A most wonderful thing is presently in the making. That thing, is singer-songstress Emmy the Great's (previously written about here and here) new album. A more interesting thing (well, maybe not more interesting, but quite interesting) is how the album is being funded. Anyone wanting to help create the album can pledge an amount of money ranging from £8 to £500. Of course, it isn't that simple, she isn't simply asking for cash. In exchange for your pledge, you receive something in return for £10, you could get a postcard from every town on the tour (I really wanted this, but they were all gone before I pledged), £20 gets you a limited edition artwork poster or a signed CD and your name in the credits (all gone). If you have a bit more cash to splash, £100 gets you a songwriting workshop and £500 gets you a gig in your living room. At such times I wish I had more cash to splash. I decided on a signed album, pledgers only gig and poster totalling £60.
More information is available here. If you want to pledge, hurry, things are going quickly.
A quick post. This post has one objective really, to expose people to a little bit of Peggy Sue. I'm currently unable to go to sleep due to some form of inability to turn of my music and go to bed, presently Lazarus by Peggy Sue is gracing my ears. So, from me (but more accurately Peggy Sue and BrilliantlyDifferent on Soundcloud), to you, a splendiferous body of work by Peggy Sue.
For years, people (namely record companies) have complained about the way in which technology has been “destroying” the music industry. This is not a new phenomena arising as a result of the Internet. Remember cassettes? At one point it was believed that people would stop buying music as they could record it off the radio. We all know this didn't happen, people continued buying records and cassettes, the only hindrance being the advent of CDs. Now, of course, we have the Internet. In a few minutes one could torrent someone's entire discography - I bet the record companies miss worrying about cassette tapes now.
Despite my opening, this post is not on the world of music piracy, far from it, but piracy does have some relation to what I am to focus on. When one thinks of free music via the internet, piracy is what comes to mind. However, there are many free sources of music on the Internet that are perfectly legal. The decision to do this post was made quite some time ago as a result of a discussion with one Williemina.
Last.fm
Last.fm is primarily an Internet radio station. Users create their own radio station consisting of their favourite artists, albums or songs. In addition to users’ own radio stations, it is possible to listen to the radio stations of other users, artist radio stations, a combined radio station of the those with similar music tastes (the neighbourhood) or music recommend by Last.fm based on prior music tastes. In addition to being an online radio site, an event planning site and to an extent, a social networking site, Last.fm is also a source of free downloadable music. Based on the music in your library, Last.fm recommends music to the user. One is not restricted solely to Last.fm's recommendations, it is possible to search the entire free music database. Through this service, I have become privy to such artists as Laura Hocking, Monkey Swallows the Universe and You, Me and Everyone we Know.
Daytrotter
A wonderful place to discover new music or hear music from artists you already like. Each week, Daytrotter (Horseshack recording studio, I recently learnt), record a series of session with different artists. Sessions are usually from independent artists but the variety is immense. The archives consist of sessions from anti-folk stars Adam Green and Jeffrey Lewis and the Junkyard, British folk musicians Noah and the Whale and Peggy Sue, as well as such artists as Colin Hay, Juliette Lewis, Vampire Weekend, Jakob Dylan, Joseph Arthur, The Low Anthem, Martha Wainwright, Tilly & the Wall, The National, The Hold Steady, Plain White T's, Tori Amos and so many more. I took to downloading music from artist's whose names I like leading the discovery of Mr. Manhattan, Hurray for the Riff-Raff, Japandroids, The Jealous Girlfriends, Lewis & Clark, Lymbyc Systym and Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin.
Lauren Laverne's great, not just because she's charming, funny, a great host and a looker, but because she bestows great music upon us through 6Music and provides free music via the 6Music blog. MPFree tracks come from a variety of different free track websites such as http://rcrdlbl.com/; through getting MPFrees, you can find even more free music. MPFrees of the past have included Fool's Day by Blur and Scribble by Underworld. Additionally, Fridays MPFree EPs come with downloadable album artwork such as this:
It's a very simple premise, everyday, you get sent a track to your (in)box. Simply potter over to Track in the Box, join the mailing list, and you'll receive a track the next day. You can listen to the track, and depending on how much you like it, download it, or dismiss it completely. Not all tracks are downloadable, this is a tad saddening as on one occasion I spent quite some time on a quest for a wonderful acoustic version of Maps by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs featured on the site. However, many of the tracks are, giving you such great songs as my personal favourite, When the Night Comes in by I said Yes.
