Apple and Google's huge streaming music gamble

With new streaming music services, Apple and Google would be entering a very saturated industry.

Fortune reported this week that Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) is planning a YouTube subscription music service. Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) is also reportedly negotiating terms with music labels to add a streaming option to iTunes.

But their would-be competitors already make up an extremely long list: Pandora (P), Spotify, Rhapsody, iHeartRadio, Rdio, Mog, Muve and Daisy are just a small sampling.

"The world does not need dozens of streaming services," says Russ Crupnick, a streaming media analyst at NPD. "There will be tremendous challenges to get some elbow room in the marketplace."

Apple and Google could be well positioned to gain success in streaming music because of the companies' sheer size and brand recognition.

But merely being a household name may not be enough. MySpace has fallen from grace, and Microsoft's (MSFT, Fortune 500) Xbox Music debuted in the fall to mixed reviews. Napster couldn't survive its post-piracy life and sold to rival Rhapsody in December 2011.

The big advantage Apple and Google have is the synergy with device businesses. Both could promote their streaming services as pre-loaded apps on iPhones, iPads, iPods or Android devices.

Still, smaller companies like Pandora and Spotify have already carved out their own impressive subscriber figures. Pandora is the third highest-grossing app in Apple's iTunes App Store, driving significant in-app sales of music and premium services.

Crupnick thinks Apple and Google have a shot at success, but the window of opportunity is closing fast: There will ultimately be between three and five successful streaming services, he says, "and it will be hard to name No. 6, 8, 10, or 25."

Who makes it to that top-five list could depend on which companies can differentiate their services from the crowd.

"The ones who have carved out a niche have done well for themselves," said Paul Resnikoff, the founder and publisher of the trade publication Digital Music News. "The jack of all trades approach usually isn't the best."

For example, Leap Wireless' (LEAP) Muve Music service, available on all Cricket phones, now has 1.4 million subscribers. Leap says Muve is the largest subscription music service in the United States. Pandora, which had nearly 66 million listeners in January, doesn't break out numbers for paid subscribers.

"[Muve is] an amazing grab on a very mobile focused, lower-income marketplace that no one else has tapped," Resnikoff said.

Related story: How Billboard saved the music video

Yet mainstream brands like Google and Apple are unlikely to settle for a niche audience. Marketing relevant music, events and advertisements to users could be a massively successful enterprise -- particularly for Apple and Google, who can easily leverage that information across their various existing services like iTunes and Google's giant advertising business.

Despite the sheer amount of competition in the space, industry experts say the potential revenue opportunity makes the gamble worth a shot for Apple and Google.

"That data is precious," Crupnick said. "If you know what I'm searching for ... you can feed me more ads that are more effective, and inform me about concerts and shows. Anyone who can unlock that could be a screaming success."

View the original article here

Music & Arts Celebrates 60 Years of Music Advocacy With 'Share Your Passion' Facebook Contest

FREDERICK, MD--(Marketwire - Mar 7, 2013) - Music & Arts, the largest band and orchestra instrument retailer and lesson provider in the country, officially kicks off its 60th anniversary celebration in March by hosting the Share Your Passion Facebook contest. Student musicians ranging from ages 13 to 18 are encouraged to submit a picture and brief description that represents why they are passionate about music. The top eight finalists will be determined through a vote by Music & Arts' Facebook community. A panel of judges will award one winner $10,000 in Yamaha instruments for the winner's school, $2,000 towards a Yamaha instrument and an entire year of lessons from Music & Arts.

"Music is our passion, and has been since the day my father started this company in the basement of our home in 1952," said Kenny O'Brien, CEO of Music & Arts. "Our team feels incredibly lucky to have spent 60 years serving young musicians and music educators, and providing a new platform for musicians to share their own passion is a fitting way to celebrate this milestone."

Musicians are encouraged to visit www.facebook.com/musicandarts, "like" the page and follow contest instructions. Submissions will be accepted until April 1, 2013.

