music - page 31

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwwWqRV2RsI

(Warning: video is NSFW)

All I wanted for Christmas was an iPhone. That’s it. But my parents went off and bought me a stupid Kindle Fire…those dumb bastards. Actually I’d be pretty happy with receiving a new Kindle Fire, and I already have an iPhone 4S with the fancy camera and everything so I don’t need a new one of those, but apparently a lot of people were disappointed on Christmas morning when they didn’t unwrap a shiny new iPhone. Taking the audacity of privileged consumerism to new heights of hilarity, comedy writer Jon Hendren compiled the stream of dejected tweets into a music video to express the world’s ingratidude.

“WTF?! I Wanted An iPhone” is a catchy (but NSFW) tune that captures little treasures of bitterness that bloomed on Christmas morning. The enormous display of ingratitude is a bit shocking. Hey @SamStandsFoSwag we’re sorry mom and dad got you the black iPod Touch instead of the white one, but maybe when you graduate high school and get a job you’ll realize, “Oh dang, spending $200 on a silly music player is not the funnest thing to do in world.”

Seems like there’s been an explosion of small, portable, Bluetooth speakers onto store shelves this last year — the most popular or well-known of which is probably the Jawbone JamBox — from the advance notices we’ve seen, in a few weeks the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas will herald a whole new crop of the little tribbles.

Monster’s take on the concept is the Monster iClarityHD Precision Micro Bluetooth Speaker 100 ($100). And like pretty much everything the company puts out, the iClarity is bassy and L-O-U-D.

We’re all familiar with Apple’s iconic white earbuds, and those of us who’ve popped for their $80 canalbuds are familiar with how Apple makes higher-end earphones. But Apple doesn’t make headphones — If they did, would they be like the new Incase Sonic ($150) set?

We’ve seen some crazy accessories for Apple devices over the past year. Some of them have been so inventive that we’ve marveled at their originality and design, whereas others are so simple and functional that we’re knocking our heads wishing we had thought of something so elegant. Over the past year we’ve tried to cover the most important new accessories for Apple devices, and we’ve narrowed down the favorites to a list of 10 accessories that we think are the best of the best.

Now it’s your turn to tell us if you think we’re right, and let us know which is your favorite Apple accessory of 2011. Take a quick glance at the 10 items below and then vote in our poll to let us know which you think is the true winner.

After the critical success of Audyssey’s South of Market dock last year, Audyssey eventually released their next product, the Lower East Side Media Speakers ($250), in October of this year.

This time, Audyssey has dropped the radical approach to design it used for the SOMA dock — with its unusual, back-to-back speaker configuration — in favor of a much more conventional, yet still attractive, form. Audyssey left three things unchanged though: Like the SOMA, the LES speakers exhibit a good deal of quality, and incorporate what Audyssey calls their “Smart Speaker” technology. And like the SOMA, these speakers are a bit pricier than their contemporaries. So the question is: Do they deliver?

Apple has joined a number of digital music vendors, including Amazon and Napster, in introducing the official Parental Advisory warning label to tracks and albums that contain explicit content, mirroring the warning found on physical CDs.

The introduction of this label is intended to make it clearer for parents to understand whether or not the music their children are purchasing is unsuitable for their age.

If you’ve been looking to get some great music at a ridiculous price, now’s the time. Google Music has kicked off their “Music Blowout Sale,” discounting over half a million albums to $4.99 and over ten million tracks for only $.49! Now that’s a deal worth listening to. I’ve already perused over a bunch of discounted tracks and I’ve found a plethora of alternative classics from Radiohead, Beck, and Nirvana.

Let’s get two big facts out the way right now: Yes, these Scosche IEM856m canalphones ($250) look a little like several of the canalphones in Monster’s lineup (eg. the Beats Tour), mostly because of the flat, ribbon-like cable; no, they’re not anything like any of the Monster earphones they somewhat resemble. In fact, one big detail makes them very different from almost any other IEM on the market.

Apple is slowly rolling out international support for iTunes Match today, with the service appearing in the U.K., Australia, and parts of Europe. The music matching service has been exclusive to the U.S. since its launch earlier this fall, but it made its way to Brazil earlier this week. If you can’t see it where you are, here’s a handy tip to get it working.

While most music apps focus on one or two instruments, Rockmate brings a while music studio to your iPad. Up to four people can play music at once, which may initially sound a little cramped on the iPad’s 9.7-inch screen.

If you’re interested in Rockmate, you’ll only need to part with $0.99 to get your hands on all of the musical goodness. As the app’s developers say, “Let’s rock together.”

Earlier this week we reviewed the Fanny Wang On-Ear Headphones and concluded they’re a pretty great set of cans. One cool thing about the the Fanny Wang headphones we didn’t mention was that you can order a completely customized pair from the Fanny Wang website. Because we know you guys love a nice set of headphones, we’re giving away one free pair of Custom 2001 Fanny Wang On-Ear headphones to a lucky reader. You can customize them however you want and keep them for yourself, or give the coupon to a friend for the Holidays as a gift.