Probably the biggest music service I shall speak of. Every week, the iTunes music store makes available a free track, selected by Apple staff. With such a selection procedure, great variety is inevitable. Over time I have been privy to what I believe to be some rather dreadful songs such as LOL by Little Jackie but I count iTunes' song of the weeks responsible for my having been exposed to some of my favourite artists such as The Hold Steady, Emmy the Great and Slow Club.
Soundcloud
This is a website I have only recently been made aware of. It was brought to my attention as it was the host site for a free download of a body of work by Peggy Sue. Through Soundcloud, artists upload music that can be easily shared with others, as their slogan says - We Move Music. Anyone can use Soundcloud for distibution, as a result of this, some of the most independent of independent music can be found. A great deal of remixes can be found on Soundcloud also.
The self-titled wordpress blog of one such Purple Vagabond. Updated fairly regularly, A Purple Vagabond features a hosts of tracks and mixtapes (with a particular emphasis on hip-hop) available for download. It's a wonderful source of new music, old music and familiar music with a twist. Due to it's being the blog of one music lover, it is immediately more personal reflecting a thorough enjoyment of the music featured on the site.
Presently around a month old with more posts than the sum of this year and last years' for this blog, it would be no deceit to say the White Lies, Yellow Teeth appears to be a pretty consistently updated blog. Like A Purple Vagabond, it is the blog of one person who enjoys music, conversely focusing on dubstep. Honestly, I never really thought much about dubstep and to an extent, ignored its existence. However, upon reading and listening to the tracks on White Lies, Yellow Teeth, I've concluded that I can dig it.
The Hood Internet is a Chicagoan team that create a variety of mixtapes that mix Hip-hop tracks with a variety of different rock songs. All Hood Internet mixtapes are available from their website in almost any desired format including Soundcloud. Among my favourite tracks is Passion Pit vs Juvenile - Back That Sleepyhead Up, featured below in Soundcloud.
I just realised that the beginning I seemed to making some form of argument with seemingly no conclusion. This is not the conclusion but what I do want to briefly state is that free music often results in the purchase of music. I don't mean that piracy increases music sales, obviously this in not the case, what I do mean is that the sites I have mentioned provide a means of exposing people to music by providing free music which, as a result, sparks an interest in the music provided resulting in record sales.
My constant references to and overt admiration of the Folk genre could possibly lead to the assumption that I listen to nothing but, the folk. Not true. It's just, the folk calls to me now. Folk aside, there is a genre that I make almost no reference to whatsoever, hip-hop. I'm a fan of hip-hop, I'm not that well versed in hip-hop, but then again I'm not particularly well versed in any genre of music, I just know what I like. So, for a change, I thought I'd aggregate some of my favourite hip-hop songs. Spotify here.
Calling the Hippety Hoppety Brigade
You Got Me - The Roots (Featuring Erykah Badu and Eve)
Emmy the Great Performing "Fight for this Love" by Cheryl Cole at Union Chapel
There are few things I enjoy more then that. I was kicking myself for not going to Union Chapel to see that splendiferous performance, and I'm sure, many more.
My revisiting of that video made me think of the wonderful world of covers, good and bad. The above, I believe, fitting into the former category. So, once again, I have created a playlist of what I believe to be jolly good covers, ingeniously titles, jolly good covers (Much effort was put into not filling this with Cat Power songs). Spotify here, YouTube here, audio below.