Starting on April 2, fans across the nation will vote to select the top eight finalists. A panel of judges will measure the finalists based on the originality and quality of their photo, description and emotional appeal, and the winning student musician will be announced in early May.

About Music & Arts
Music & Arts, the nation's largest school music company, has served students, teachers and families through retail stores and school representatives since 1952. Based in Frederick, Md., the company specializes in sales and rentals of music instruments, instrument repairs and music lessons -- especially for the beginning and student musician. Music & Arts now has more than 110 retail locations across 22 states.

View the original article here

Music Empowers Foundation celebrates " Music In Our Schools Month" with " Music Teachers Matter" Video Contest and a ...

NEW YORK, March 7, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Music Empowers Foundation revealed its plans today to celebrate "Music in Our Schools Month", an annual celebration, spanning the month of March.  Activities include new grants and a video contest celebrating school music programs and teachers.

As part of the celebration, Music Empowers today announced a first time grant to the Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation.  The Foundation is a California-based not for profit that, to date, has provided musical instruments to over 1,300 schools nationwide, benefiting hundreds of thousands of students.

"We're very grateful to Music Empowers Foundation for giving us this opportunity to put instruments into more kids' hands so they can experience the benefits of playing music," said Felice Mancini, President & CEO, The Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation.  "The music education community is fortunate to have the support of Music Empowers and together we can keep music alive for all children in school."

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION! Music Empowers also announced the kick off of the "Music Teachers Matter" video contest.  For this event, music education supporters can submit short videos, explaining why their local school's music program and its teachers are important and special to them.

All video submissions will be reviewed by a panel of representatives from prestigious music education not for profits including Little Kids Rock and Berklee College of Music's City Music Program.  The school music program selected for the top video will receive a $2,500 grant from the Music Empowers Foundation.

The "Music Teachers Matter" video contest is open to all music education advocates, ages 18 and older.  Videos can be submitted through March 31st and the top video will be announced in early April. 

To enter and learn more about the "Music Teachers Matters" video contest, visit http://musicempowersfoundation.org/music-teachers-matter-2013.html.

ABOUT MUSIC EMPOWERS FOUNDATION

Music Empowers Foundation is a 501 (c) (3) not-for-profit that provides financial support to nonprofits that offer music education programs to communities with limited or nonexistent programs.  Since its inception in early 2010, it has awarded over half a million dollars in grants to organizations such as: Little Kids Rock, Berklee City Music, DonorsChoose.org, Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation, Artists Corps of America and Blackbird Academy of Arts.  For more information on Music Empowers please go to www.musicempowersfoundation.org, become a fan on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter.

ABOUT THE MR. HOLLAND'S OPUS FOUNDATION

The Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation donates new and refurbished musical instruments to underserved schools in an effort to give youngsters the many benefits of music education, help them to be better students and inspire creativity and expression through playing music.  Hundreds of thousands of students across the country have benefited and thousands of instruments have been donated to more than 1,300 school music programs across the country.  More information can be found at www.mhopus.org

 

View the original article here

Music Review: Various Artists - Balkan Arts 701: Bulgarian Folk Dances

Field recordings are usually made with portable recording equipment in less than what anybody would consider ideal conditions, with the result being less than perfect recordings as far as sound quality is concerned. However, since the earliest days of recording music they have been invaluable tools for preserving the music of cultures all over the world. Music anthropologists in the 19th century used wax cylinders to record everything from Native American singers to Appalachian folk music.

Field recordings of African American blues and gospel music were often most white people's introductions to both genres. Even today, field recordings are playing an invaluable role in ensuring older artists' music is recorded and not forgotten. The Music Maker Relief Foundation has used field recordings to help bring the music of Southern blues artists, who otherwise might have been forgotten, into homes and concert halls around the world. However, field recordings aren't limited to North American music. The Centre for Traditional Music and Dance's archive of recordings is a treasure chest of music from around the world. One of their most interesting collections of recordings were those done in the Balkans during the 1960s and 1970s by Martin Koenig.

