I don’t read as often as I should. When I do get around to reading, I rather enjoy it. I have such a pile-up list of books I “need” to read, according to everybody. A couple of the last few I’ve read were from Chuck Klosterman, a column editorial writer that has worked for Spin, Esquire, The NY Times, and more. He mostly writes about Music, Culture/Life, and Basketball. (My favorite things!) I read Sex, Drugs, and Cocoapuffs last winter, and most recently I read his latest work IV, whose title is a throwback to the Zeppelin album (both books I read on planes…seems to be only time I read. I should travel more.) He may use the words retrospectively and in and of itself a little too often, but that doesn’t take away from the clever (and witty) commentary he provides on modern culture and rock music. What I like about his insights, though, are the way they borderline on philosophical and political arguments about the state of modern life today (in and of itself).
His new work IV is merely a collection of many of his columns and interviews throughout his career, so he divides the book between things that are true (fact), things that might be true (speculation), and something that isn’t true (which feels more like speculation to me). The most intriguing section to me was things that might be true…this is where his real insight is realized, in his speculation. However, unique to this book are small hypothetical questions he adds before each Chapter. They aren’t really commentaries on culture or music, but they provide some interesting questions to ponder. Some of these hypotheticals are extremely well-posed, and I’d like to share a few of them with you, hopefully without getting in trouble for posting them. Read them all after the break…
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A month or so ago I made a post about Favtape and discussed other music websites, like its ancestor Muxtape. Well I’m pleased to announce my new favorite music site: Grooveshark. Grooveshark is a flash-based web application that works very much like an ipod…someone elses ipod that has 5 million songs uploaded. It has a similar look and feel as an itunes/ipod mashup, with it’s own unique styling. And as an interface designer/developer I have to say I’m in love with the design. Very sleek, smooth, and crisp design that is easy to navigate and use. The best part about it? It’s extremely fast for a Flash site. I’m not sure how they managed that but the animations and everything are very smooth.
Grooveshark also has an Autoplay feature, which makes it basically a new (more stylish) Pandora. And unlike Pandora, Grooveshark allows you to add (via drag&drop no less) songs into the playlist wherever you’d like. You can vote yay or nay on whatever song you want to come out with a good playlist. They also have a social network of sorts where you can favorite tracks and see others playlists and save and share playlists and songs…etc. I’m not sure if I’ll use this feature but I’m sure plenty of others will. Also, the advertising is out of your way and unobtrusive…awesome.
Something I think they need to add is more links for artists. There should be a link to the artist’s homepage, their amazon page (maybe a buy this cd button), maybe a link to their itunes, and also their last.fm page. Also the lyrics of the song would be a fun tool. And speaking of last.fm, it would be great (read: probably won’t happen) if the tracks you listen to could be scrobbled to your last.fm.
Grooveshark is still in ‘beta’ but instead they call themselves Grooveshark ‘lite.’ I like it, I think it works. There is a flood of beta apps around and I think it helps establish them better. But even still, the app works perfectly and I highly recommend it. Maybe autoplay your next party?
Favtape: my new favfriend. This summer a website named Muxtape emerged onto the scene that let you upload music tracks and create your own “internet mixtape” any user could listen to. It (very) quickly become uber popular. A search function appeared and within a few days you were able to find almost any song you wanted to listen to online quickly and easily. And mind you, you DON’T download the track, and there were options for where to buy the track.
However, recently the music industry caught up to its creator and put a stop to the wonderful free service that so many people used and relied on. People kinda felt lost, not wanting to revert back to their old, harder ways of finding music.
Enter Favtape. Favtape picks up where Muxtape left off. It has pretty much all the functionality and a similar look as Muxtape, but it adds more functionality. Now you can create a favtape from your last.fm or pandora loved tracks. Or create a favtape around a specific artist search. Amazing! There is also links now to lyrics and twittering and adding to your tape and much more.
Favtape still needs a good way to search others favtapes, as a big part of Muxtape was seeing other peoples’ music tastes and learning new music through their muxtapes. But what I really love is seeing other developers stepping in for a fallen ally. I hope this becomes a trend…if favtape falls lets see another, and another. As Justin says in his last Muxtape post:
The industry will catch up some day, it pretty much has to. – Justin
The screenshot you see above is actually a styling I did of Favtape. As awesome as it is, the look of the site was slightly off-the-wall and too much pink, so if you’d like my cleaned up version using Stylish if you have Firefox, load it here.
Before seeing, or better yet, making a decision to see Tropic Thunder, I’ve gotten multiple and mixed reviews on the film. Opie & Anthony on morning radio claimed it was some of the best cinema they’ve seen in awhile. Jon Stewart of the Daily Show claimed the movie was so great, that with added Tom Cruise it almost made him convert to Scientology. Now mind you, both these comedians are friends of Stiller’s, but there were also a few more film reviews around the net giving this movie somewhere in the vicinity of ‘ok’ to ‘pretty good.’ With that said, there have also been a number of reviews claiming it’s a crock of shit. Throw ‘em in a pot and out comes the notion “don’t hype this movie to be great like the marketing, but you might think it’s good.”
Not exactly a great review of the film, but that’s how I went into it when my friend asked to see it and I had nothing better to do…and it was great because I did that. Full review after the jump.
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