Jay Robinson

Swizz Beatz Owns MegaUpload →

I did not know this.

(Source: spaceagehustle)

"I wanted a piece of the pie for me and my family so I made it."

—

Big Boi, from my playlist of favorite Big Boi verses entitled, “Big Boi’s Diamonds & Pearls”.

(The playlist title references a Big Boi lyric from “Ova Da Wudz”; itself a reference to a Prince song.) (Because people that listen to Outkast are smarter.)

Unlike conventional approaches which quantize emotions into classes, [this demo] defines emotions by two continuous variables arousal and valence and employs regression algorithms to predict them. Associated with arousal and valence values (AV values), each music sample becomes a point in the arousal-valence emotion plane, so a user can easily retrieve music samples of certain emotion(s) by specifying a point or a trajectory in the emotion plane.

I’ve always enjoyed sorting iTunes music by mood with Moody.

Music That Makes You Dumb by Virgil Griffith →

Caltech student Virgil Griffith correlated musical interests with SAT scores.

The method is highly unscientific, but the grouped by genre graphic makes the most sense. People who list Outkast in their favorite music on Facebook tend to score higher than those who list Lil Wayne.

Monthly Playlists for 2012

Last year I made monthly playlists of songs in heavy rotation. Really enjoyable to revisit at year’s end. Instant time warp.

— Frank Chimero (@fchimero) January 5, 2012

Really excited to do this in 2012.

(Also, embedded tweets look pretty legit on Tumblr.)

Via Joseph Schmitt:

This is the best thing I’ve seen all week. Keep up the good work, Internet:

SiriProxy is used to intercept the communication with Apple’s servers. Based on your song request, Notorious Siri then sends your choice of Notorious B.I.G.’s Hypnotize and an a-cappella rendition of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody to the device (the latter requiring 4 iPhones 4S).

Siri’s speech synthesis is synced to the beat using the timestamps obtained from the Echonest API which were then manually tweaked, to smooth out delays in the text-to-speech engine

“The Art of Listening” by John Carey →

When was the last time you sat or laid down to listen to an album all the way through, start to finish? Just you, the music, the environment you are in, and maybe a significant other. …

Many people seem to think it is unreasonable to do something like this because of the amount of time it takes to devote to the process. Odd thing is that most of us wouldn’t think twice when deciding to watch a two hour film yet when asked to devote 45 minutes to an hour with a collection of songs it seems like a far fetched notion, a waste of valuable time.

A good album can read like a book if you let yourself fall in.

Requires a hi-fi, headphones, comfortable chair, and one of the following albums: Dark Side of the Moon, Pet Sounds, Teen Dream.

I always liked how The Roots have track listing numbers relative to their entire catalog. So I did it, too.

Why Every Music Lover Needs a Last.fm Account →

Since I became a Last.fm member in May 2006¹ I have successfully scrobbled over 40,000 tracks. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how much I like Last.fm (especially with cool new apps accessing its API like SendGig, tweetlouder and Lastweek.fm) and I wanted to share my thoughts with you guys. But this article by Doctor Klein does a much better job than I ever could (emphasis mine):

Last.fm’s main function is a music discovery site that bases recommendations off of music you already listen to, not just music that is brand new and in a marketing promotion cycle like Pandora.

Again, most music fanatics already have at least half a dozen accounts for music discovery sites like, Pandora, Grooveshark, Hype Machine, and Spotify, etc. We tend to use these sites for free access to music, when our main music devices are elsewhere or just looking for a change a pace. This is all great, but what is happening to the music once it plays? In most cases nothing. You either mark it as a “liked” track and go back to the same site to listen to it again, or some cases actually making the jump to purchase the song. In reality, we enjoy most of the music we listen to, but don’t want to have to “like” every song just to have the ability to hear it played again. Here’s where last.fm brings everything together.

I love iTunes, but Last.fm extends iTunes in many essential ways. With Last.fm, I have a record of not only how many times I’ve played a track, but how many times in a given period. I can generate great art based on my listening history. Last.fm is also great for reminding me of album releases and upcoming concerts near me. I can judge people and befriend them based on our musical “compatibility”. I’ve long wished that Apple would buy Last.fm and incorporate its incredible social features and APIs to take iTunes to the next level. Ping sucks.

Take a read about why I think Last.fm is one of the best sites around for music lovers. And friend me up, let’s talk about music!

"I’m pretty sure Apple has no further interest in helping people manage their media through the use of hard disks located in the home. The next truly significant revision of iTunes, whether in server form or not, will surely be in the cloud."

—

Khoi Vinh

I’ve been using ZumoCast, your iTunes music in the cloud, for the last week and I’m convinced it’s the only way forward. Having your complete music collection available at all times is a wonderful thing—I fully expect Apple to have something like ZumoCast within a year.

Mark Nichols:

Still running iTunes 9.

NEVER LET ME GO.

Same here. My goal is to transfer iTunes 9 and my whole collection to a Mac mini media server I set up soon. iTunes 9 FOREVER.