His Balkan Arts Centre (the forerunner of the Centre for Traditional Music and Dance) was formed to help keep the music and culture of that region alive. Koenig's original recordings were made into LPs and 45s, which he used to teach the folk dances of the region. However, they were never made available to the public. Now that's all changing. A box of the original vinyl records was found in the Centre and have now been restored. They are being released as a 13-part series of special edition vinyl EPs by Evergreene Music, with the first release being Balkan Arts 701: Bulgarian Folk Dances.

Now don't worry if you don't have a turntable as every EP comes with a code which not only allows you to download the four tracks from the recording, but also gives you access to liner notes, photos, and additional audio files including a recording of an interview with Koeing. In the interview he talks about his experiences recording the music in communist Eastern Europe and why it was important then, and remains important today, that these recordings exist.

Like most field recordings made prior to the digital age, the sound quality of the four tracks aren't the greatest. However there are other compensations. This is music we would have no record of if these recordings hadn't been made. Folk music which encouraged nationalistic feelings or celebrated ethnic differences was strongly discouraged under communist rule in Eastern Europe. An entire generation grew up without knowing the traditional music of their culture. Recordings like these are the only way they have of learning anything about the music and the dances of their people.

Listening to the four cuts, "Zborinka", "Ruka", "Chukanoto", and "Dobrolushko Horo", the first thing you might notice is the similarities between this music and what we call "Gypsy" music. They both have a kind of wild abandonment to them and a heavy reliance on what sound to be stringed instruments. This only makes sense, as Bulgarian folk music would have many of the same influences as other musics from the region. Like their neighbours in Romania, Bosnia, and Greece, Bulgaria was at one point part of the Turkish-ruled Ottoman Empire. You can hear this influence in rather high-pitched skirling noise produced by the combination of a type of bagpipe and the violin.

The next thing you'll probably notice is the lack of anything like a bass line providing an underpinning for the song. Unlike the majority of the music we listen to, which is built around a very distinctive beat, there doesn't appear to be any one instrument responsible for maintaining the song's rhythm. However, by listening closely you do hear the sound of a drum buried very deep in the mix. Whether that's intentional or a result of deficiencies in the recording process is unclear.

However, even without the drum, you'll notice each of the songs has a pattern. Out of what appears to be a sort of free for all, with all the instruments playing leads at the same time, gradually evolves something we can discern as a carefully constructed song with a noticeable rhythm. The secret is to listen to the song as a whole, not the individual instruments, and then you'll be able to hear the song's pulse. This is the engine which propels the dancers who would move to the music.

It might be hard for us to remember this is dance music, as it no way matches our idea of how it should sound. Even those of us familiar with other Eastern European music will feel somewhat lost, as it doesn't have the definite beat of Polish polkas or the Cossack music of Russia. No, this is far wilder, evoking the wind swept hills and crags where the shepherds who created it tend their flocks.

In fact, it's hard to imagine this music ever being recorded in a proper studio setting. It sounds like it needs to be played out in the open air with its skirling notes being allowed to escape into the sky and the mountains. It's made to be played in the village square or on a hillside around an open fire, not in the sterile environment of the recording studio. Thus we discover the real value of field recordings. They not only capture music, they capture the music and its environment like no other recordings can.

The four recordings on Bulgarian Folk Dances aren't, by any stretch of the imagination, high quality. However, they are exciting, exhilarating, and a timely reminder that music used to be played for the sheer joy of making it and the chance it gave us to celebrate living. Listening to the music, it's fun to try and imagine the kind of dancing it encouraged and the people who danced to it. How often have you been able to say that about anything you've heard recorded recently.

 

View the original article here

Dave Grohl Finds Music 's Human Element — In A Machine

It wasn't much to look at: a nondescript building in the San Fernando Valley with hideous brown shag carpeting on the walls. But from the 1970s on, the Sound City recording studio turned out a ridiculous amount of great music: classic recordings by Fleetwood Mac, Neil Young, Tom Petty, Metallica, Rage Against the Machine and many others.