It's been a good day, well, other than taking an exam that I didn't understand particularly well. Today, I entered the world of Spotify. Thanks to For Folks Sake, I recieved an invitation last night and from the moment I got in from my exam to this very moment, I've been on Spotify. And what a wonderful piece of software it is. To commemorate this wonderful day, I've created what I belive to be a very appropriate playlist. No approriate, necessariliy in it's content, but appropriate in its being music I'm presently enjoying on Spotify. The playlist can be accessed from Spotify here, via YouTube here, and as audio files below. Unfortunately, not all the audio files are available below as there were some I simply could not obtain. Well, enjoy.
Eyeless in England (Covered in Canopies and Grapes)
I love Josie Long. She's just so...lovely. This post, however, is not dedicated to Miss Long, uncharacteristically, it's about music. I'm sure you didn't see that coming. I've had quite the spell of writer's block recently, I seem to have lost the ability to write anything informative or interesting so I thought I'd stick to what I know best - the things I like. The Josie Long video is there for a reason...sort of. My original intention was to do one such post on books, but there are so many books on my reading list that I may want to include at some point. I'm in the process or reading Revolutionary Road which is rather wonderful thus far. Then, thought I'd one such list of albums, but so many of the artists I like have only released a few (or none in the case of Peggy Sue), so I put that idea aside. Eventually, I decided up scrapping the whole system and writing a bit about artists I'm fond of. So...the Josie Long video...completely redundant.
Peggy Sue
I remember when I first stumbled upon Peggy Sue, it was at the iTunes festival in 2008. I hadn't heard of anyone playing, but I thought I'd go along for the sake of it. Whilst watching their set, it was like they were performing for the first time, not due to lack of experience, but the sheer excitement they expressed and the joy they took in performing. They played what became some of my favourite Peggy Sue songs, among them was a song called The Ballad of Superman, about just how hard it is to be him. They also played a wonderful song named Pupils Blink which has remained one of my favourite Peggy Sue songs. I particularly love the melodion (it comes in around 6 seconds in), you very rarely hear those nowadays. It's not uncommon for them to use random things you'd find around the house as instruments, in a set they did for Marc Riley, instruments included a ukulele case and a broken washboard.
Peggy Sue are yet to release an album, their debut, Fossils and Other Phantoms will come out later this year. This is my favourite Peggy Sue track at the moment; from their Lover Gone EP, Lover Gone.
Emmy the Great
Emmy the Great is among the artists whom I became aware of primarily through iTunes' free song of the week. I'm certain that I would have come across her music eventually, but I have to thank iTunes for being the catalyst of this particular spot of fandom. The song was First Love, from her debut album, First Love. I could describe the song, but I think it would be better to post it instead. It pleases me that I got to see her live, she did a performance at Pure Grooves last Summer, it was one of the highlight of the season. She sounds just as good live as she does recorded, maybe even better. Songs I'd have to recommend are MIA, Dylan, We Almost Had a Baby and Canopies and Grapes.
Frank Turner
Reasons Not to be an Idiot, my introduction to Frank Turner. I downloaded this on iTunes, and the next day I bought the album (strangely, in Brighton). I love every track; among my favourites are I Knew Prufrock Before he Got Famous, Long Live the Queen, and Love Ire and Song. I particularly like Love Ire and Song, whenever I listen to it I imagine a group of friends intoxicated but sober enough speak clearly jauntily dancing and singing along to it.
I came very close to dismissing Laura Marling as someone whose music I didn't enjoy. Never would I have imagined I would get as distressed at I presently am about securing tickets to see her. The first Laura Marling song I heard was Night Terror (via iTunes), to this day, I'm still not that big a fan of it. A year or so later, a friend of mine insisted that I listen to her her album Alas, I Cannot Swim. From Ghosts, the opening track, to Dora, the final one, I was in awe. It's a near perfect album. I await her new one, coming out next month. My favourite tracks on the album are Failure, You're no God and Your Only Doll (Dora). My favourite track in general doesn't actually appear on the album, and that track is New Romantic.
It's not my favourite track but somehow it's become my most played song in iTunes. It's quite entertaining, a collaboration between Laura Marling and Jeffrey Lewis doing a cover of Brain Damage by Eminem. Enjoy.
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