I’ve never been the best at math, but I’m pretty sure there are almost 1.5 million different color configurations possible, so to determine a winner for this giveaway we’re going to be taking submissions to see who can design the best pair of headphones.

Here’s how to enter:

Apple has expanded the reach of its iTunes Store today by offering music and movie content for the first time across 16 Latin American countries. It has also introduced the new iTunes Match service to users in Brazil, making it the first country outside of the U.S. to gain access to the feature.

This Kickstarter project combines an iPad case with a speaker, hiding the speaker in the case’s front cover. Or rather, the speaker is the front cover.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrsoluSjuKc

Hey Geronimo, an indie-pop band from Australia, have brought a number of iOS games to life for their latest music video that sees titles like Plants vs. Zombies, Flight Control, Cut the Rope, and, of course, Angry Birds played in the real world.

The humorous clip perfectly suits the band’s famously kooky image, and I think you’ll love it if you’ve played any one of these releases before.

[via VG24/7]

iTunes Match gives customers access to their music libraries from any iOS device or authenticated desktop computer. The service uses the magic of iCloud to ‘match’ and upload tracks from an iTunes account so that songs can be played and downloaded multiple times on multiple devices.

While Apple has offered some documentation on the innards of iTunes Match, aspects of the service remain unaddressed. For those wondering, one iTunes Match account can be used with a maximum of 10 devices. You can manage your registered devices and iTunes Match subscription inside your iTunes account settings.

Sure, the 32GB iPad has enough storage space for a bunch of apps, some songs and maybe even a movie or two. But for those of us with large media collections, even the mega 64GB version will start to feel a little cramped when stuffed full of music and videos (and I have no idea how those of you with 16GB iPads get by).

So, what if you could just stick a portable external drive into your iPad, like you would with a MacBook? Bam, extra storage! Well, yeah — but you can’t, right? Wrong! Well, sorta — you can’t plug one in physically; but the 500GB Seagate GoFlex Satellite ($200) gets around the whole physical connection thing by supplying its own wifi hotspot that lets you create a wifi link between it and your iPad. Genius.

Apple has a tendency to make businesses nervous — just ask the CD folks assimilated into the iTunes universe, or the companies swept aside by the iPhone in 2007. A similar nervous tick is growing in the television set manufacturing business, already skating on razor-thin margins. TV makers reportedly are snooping around for details on an Apple-designed iTV that could start production in February, but is it too late for them to do anything besides be bulldozed by Apple like so many industries before them?

Simplier is a very simple $3 music player for people who just want to hear some tunes without having to trudge through the hassle of opening and browsing inside iTunes.

If you caught our canalphone roundup a few weeks back, you’ve by now come to the accurate realization that there’s no shortage of real alternatives to those awful white buds bundled with each iPhone. But these two are a little different.

Like the five we reviewed that week, these two pairs of IEMs — the MEElectronics CC51 ($90) and the Thinksound ts02+mic ($110)— are higher-end, designed with superior sound quality in mind and cost around $100. But unlike the others, these two are from small, boutique manufacturers; they also both have housings made from exotic materials (the CC51’s is ceramic, while the ts02’s is wood), and eschew the inline volume controls of the pairs of reviewed in the $100 IEM week, instead making do with a single control button on their inline microphones.

Myxer, which just released its iPhone app, is alot like Pandora, only with a huge side of friends. Instead of being based around a solitary experience, Myxer encourages users to listen to what their friends are into — which is great for discovering new tunes.

(Photo by Adam Riggall, used with thanks under Creative Commons license)

Former Englishman-in-New-York Sting has been speaking to journalists to plug his solo career retrospective album, the 25 Years box set. And in his opinion, the music industry is facing another big change. The CD is dead. And its replacement is apps.

Making an album of new songs seems to be too much like hard work for bands these days. It’s so much easier to pay some developers to make an app instead.

The Recording Industry Association of America has targeted a business called ReDigi that specializes in selling “used” iTunes tracks online. While ReDigi promises users its practice is perfectly legal, the RIAA is having none of it, and wants the company closed down.

It demands the company abandon its business and its “infringing activities,” and hands over its sales records to the RIAA. It also wants ReDigi to open its servers so that the music files held by the company cannot be exploited.

After missing its initial October launch date, iTunes Match finally went live yesterday, but only for those in the United States. Users in other territories are left waiting for the music matching service, with no indication of when its international rollout may begin.

Those in the U.K. may be the next to get the service, according to a CNET report, but it won’t arrive until at least the start of 2012.

YouTube wasn’t supposed to be a music player, but that’s what a lot of people use it for. There are millions of songs on YouTube – the only problem is finding them.

That’s why you might enjoy a Mac app called Musictube, which takes the hard work out of finding and playing the songs you want. If you want a video jukebox on your Mac, this is it.