Very sad news.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/derogatis/2010/03/alex_chilton_dies_on_the_eve...

Hopefully most of us know about Shazam: The mobile phone app or number you dial (old school) which identifies any piece if music being played at the device. I have a long list on my phone of stuff I've Shazammed. Recnt additions include:

Bruises by Chairlift
John Barleycorn by Traffic
You are here by Nathan Fake
Not Even Stevie Nicks by Calexico

What have YOU found via Shazam? 

It's very easy to go off someone or something that you used to like, it's a lot harder to go the other way.

Recently, I have laughed out loud on the tube twice thanks to Danny Baker: His Don Estelle comments in The Word this month, and when he was talking about "the big boxer versus the little boxer" on his podcast. I used to really dislike DB: Daz-selling, Pets Win Prizes-hosting, perma-loud sub-Letterman, or so it seemed. When I moved to London and found out that he hadn't actually disppeared but rather had a local radio show, I slowly got drawn back in. Now I'll even listen to a show about football (*spit!*) because he's so good.

Also, as a teen, I used to dislike Bowie and Floyd, but that was eventually sorted out.

So who used you really dislike but then did a 180 on, and why?

Maybe this is in the same category as asking a lady her age, but there was no mention of The Word in this bit on magazine circulations, and I was curious.

http://m.guardian.co.uk/?id=102202&story=http://www.guardian.co.uk/media...

Picked up the new issue today. Now looks as good as it reads. Well done.

John Hamm hosted Saturday Night Live last week. This sketch has turned me into a Michael Bublé fan.

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTQ5NDk5OTcy.html

(Apols for the crazy link. NBC are very strict on their stuff being YouTubed or viewed outside the US)

There has been no movement on the site this morning. No new threads! Is there anybody out there?

On a slightly related note, isn't it next Monday that all the newspapers run the annual story that "it's the most depressing day of the year... this day is the day that most people take off as a sickie... "

And finally, after a weekend of listens, the new Vampire Weekend is great.

An idea via Alan Bennett...

"It's years," writes Bennett, "since I was on Desert Island Discs but these days I'd find it much easier to choose the eight records I don't want than those that I do."
http://bit.ly/8Wy9CQ

So, what 8 records are your anti-Desert Island Discs? You can give Kirsty Young type reasons for each selection, if you wish...

Reading the other day that Sade are back, back, back (new album in February) I read the Sade wikipedia page and learnt that their music featured elements of a genre called "quiet storm". 

I have never heard of this before. A little more time with google, wikipedia and spotify and I found out that it began in the mid-70's as late night music for soul stations. The track that was the foundation of the genre is Quiet Storm by Smokey Robinson which I had never heard before and it really is something special. 

Anybody else ignorant like me to this genre? I've put the Smokey song on a collaborative spotify playlist to encourage other Wordsters to contribute (apologiess to non-UK non-Spotifiers):

http://open.spotify.com/user/jasongrayson/playlist/16dDJLu0nXX5ZHdVKT2Ln...

A friend of mine has sent out a message on Facebook looking for a Spotify New Year's Eve playlist. This is a job for the massive, I thought. His remit was brief: "Demographic - over 21s under 79s. Style - must not cause the floor to give way"

Let's go... Multiple additions allowed...

http://open.spotify.com/user/jasongrayson/playlist/0B1wyoQu3sRUsYglmDbfS...

It's very late. I was at work this evening. Then came home and took four days of tundra off the car so I can drive to Heathrow in just over six hours. Worst of all, I missed Macca tonight. That was the worst. And he did Mull of Kintyre with pipers. (I like M of K)

However, the news came through on a tweet that The Flaming Lips have released their version of Dark Side of the Moon as a surprise tonight on iTunes. It has made all the other stuff go away!

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/the-dark-side-of-the-moon/id346025381
(UK iTunes Link)

Happy Christmas everyone!

I used to religously get Q every month, way back in the day of the Ellen editorship. I stayed with it for a long time, it did a pretty good shift during the britpop years to cover the stars du jour. When edition 200 featured paparazzi shots of a naked Courtney Love on the cover, it was time to say goodbye (especially if anyone remembers the doorstep that was the amazing Q 100). Putting CC on the cover makes me feel like an old fogey (I'm 35) - this magazine doesn't care about music anymore does it? I'm not anti-pop as my Robbie fandom will attest, but this is celebrity stunt publishing, non?

(If there is any conflict of interest in having a Q thread here feel free to delete Mr.L.)

Did anybody else hear this announcement last week? Tomorrow is the last live A&J show on 6Music for the time being. Joe is going off to direct a movie - his intentions have always seemed elsewhere whereas Adam is quite happy to chittle-chottle on a Saturday morning and make up silly songs and voices on a whim. Hollywood is slowly pulling Joe away - he's already co-written the upcoming Speilberg-Jackson Tintin movie, which in fairness might have more appeal than another round of Song Wars. On the show, Buckules seemed really upset about it all.

They have said that their 6music blog will remain and that they intend to come back at some point, but it's all very vague.

Stephen! *sobs*

Here are three brilliant online essays/pieces I've read about the music business over the past few days:

Musicians! Please be brilliant or get out of the way!
http://www.musicthinktank.com/blog/dear-musicians-please-be-brilliant-or...
This articulates something I haven't been able to for a long, long time, namely if the means of music creation and distribution is now within the hands of the artists, why has no one figured out a brilliant way to make it all work.

http://www.toomuchjoy.com/?p=1397
A chap who used to be in a band dissects his royalty statement for digital sales. Scary stuff.

http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
An old piece by Steve Albini about the mechanations of the music biz and how easy it. Is to become a band locked into a crappy deal in a lot of debt.

Enjoy!

You know what happens: You're listening on shuffle and you keep going *skip *skip *skip *skip *skip to find the right track. No matter what mood I'm in I never skip this song. It always warrants a spin...

Your personal nominations please...

Right now I'm in a cafe, cruising Spotify with headphones on for something I haven't heard before and I put on Machine Gun by The Commodores and I realise hey, I know this song, but I never knew it was The Commodores

Anybody else know have similar experiences? That sensataion of finding out "oh, that's by them is it?"

(The next track on the album, Young Girls Are My Weakness, is, ummmm, catchy. Gawd bless Spotify)