Dave Grohl and his bandmates in Nirvana were practically unknown in 1991 when they pulled up to Sound City in a rusted white van. But the album that came out of that session, Nevermind, turned rock music on its head.

In his new documentary and accompanying soundtrack, Sound City: Real to Reel, the Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters founder pays homage to that studio — and its distinctive soundboard — by speaking to and jamming with other musicians whose lives were changed by recording there.

Grohl spoke to All Things Considered host Melissa Block about the making of the film, which serves as a love letter to both a recording environment and the human element of music in the digital age. Hear the radio version at the audio link on this page, and read more of their conversation below.

MELISSA BLOCK: Let's talk about that board. It's a Neve 8028 soundboard and that was the studio console at Sound City. What was so great about it?

DAVE GROHL: Well, you know, that was a great era for recording equipment. The late '60s and the '70s, a lot of this really beautiful equipment was being made and installed into studios around the world and the Neve boards were considered like the Cadillacs of recording consoles. They're these really big, behemoth-looking recording desks; they kind of look like they're from the Enterprise in Star Trek or something like that. They're like a grayish color, sort of like an old Army tank with lots of knobs, and to any studio geek or gear enthusiast it's like the coolest toy in the world. But they're pretty simple. They're not filled with miles and miles of cable and wires — they're pretty simple. And what you get when you record on a Neve desk is this really big, warm representation of whatever comes into it. What's going to come out the other end is this bigger, better version of you. And so it makes you sound real, but it makes you sound really good.

So Sound City had this Neve board, and I think it's the only thing we knew about Sound City when Nirvana went there. We'd never been to the studio; we just picked it because we heard it had this great old Neve desk. So when we came down in that old van and opened the doors to see that the place was a total dump, we were kind of shocked, you know? We had no idea. We'd been rehearsing those songs for months and months in this little barn in Tacoma, Wash. That's where we practiced. And we knew that we had 16 days in the studio to make an album, which, to us, seemed like an eternity. I mean, we were used to recording 16 songs in a day. So this was our big break, in a way. We had signed to a major label — the David Geffen Co. — and we were coming to Los Angeles to make our record. We didn't think that what eventually happened was going to happen but we really took it seriously. So we practiced really hard and came down to Sound City and that short amount of time to make the album. And it really did change my life forever, those 16 days. I don't think I'd be here now if it weren't for that time at Sound City.

When I think about how music sounds, I might think about the room it was recorded in or the microphones that were used. I wouldn't think about the soundboard. How does that work? What does it add?

Well, you know, it's funny. Most people don't take those things into consideration. When they hear an album, they hear the artist or they hear the lyric or they hear the melody. But they don't really think about the environment in which it was recorded, which is so important. It's that thing that determines what the album sounds like.

Every one of these old boards, they all have personality. They all have a different life to them and they all have a different history. It's almost like they have ghosts in them. When we installed the board at my studio, we had to open it up and clean it out. There was like, 40 years of cocaine and fried chicken in that thing.

Beyond that, there's the people that worked at Sound City that kept the room alive, that painted the walls when it started looking too dingy or that did the work on the board when it started to break down — the studio managers and the runners and all of these people. They're just as important to Tom Petty's Damn the Torpedoes or Rick Springfield's Working Class Dog as the artists. I mean, when I talk about the human element in the movie, it goes beyond performance and it goes beyond a performer. It goes all the way down to the people that made sure Sound City kept its doors open.

There's a great moment in the film when you go to interview the actual creator of the Neve — Rupert Neve himself. And he tries to explain the nuts and bolts of what the board does. And you get this big, goofy grin on your face like you have no idea what he's talking about.

I haven't the foggiest notion. I haven't the slightest idea what he was talking about. I think before we even started shooting, I knew that if we had Rupert Neve in the film, we had to ask something so technical that no one would understand, and then subtitle it.

And that subtitle reads, as you're listening to him?

