Category: The Music

Spotify on Windows Phone

It’s here…

Yesterday was a fairly busy day, if you’re a tech-head like me at least; Google+ rolled out their brand pages, the Nokia N9 started updating to the much-heralded mega-fix firmware and, for those that needed it, Spotify dropped onto the Windows Phone Marketplace.

Google+ I’ve covered already (no really, what is it for?), the N9 update I am yet to apply and as for Spotify? Well, what can I say?

Choosing Windows Phone as the last, great, mobile operating system to support, Spotify prepped itself for the promised masses yesterday afternoon (after a preview some six months ago) and boy, is it a beautiful app to use.

First, some caveats:

  • Spotify mobile is only available to premium subscribers
  • Premium is £9.99 a month. A small price to pay to NEVER PAY FOR ANY MUSIC EVER AGAIN.
  • I’ve tried Zune* and, until Spotify dropped, that was fine (if a little alien).

So, to the app itself.

The good stuff:

  • WP7 app design: oh my God this app is gorgeous.
  • Scrolling, sharing, syncing: all of it rocks my face off.
  • It’s Spotify, on my mobile.

The stuff needed in the next update:

  • Background colour options
    Windows Phone offers either ‘dark’ or ‘light’, white on black or black on white respectively. Spotify should either match its app’s skin accordingly or at least offer it up as an in-app option. Strangely, while the app offers the light variation, the desktop client offers dark.
  • Last.fm integration please
    Syncing tracks listened to in online mode and remembering then uploading my tracks listened to in offline mode.
  • Offline playlist filters
    Yeah, love that but, any chance that you filter the playlists by DOWNLOADED FIRST? Having to scroll through all of them in order is a pain.
  • Album art on lockscreen
    I mentioned I was on Zune before, one thing that the WP music player does nicely is show album covers on the lock screen while playing music. It’s a nice touch and adds to the overall experience. Spotify should do this too. See below.

2011-11-09-2221

 Florence playing through Zune

2011-11-09-2222

 Florence playing through Spotify

Overall, great work guys, it’s an awesome service and I’m a big fan. Having it running on my Lumia makes me a very happy bunny indeed. Good job.

Please, continue to iterate, improve and impress.

Danke,
James.

 

*I signed up for a Zune Pass about a day after first getting my Windows Phone. I like that it covers my Xbox too, but I already have Last.fm there. So it was only really the mobile music angle I needed to cover. Now Spotify is here, I just don’t need it.

Introdiction

I spotted this just over a week ago and have had it open in my browser since with the full intention of blogging it when I got the chance. That’ll be today then.

This is the new (and fairly sweary – you have been warned) single from Scroobius Pip, Introdiction.
I love Pip’s work, have done for ages – and this is a great, great track.

Oh yeah, and the price of the video production? £100.

Enjoy.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off OST

…or lack thereof

If you have never seen Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, stop reading now. Immediately. Get yourself over to Play or Amazon or something and go get yourself a copy. Order it, download it, watch it and then come back.

Right, everyone else – still here? Good.

Believe it or not I managed to make it to my 17th year without ever seeing this film. My good friend Bodger, upon discovering my apparent deprived childhood would not let me leave his house again until I had seen it. Twice. Needless to say we were late for college that day.

Many, many things have been said about this film – none of which I’m going to try and emulate or even beat (perhaps another time), however one area that’s not touched upon that often is that of the awesome soundtrack to the film.

From the manic synths of Sigue Sigue Sputnik through to the soft, dulcet tones of The Smiths; the Ferris Bueller’s Day Off OST is a wonder to behold. Except… it doesn’t actually exist.

That’s right, perhaps one of the most bizarre yet luminescent and nostalgic collections of music ever to placed into one film was never actually released as an album.
The reason? The director, the supremely talented John Hughes, was worried about the mix of songs being ‘too eclectic’ to see as an album.

According to Wikipedia, he said:

“The only official soundtrack that Ferris Bueller’s Day Off ever had was for the mailing list. A&M was very angry with me over that; they begged me to put one out, but I thought “who’d want all of these songs?” I mean, would kids want “Danke Schoen” and “Oh Yeah” on the same record? They probably already had “Twist and Shout,” or their parents did, and to put all of those together with the more contemporary stuff, like the (English) Beat – I just didn’t think anybody would like it. But I did put together a seven-inch of the two songs I owned the rights to – “Beat City” on one side, and… I forget, one of the other English bands on the soundtrack… and sent that to the mailing list. By ’86, ’87, it was costing us $30 a piece to mail out 100,000 packages. But it was a labor of love.”

Amazing.

Thanks to a mixbag of research and Wikipedia, I’ve managed to hunt down a full track list for what would’ve been the FDO:OST.

  1. “Love Missile F1-11” (Extended Version) by Sigue Sigue Sputnik
  2. “Jeannie” (Theme from I Dream of Jeannie)
  3. “Beat City” by The Flowerpot Men
  4. “Main Title / Rebel Blockade Runner” by John Williams (From, Star Wars)
  5. “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want” (instrumental) by The Dream Academy (a cover of a song by The Smiths)
  6. “Menuet Célèbre” by (Zagreb Philharmonic Chamber Studio)
  7. “Danke Schoen” by Wayne Newton
  8. “Twist and Shout” by The Beatles
  9. “Radio People” by Zapp
  10. “I’m Afraid” by Blue Room
  11. “Taking the Day Off” by General Public
  12. “The Edge of Forever” by The Dream Academy
  13. “March of the Swivelheads” (a remix of “Rotating Head”) by The (English) Beat
  14. “Oh Yeah” by Yello
  15. “BAD” by Big Audio Dynamite

And – minus a few that I couldn’t find in the library – I’ve managed to throw [most of] them down into a handy little Spotify playlist.

