Go to songbpm.com and enter an artist and title. SongBPM will search its database and return all songs that match, along with the beats per minute (BPM) for each song.
Music
The new Spotify will stream music to match your running tempo
This is Spotify’s latest move to distinguish itself from streaming competition from Apple, Pandora, Jay-Z’s Tidal, and the like. Sounds like a perfect job for Apple Watch.
Taking apart Mike Bloomfield’s Telecaster
Get a detailed look at a guitar that played an important role in rock history, and learn a lot about guitars in the process.
Adam Sandler’s sweet goodbye song for David Letterman
Adam Sandler really cares about David Letterman, wrote this song as a tribute and a way to say goodbye. Just great.
B. B. King, defining bluesman for generations, dies at 89
The thrill is gone.
Apple Music to add Ping-like social for artists
Apple takes another swing at a music social network.
Enter Sandman played live backwards
Well, not quite live, it is recorded, but each segment is played and sung backwards. Then the whole thing is reversed. This is original and clever. Just give it a listen.
Play incredible piano masterpieces with one finger
Touch Pianist is simple, addictive, and strangely satisfying.
Elvis Costello revealed
A solid, if too short, documentary on Elvis Costello, and my absolute favorite Costello performance of a song he wrote with Paul McCartney.
The man who broke the music business
Stephen Witt, writing a long form piece for the New Yorker, captures a moment in time, when compact discs were the de facto currency of the music industry and the MP3 was just starting its disruptive reign.
A non-stop, riveting read.
Watch Rachel Flowers, blind since birth, nail this Frank Zappa solo on stage with Dweezil Zappa and the band
Rachel Flowers is a terrific musician. Her keyboard skills rival her guitar chops. I don’t know the whole backstory, but apparently Rachel’s Zappa mastery became known to Dweezil Zappa and he invited her to guest-gig with his band, Zappa Plays Zappa in Las Vegas this past Saturday night.
Enter Sandman, the awesomeness
Just watch.
Covers by Siri
This is both delicious and a little creepy.
Awesome Zeppelin kids
“We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow.”
If those words mean anything to you, spend a few minutes watching these awesome kids getting their Zeppelin on.
The original Les Paul prototype guitar about to go on the auction block
CNN:
The crusade to find a home for a sacred electric guitar is reverberating like a thundering encore through the music business as innovator Les Paul’s Black Beauty from the ’50s is going up for auction.
There’s also video of Tom Doyle talking about the guitar and the tech and craft that went into it.
An oral history of 70’s music mecca Laurel Canyon
Some of the biggest names in 60s and 70s singer-songwriting made their homes in California’s Laurel Canyon, just outside of Los Angeles. This is how they remember it. Fantastic read.
Kirk McElhearn on lossless music streaming
What is lossless streaming? Kirk McElhearn lays out the pros and cons.
Mom records her two kids covering Hero
There’s that moment, about 2:35 in, that just took my breath away. Worth watching just for that.
Noise canceling headphones and music quality (and a bit of history)
Kirk McElhearn’s piece on the origins of noise canceling headphones would be worth the read just for that background, but there’s some real music history here.
When musicians unintentionally steal
Pacific Standard:
Imagine your favorite musician, actor, filmmaker, or painter. Undoubtedly, each one grew up idolizing—emulating, even—their artistic heroes. As such, if you pay close enough attention, it’s not hard to see those influences permeating the artist’s work. But at what point does paying homage to source material become a swindle?
Be sure to watch the Sam Smith/Tom Petty side-by-side video.
We Are the World was recorded 30 years ago today – Here’s the backstory
USA Today:
On Jan. 28, 1985, at A&M Recording Studios in Hollywood, following the American Music Awards, more than 40 artists gathered to record a song Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson had written to raise awareness of widespread, life-threatening poverty in Africa. Most of that show’s winners — including Cyndi Lauper, Hall & Oates, Bruce Springsteen, Huey Lewis, Willie Nelson, Tina Turner, the Pointer Sisters, Kenny Rogers and the Jacksons — participated.
This was a pretty big deal at the time. Part of the magic is that they managed to keep the whole production a complete secret until the song was released.
Free on iTunes
Apple recently shelved their free “Single of the Week” on iTunes, but it has been replaced by a new “Free on iTunes” link on the iTunes Store home page.
iTunes features that have been retired
Kirk McElhearn walks us through some iTunes features that have since been retired.
Seaboard’s wildly innovative piano keyboard
This keyboard was introduced about a year ago, but I saw it for the first time yesterday. This is a novel interface, in much the same way as the Chapman Stick. I love outlying technology like this.
Hall & Oates
Hall & Oates is one of those bands that are consistently underrated, even ridiculed. Jennifer Boeder makes her case for why Hall & Oates deserve their place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and our respect.
Output direct from the sound board for live acts like Mark Knopfler
I’m not sure how widespread this practice is, but today I learned that you can buy a USB stick with the output taken directly from a live show…
NPR’s 50 Favorite Albums Of 2014
This was a fun exploration, walked me round some excellent music without depending on bestseller lists. I love how much of this music is either completely self or independently produced.
The saddest thing I know about integers
This is for math geeks and musicians. What really happens if you use a circle of fourths or fifths to tune an instrument?
Apple heads to trial over billion dollar iTunes antitrust claims
Reuters:
Opening statements are scheduled to begin on Tuesday in an Oakland, California, federal court in the long-running class action, brought by a group of individuals and businesses who purchased iPods between 2006 and 2009. They say a 2006 iTunes update dictated that iTunes music could only be played on iPods, unfairly blocking competing device makers.
The actual numbers (red and black) behind a successful indie band’s tour
In the linked article, Jack lays out all the numbers from their last tour, which netted them a total of -$11,819. That’s not a typo, they actually lost $11,819. But wait, this is not a sob story. This is a success story and well worth the read.