It says, "Doesn't he know I'm a high school dropout?" Or something like that. It's funny, there aren't too many musicians that also moonlight as studio engineers. There's a few — the really brilliant ones. Trent Reznor is one, from Nine Inch Nails. He's a classically trained pianist and an incredible songwriter and composer, but he's also a great engineer. Someone like me, I set up drums and I beat the hell out of them, and my best friend who works at the studio makes it sound really great. So, when I sit in front of the Neve desk — yeah I could probably put a session together. But when Rupert Neve starts getting that deep, technically, I just, I'm lost. I mean, that's why he's Rupert Neve. He's a genius.

For those of us who aren't studio geeks, explain what a console does — how it shapes the music that comes through it.

There's a great example in the film, actually. Butch Vig, who produced Nevermind, is an old friend of mine. I've worked with him for years. He did the last Foo Fighters record. He plays in the band Garbage. He's one of our generation's great producers, and he explains what the board does. It's like a big stereo. You take a microphone and you plug it into the console. You sing into the microphone, the sound goes through the cable, into the desk. And in the desk, you can manipulate the sound by making it brighter, giving it more bass, basically like an EQ on your stereo. Then the sound comes out of the desk and into your tape machine or your Pro Tools unit, and then that's the sound that you get.

Now, different boards do different things to the sound that's coming through them. An old Neve desk does embellish it in a way that makes it sound sort of bigger or warmer. It doesn't change the performance but it does enhance the way that it sounds. You know, it's the difference between listening to an old record on an old stereo versus listening to something off of your iPod. It really suits rock 'n' roll. I think musicians like me are drawn to those older desks, not just because they're legend and lore but also because they do something really specific that is hard to emulate or re-create digitally.

You own this Neve console now; you bought it when Sound City shut down. Why?

About three years ago we were making a Foo Fighters record, and I decided that we should do it in my garage rather than do it at our studio. We have a studio called Studio 606 in the San Fernando Valley — it's not far from Sound City, actually. And we've made a few records here. Other bands come to record here as well. It's a big 8,000-square-foot state-of-the-art studio. But for the last Foo Fighters record, Wasting Light, I thought, "Well, we've made two records here. Let's do something different. Let's do something fun. Let's switch up the environment and create an experience. ... And screw computers, man. Let's go back to tape." That's one of the things that we talk about in the film — the debate of analog versus digital. You know, when you're recording to tape, you usually just settle for what you have. There's not a lot of options to manipulate the performance, and we like that. We like to sound the way we sound. So we decided to do it straight to tape in my garage. But I didn't have any gear up at my house, so I started hunting around for a board.

Someone said, "We should call Sound City. They're selling off the gear in Studio B." I thought, "Oh my God, Sound City's selling gear? That's crazy!" So I called the studio manager — she'd been there for 20 years and I'd always remained close with everyone there. She was really upset because business was bad. They were kind of on their last legs and they were about to close their doors, so they were selling off some of the gear just to pay the rent. And I said, "I don't really know if I want anything from Studio B, but if you guys ever want to sell the Neve in Studio A ... ." She said, " I'd sell my grandmother before I sold that board." Which is the response I knew that I would get. But I said, "OK, well, just so you know, if you guys ever do want to get rid of it, I would be honored to have it." And maybe about five or six months later, I got the call that they were going to close and they were getting rid of the board. I think they had a conversation about who they should sell it to, and somehow they decided that I should be the person to get it. ... So I didn't even ask how much it cost. I said, "Absolutely!" Because I really did imagine this thing was gonna end up in the Hall of Fame.

It was also right around the 20th anniversary of Nevermind. And I thought, "Well, what I'll do is, I'll buy the board and I'll make a short film about being reunited with this recording console 20 years later." I mean, if you consider what that album did to popular music, you have to also consider that this board is part of that. So I thought I would make a short film paying tribute to the board, and it would maybe be a sidebar to all of the other 20th-anniversary attention we were getting for that album. And then the idea just kind of exploded.

The short film became a long film.