Enjoy.

WATCH THIS: All Of The Lights

I’m a good few weeks behind on this one, but I’ve finally got ’round to watching Kanye West’s video for All Of The Lights. Monster was mind-blowing and AOTL does not disappoint (any media that comes with its own health warning is always of immediate interest).

Say what you like about Kanye West, the man is an artist. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, the album from which AOTL is taken, is a masterpiece and well worth 90mins of your ear time [Spotify link].

For now, turn it up to HD, hit ‘full screen’ (the bigger the better) and just enjoy.

Hat tip to Abul for showing me the light.

Stop what you’re doing right now…

…and watch this.

I don’t usually just post videos (not unless there’s a bloody good reason at least), but this video from OK GO is fantastic.

Yes, it’s totally inspired by that Honda advert, however – true to the ‘take-it-and-make-it-better’ generation we all live in – the guys really do build on what’s gone before to make this an utter delight to watch.

Enjoy.

Thanks to Matt Singley for the heads-up.

Wagon Wheel

I’ve been in Helsinki for the past 24hrs so excuse me while I dig around in my video archive for something that I haven’t published here before…

What I’m about to share with you isn’t specifically ‘new content’ exactly, however it is something actually quite special and I hope you enjoy it.

Meet Stewart Reed.

Stewart, believe it or not, is a genuine cowboy who lives and on a ranch out in the small town of Shell, Wyoming.

One night in July, while we were camping up in the mountains (and after we’d watched the Sun go down), we stayed up late drinking whisky, sharing jokes, telling tales and, eventually – after some cajoling from the group, Stewart fetched his guitar out from the pickup and started to play…

There, up in the mountains, in the long dark silence… a real, live cowboy…  singing.

It was magical.

This one, Wagon Wheel, is by far and away my favourite.
Give it 30 seconds or so before he gets going, after that – just enjoy…

For the Love of Music

I am… a Mobile Geek.

Oooh… Shiny!

This may not be brand new information to many of you, but to others – it might.

Reason being, I don’t tend to write that much about my mobile geekery here in My Happy Place, which is kind of silly really given how happy my mobile life makes me sometimes. But the motivation for this is that whenever I do have something mobile-related to say, I use my platform over on Mobile Industry Review (MIR), formerly – and now incorporating – SMS Text News, to get the message out.

So this post comes forthwith for two reasons. First up I have to tell you about something that I’ve been using for quite some time on my N95 8GB but which recently had quite an awesome little update. The second is more of a question for you dear readers… Which I’ll come to later.

As I mentioned – I’d normally use MIR to put this up but given the social/sharing elements and the happiness that this one app bestows upon me, I thought I’d share it here..

I want to tell you about a thing called Mobbler.

Mobbler is a 3rd party application that you download and install onto your S60 Nokia device, (so that’s pretty much any N or E series device plus a few others thrown in for good measure) which, once activated, acts like Last.fm for your mobile.

If you’re a Last.fm user, (and if you’re not, why not? Go and sign up now). this is cool for many reasons:

First up you can stream music from any of Last’s ‘radio’ stations – chosen by the usual themes of artist, tag, user, etc… You can stream music that you’ve previously ‘loved’ and you can also stream music from any of the playlists that you may’ve pre-defined on the web interface…

All of this delivered over-the-air (OTA) via your network/carrier – Tres Cool.
Oo yeah, all of this streaming means you might want some kind of data bundle…
Don’t forget that.

But, that’s not all, the real reason I HEART Mobbler so much, is that it allows me to share.

As you can see from the image above, right now I’m listening to Justice – One Minute to Midnight. This track is, along with about a thousand others, stored on my handset’s 8GB memory and is playing through the phone’s onboard MP3 player.. and Mobbler, in it’s wondrous fantasticness, is broadcasting this choice of track straight to my Last.fm user profile.

Which means you can go there and see what I’m listening to RIGHT NOW.
Instant sharing of what music I’m into, what’s making me strut and what is making me grin.

Awesome.
Thing is…

More and more recently my appreciation for all things musical has grown tenfold. From seeking out great new tunes to going to fantastic gigs or to just simply taking the time to really enjoy the emotional connection that certain compositions can have on the soul… Any and all of the above can make for a truly awe-inspiring experience.

Admittedly, having a trusted guide that can aid you through the mire of mediocrity that can sometimes exist on today’s CD shelves, (I’m sorry what? Who actually buys CDs anymore?!), can be a BIG help – but if you look hard enough, there are some true gems out there folks.. and being able to share these with you, whether I’m sat busy at my desk or on the move with my mobile, makes me a very happy Whatley indeed.

Oh and ‘reason for posting number two’…?
That question I mentioned?
I’ve thought about it now… and it doesn’t matter.

Thanks for reading folks.

🙂