersweet indie rock, electronic pop, and alt-country leanings.” I’m still listening to the album on Rhapsody–so far, not bad. They remind me of Elefant, but that’s not necessarily a good thing because their playlist shelf-life may be very limited. The tracks “Hallie” and “Friends Like These” are available to download free on their website.
According to MediaBistro’s MediaJobsDaily, Dan Baum was fired from the New Yorker in 2007 but he’s writing about it now using Twitter. Instead of micro-blogging, he’s often posting incomplete sentences that are continued in subsequent messages. One of his “posts” spans 10 tweets while another covers 63 during more than two and a half hours. The web is always evolving because it’s shaped by its global community of users, but this kind of storytelling is best suited to the articles Dan used to write for the New Yorker. I do appreciate his experiment with new media, but I recomend that he start a blog.
Doves are using their presence on three different social networking sites, Facebook, MySpace, and Bebo, to alert fans about a free, alternative version of “Birds Flew Backwards” from the recently released Kingdom of Rust. As usual, sign up for their newsletter in exchange for the song. I guess I’ll have to check my News Feed more often.
Enter Rhapsody’s Best Fest Sweepstakes for a chance to win a trip to see two-thirds of Lollapalooza 2009 on August 7-9 in Chicago. The winner will receive:
round-trip airfare for the winner and a guest
2 nights of hotel accommodations
2 tickets for 2 days of the festival
$500 for incidental expenses
Linksys Wireless Home Audio System
Lollapalooza is a 3-day festival so you’ll have to pay out of your own pocket to attend the entire event and for the much needed extra night at the hotel. Is that what they mean by “incidental expenses”?
The contest is being sponsored by Linksys by Cisco to promote their new, brilliantly-named wireless home audio system, “Wireless Home Audio“. WHA consists of multiple components (the Player, the Director, the Conductor, and the Controller) that can be purchased separately or as part of various kits. Spend an hour on their confusing website and I’m sure you’ll be able to sort out all of the company and product names. Good luck to the branding and advertising folks on this one.
Nine Black Alps have made a track from their upcoming, untitled third album available on their website. Sign up for their mailing list to receive “Buy Nothing” free.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs released their third album, It’s Blitz, last month and they’re promoting it on Saturday Night Live this weekend. Their first single “Zero” is very good, but I prefer “Heads Will Roll”.
Metric is touring the US in June to support the April 14th release of their 4th album, Fantasies.
6/4 Seattle, WA – Showbox
6/5 Portland, OR – Wonder Ballroom
6/6 San Francisco, CA – BFD
6/7 San Diego, CA – Independence Jam
6/8 Los Angeles, CA – Wiltern
6/11 Denver, CO – Ogden Theater
6/12 Lawrence, KS – Granada
6/13 Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue
6/14 Chicago, IL – Metro
6/15 Detroit, MI – St. Andrews Hall 6/17 New York, NY – Terminal 5
6/18 Washington, DC – 9:30 Club
6/19 Philadelphia, PA – Trocadero
The All Points West Music & Arts Festival will be returning to Liberty State Park in New Jersey on Friday, July 31st through Sunday, August 2nd. Beastie Boys, Tool, and Coldplay are the headliners for each night but I’m not interested in seeing any of them. Beastie Boys will attract all of the meatheads just as Rage Against the Machine did at Coachella in 2007, TOOL has a devoted following but I never got into them, and Coldplay just sucks ever since Chris Martin announced his mission to be in the biggest band in the world. See below for my favorites from each day.
Friday: Fleet Foxes, the National, Vampire Weekend, Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Saturday: The Ting Tings, Arctic Monkeys, My Bloody Valentine
Sunday: We Are Scientists, Mogwai, Silversun Pickups, Elbow, MGMT, Echo & The Bunnymen
Saturday is my least favorite day especially since I’ve alreadh had my ears blown out by MBV last year so I’ll be going on either Friday, Sunday, or both. The pre-sale starts tomorrow at noon (password: WRXP) with the public sale starting at noon on Friday. 3-day passes are $199 (+fees) and 1-day passes are $89 (+fees).