I asked Tom Skeeter, the studio owner, to give me a list of all the albums that were made there. And he kind of looked at me like, "Are you out of your mind? That's 100,000 albums, you know." He gave me a short list, and I took that short list and just started blasting out emails to people. "Hi. My name's Dave. You and I have something in common: Sound City. I'm making a documentary about it and I'd like to ask you a few questions." And of the 40 people that I asked to come sit down and talk to me, 40 of them said yes. And that's when I realized, "Oh my God. This is not a short film. This is a movie."

You mentioned when you heard that they were going to sell the console that you didn't ask how much it cost. Do you mind if I ask you how much you paid for it?

I do mind, actually.

You do?

Well, I mean, you'd be surprised. I would have paid $1 million for this board. I really would have because there's some things in life that you really consider to be priceless. And I know that they paid $78,000 for it in 1973, but unfortunately their return wasn't what you would expect. It didn't cost me $1 million. They gave it to me for a really reasonable price and I think that it was — it had less to do with money and more to do with something emotional or the history of our relationship, my relationship with Sound City. So, yeah, I didn't have to sell any cars or kids to get the board.

So as you're sitting in front of that Neve console, does it look like an old friend? Does it look like part of the family?

Yeah, it was one of the great things about having everyone come in here to do these interviews. Whether it was Tom Petty or Lindsey Buckingham or [producer] Chris Goss or [Queens of the Stone Age frontman] Josh Homme, everybody had a story about sitting in front of this board. To talk to a legendary drummer like Jim Keltner, who's played with everyone from Clapton to John Lennon to Ry Cooder — it's kind of a spiritual experience. Or to talk to Trent Reznor about technology. Here's someone who is probably considered the godfather of popular electronic music. He's built a career around the juxtaposition of human beings and machines making music together. Had I never even filmed or recorded any of these conversations, I'd be a better musician for just having them with these people.

The movie revolves around this board and this studio, the conversation's about something a lot bigger: the human element of music. You can still play with each other and collaborate and capture those magical human moments, but we're living in an age where you can manipulate or change any of that to make it sound any way you want. You can make yourself the greatest singer in the world or the best drummer in the world with the aid of technology. So a place like Sound City, which was just a big, beautiful room where you would hit record and capture the sound of the performer — a place like that isn't necessarily in demand anymore.

View the original article here

Buku music fest returns to NOLA with bigger lineup

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Hip-hop singer Big Freedia and an entourage of booty-shaking "bounce" dancers are using a Mardi Gras float for a stage when the Buku music festival returns to New Orleans this weekend.

The two-day Buku Music + Art Project, a hip-hop and electronic dance music festival launched last year, is back for a second year, with about two dozen more acts and four stages instead of two.

The festival is being held Friday and Saturday at Mardi Gras World, the huge studio and warehouse on the bank of the Mississippi River where Carnival floats are made. The lineup is diverse, with Scottish-born DJ Calvin Harris, Ohio rapper Kid Cudi, the British electronic music trio Nero, 1980s rap group Public Enemy and dozens of other acts.

Among the locals in the lineup is New Orleans native Big Freedia.

"We're coming to rock the party, and it's going to be beaucoup fun," said Freedia, the openly gay performer whose real name is Freddie Ross. "I'm in my zone on my home turf in New Orleans, and it's going to be crazy."

The self-proclaimed "queen diva" and his dancers deliver a hypersexual show packed with booty-shaking moves to upbeat dance music known locally as "bounce" music. The genre is a fusion of hip-hop and quick, repetitive dance beats with heavy bass. It usually includes call-and-response vocals — a nod to early rap and Mardi Gras Indian roots music.

"The Mardi Gras Indians, they did the call and response first," Freedia said. "They were around way before the rappers, and that's why bounce is such a big part of our culture here. This is our roots."

Freedia, who takes the stage on Saturday, is one of the few bounce artists with international exposure, having toured Europe, Australia and other countries as well as most of the U.S. He has a documentary and full-length album in the works.

Earlier this week, he shot the video for his latest single, "Explode."

"A lot of things are happening," Freedia said, adding that Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent levee failures in 2005 brought attention to the city's music scene and the bounce genre.

"I had put in my time working in club after club after club for years, and when Katrina hit, it was time for me to see the world," he said.

Buku opens Friday with Primus 3D, Zedd, Aeroplane, Flying Lotus, DJ Soul Sister, Kid Cudi and more than a dozen other acts. Joshua Steele, the British DJ who goes by the stage name Flux Pavilion, said he'll be playing jams from his new album, "Blow the Roof," when he takes the stage Friday.

"I play what makes me happy, what gets me up and jumping around," he said.

Flux Pavilion, whose hits include 2011's "Bass Cannon," delivers high-energy shows that "mix it up a lot, to keep it interesting," Steele said.

"As an artist, you can do whatever you want with bass music, and that's the beauty of it," he said. "It's whatever the producer wants it to be. It can be samba, hip-hop, heavy metal, anything really. You can go anywhere with it."

The Internet has increased accessibility to electronic music, diminishing the genre's "underground" image, Steele said.

"It's a free platform, an open database, where you can just go find it for yourself," he said.

Dante DiPasquale of Winter Circle Productions, the New Orleans-based company producing Buku, said although the festival is bigger than last year, it is intentionally being kept small in comparison to other music festivals. There are only 10,000 tickets available for each day, he said.

Mardi Gras World adds to the "only in New Orleans" experience, he said.

"This festival is really paying tribute to New Orleans, to what people in New Orleans and in the South are listening to," he said. "The rooted music, the jazz music, it's important, but the up-and-coming DJs, bounce artists and indie bands are driving the music today."

The festival's inaugural year featured about 30 acts on two stages. This year there will be more than 50 acts on four stages — one set up among the Carnival floats and props at Mardi Gras World, another in a nearby ballroom and two outside on the banks of the Mississippi River.

View the original article here

The Feed's Friday Music Round-Up: Upbeat edition - CBS News

By Will Goodman Topics Viral Video

(CBS News) While it may be snowy outside if you're in the Northeast like your blogger here, things are about to get nice and hot here on The Feed, because it's time for the Friday Music Round-Up! I decided this week that I need to project some positive thoughts out there on the world, and so have gone with an upbeat edition for the music. (Which actually ended up being a whole lot trickier than I originally anticipated.) We kick things off with Frank Turner's new single "Recovery" above.

I honestly can't get enough of this music video since watching it, and think it's an amazing first entry for an obviously very talented musician that I'll be watching. Really great job, Frank! 

And up next, two major hit songs (one old and one new) recently got an amazing, music mashup performed live during the Australian radio show "Fifi and Jules". Watch Ed Sheeran and Passenger absolutely kill it with their take on "No Diggity" and "Thrift Shop" below.

This next one was definitely the trickiest to select. It seems that when you go for a more artistic mix of sights and sounds in music videos, they tend to be a bit more... serious? Depressing? Sad? (Something along those lines.) But after a long search, I think I was able to find the perfect mix of music and visuals to keep our upbeat theme going in the form of Foals' music video for their song "My Number" directed by Us below. Click play to paint, play and listen by numbers.   

Finally, did you know my tastes in music run pretty wide? For instance, I saw Rush perform live not long ago, and they were absolutely amazing! And while 12-year-old Matt Luca, who recently performed at the Port Jefferson Middle School Talent Show, doesn't top them (that would be sacrilege to say!), he does pay them pretty epic tribute in our final video at the bottom. 

Now hold on a second there! (Are you in some sort of big rush?) Like last week, we have a supplemental edition, music bonus for you from my colleague, Casey Glynn, that you can check out by clicking here (link to come) to keep the tunes coming today. On that note, I hope you have a wonderful weekend and keep coming back to The Feed for all your viral (and music) video needs!

View the original article here

'The Music of Prince' Tribute at Carnegie Hall - New York Times

Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesThe Music of Prince Bilal performing during this tribute at Carnegie Hall on Thursday evening, the ninth annual benefit concert in a series that raises funds for children’s music programs. More Photos »

One concert could hardly contain the multiplicity of Prince’s enormous songwriting catalog over the 35 years since he released his debut album, “For You,” in 1978. “The Music of Prince,” a tribute concert on Thursday night at Carnegie Hall, tried hard. The program strove to capture a broad swath of Prince’s work, through funk and rock and pop, from lust to spirituality to apocalypse to partying. It included hits, rarities and even some of Prince’s dance moves (but alas, no leaping splits). It was the ninth annual “Music of” concert produced by Michael Dorf, the owner of City Winery, to benefit music programs for underprivileged children.

A sortable calendar of noteworthy cultural events in the New York region, selected by Times critics.

With the Roots as a house band, the lineup included singers clearly influenced by Prince — D’Angelo, Bilal — and diverse admirers, among them Elvis Costello and Bettye LaVette. There were also musicians who had been in Prince’s touring bands, including the saxophonist Eric Leeds, whose group fDeluxe reunites members of a band Prince produced in the 1980s as the Family, and the guitarist Wendy Melvoin, who sat in with the Roots for most of the concert.

At a tribute show, song assignments are nearly as important as the performances themselves, and “Music of Prince” was full of smart choices. Mr. Costello, ever the collector, delivered a Prince song that has only appeared as a bootleg: “Moonbeam Levels,” a yearning, Beatles-tinged rocker. “The Cross,” a song about despair and salvation, was stoked with flamboyant devotion by the Blind Boys of Alabama, a venerable gospel quartet.

Bilal and the Roots turned “Sister” — a punky one-and-a-half-minute ditty about incest from Prince’s “Dirty Mind” album — into an elaborately dramatic mini-suite that kept shifting tempos and genres, sometimes from one line to the next, up to a screeching peak.

The Waterboys, a British band whose anthems show Celtic roots, performed “Purple Rain,” the Prince rocker that rivals any anthem, replacing Prince’s lead guitar with keening electric violin. Kat Edmonson, a singer from Texas, turned a ballad, “The Beautiful Ones,” into an even slower torch song, accompanied only by piano and full of heartache.

Ms. LaVette backdated “Kiss” from funk to a bluesy soul vamp, and gave its sexual swagger her own raspy, staccato signature. Talib Kweli updated the ominous “Annie Christian” — Prince’s song about a murderous sociopath, which calls for a chant of “Gun control!” — to mention the violence involving the former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Nina Persson, the Swedish lead singer of the Cardigans, made “Nothing Compares 2 U” — a Prince song that was introduced on the Family’s 1985 album — more forlorn and less tragic than the well-known Sinead O’Connor version. And DeVotchKa pushed “Mountains” from funk toward foot-stomping folk-rock.

There were misfires, too. Applying stolid, folky strumming to “Pop Life” (Citizen Cope and Alice Smith) and to “When Doves Cry” (Bhi Bhiman) deflated both of them, though Mr. Bhiman’s sustained croon revealed the lovers’ quarrel within the song. “Raspberry Beret” (sung by Diane Birch with Booker T. Jones on largely unheard organ) and a funk medley from fDeluxe were lost to Carnegie Hall’s acoustics.

And there was comedy: from Chris Rock and Fred Armisen parodying Prince’s spoken-word moments; from Sandra Bernhard, reaching for high notes as she hammed her way through “Little Red Corvette”; from Princess, the Prince tribute duo of Maya Rudolph and Gretchen Lieberum, who had costumes and moves for “Darling Nikki.”

The finale belonged to D’Angelo, who stepped forward as a soul showman, complete with microphone tricks, for “It’s Gonna Be a Beautiful Night” and “1999.” The Roots kicked up Prince’s post-James Brown funk grooves, and D’Angelo placed his yowls, hoots and exhortations just right, to be joined by the whole lineup during “1999.” It was party time — hitting the energy level where a Prince concert would start.

View the original article here