Time for Your Yahoo! Music Engine Plugins to Move House

Yo YME Developers!

The Official Unofficial YME plug-in site will be retiring soon now that Yahoo! has an Official Official site for such things… the Yahoo! Application Gallery. Our little baby’s all growed up and moving out of the little shack we built for her (thanks Alex and Hala for the hosting, and Peter for the graphix). *sniff*

So if you have a Yahoo! Music Engine plug-in on the current plug-in site that you would like to remain available to the public, please re-submit it to the Yahoo! Application Gallery. Just go to http://gallery.yahoo.com/submit/. Please note: you’ll need to register as the first step. This will make sure that the plug-in is associated with your Yahoo! Gallery page.

Also, please submit any new plug-ins to Gallery starting now.

We’re turning off the old site soon, so submit your plugins now or your public will miss you.

If you’ve not yet had the pleasure of developing a Yahoo! Music Engine plugin, I’ll take this opportunity to tell you a bit about what they are and how they work:

Yahoo! Music Engine was designed to be a browser for Internet media applications. As such, all the basic media player features are available to any plugin, and plugins can be written in just about any language, from C++ to C# to Javascript. Your plugin has access to the media library, playback engine, playlist engine, and more. Current plugins manage Podcasts, show photo slideshows with your playlists, build charts and graphs based on your media library, interact with your cell phone, etc.

For more information on building Yahoo! Music Engine plugins, visit the documentation at Yahoo!’s awesome developer site.

Word,
ian c rogers
Yahoo! Music

Y! Music Weekly Music News Recap

Visit Yahoo! Music’s Top Events Page

1. The Graying Of America – The Soul Patrol has spoken, and Taylor Hicks is your new American Idol.
2. Love, Angel, Music…BABY! - Gwen Stefani’s a mom.
3. Tommy Hilfiger’s Appetite For Destruction – The designer gets slaphappy with Axl Rose.
4. Madonna Hits The Road – Tickets: only $400 (yes, that is U.S. currency). Is Madge worth it?
5. Being A Dixie Chick Means Never Having To Say You’re Sorry – The Chicks aren’t ready to make nice with George Bush.
6. Paris Hilton’s “Crazy” Idea – The celebutante-turned-singer wants to cover Gnarls Barkley. That’s hot.
7. Pussycat Dolls: Not Child’s Play – Hasbro shelves plans to manufacture PCD, um, “action figures.”
8. Janet’s Weighty Issue – Miss Jackson claims she gained 60 pounds for a movie role. A movie role she didn’t get. D’oh!
9. Joan Baez Branches Out – The folk singer takes up residence in a redwood–with a treemate named “Butterfly.”
10. Jamaican Ska Legend Desmond Dekker Dies - The man behind the classic “Israelites” succumbs to a heart attack at age 64.

Well, another season of American Idol has sadly and somewhat anti-climactically come to an end, leaving a gaping void in all of our lives and hearts that can’t quite be filled by So You Think You Can Dance or America’s Got Talent. But until season 6 of Idol begins in eight months, we’ll just have to cling to our memories of this week’s Idol finale: the good (Elliott Yamin’s sizzling duet with Mary J. Blige), the bad (that Meat Loaf/Katharine McPhee trainwreck), the ugly (frog-throated Toni Braxton foghorning her way through “In The Ghetto”), the weird (David Hasselhoff in tears), and the just plain shark-jumping (Clay Aiken, enjoying an unusually good hair day, duetting with spasmodic Aiken lookalike Michael Sandecki. Seriously, WTF?). But after all the hokey dinner-theater medleys and Brokenote Cowboys and recycled-footage montages were finally over, we had a new American Idol: this season’s dark (make that gray) horse, Taylor Hicks. Our congrats go out to the Soul Patrol, and we send our condolences to the Kat Pack…

OK, so that’s it for this week’s Top Events. Come back next Friday for more….oh wait, we’re not done? Sorry, we assumed there was nothing worth talking about besides Idol. But hey, it turns out a whole bunch of other stuff happened this week! For instance, Gwen Stefani just popped out her first Hollaback Baby, while her fellow pop queen Janet Jackson’s just dropped 60 pounds. And Janet’s claiming she gained the weight in the first place for a role in the movie Tennessee. Funny, then, that the role ultimately went to Mariah Carey–who, last time we checked, has not gained 60 pounds. Hmmm…

One pop queen who’s definitely not gaining 60 pounds any time soon is Madonna, who at age 47 still looks svelte and jiggle-free in the slinky Spandex leotards she’s wearing on her just-launched Confessions tour. She’s also still managing to infuriate good pious Catholics everywhere, by performing while wearing a crown of thorns and hanging spread-eagle on a giant cross. But Madonna insists, in a WWJD-style statement defending this stunt, “I don’t think Jesus would be mad at me and the message I’m trying to send.” What does Catholic League president Bill Donohue have to say to that? “Poor Madonna keeps trying to shock, but all she succeeds in doing is coming across as a boring bigot.” Ooh, snap…

OK, time’s up–for real this time–but come back next Friday to soothe your post-Idol withdrawals with another week of amusing and bemusing music news. Seacrest out!

Lyndsey Parker
Yahoo! Music

Pepsi/Arby’s Summer Download Promotion Featuring Yahoo! Music

This summer, the best way to get free music is through roast beef sandwiches and a cold soda.

From the end of May until September, Arby’s customers who purchase a 44oz (!) drink will get a peel-off sticker with an Arby’s code. You can take that code to Arbys.com to find out if you have won a prize. The grand prize in the contest is a rock n’ roll boat cruise featuring Collective Soul. You can also win autographed guitars, MP3 players, and most importantly (and most likely) a Yahoo! Music song download.

In case you’re away from a calculator, a 44 oz drink is about 3.7 cans of Pepsi and is over a third of a gallon of liquid. I’ve been told by a reliable source that the Arby’s Beef and Cheddar sandwich is at or near the top of the fast-food hierarchy in terms of irresistibility. However, the thought of a roast beef sandwich in 90 degree summer heat makes that amount of Pepsi seem just right. For the many of you who will visit Arby’s this summer to take advantage of this contest, we here at Yahoo! Music recommend you alternate with Diet Pepsi once in a while.

The odds are good that you’ll win a free download with your Arby’s code. We hope that when you redeem your code and look for your chosen song, you’ll realize that our Yahoo! Music Engine is top of the line and our music catalogue is comprehensive. For only 5 bucks a month more, may we super-size you to Yahoo! Music Unlimited? Consider it the 44 oz Pepsi of music subscription services.

Michael Cowan
Yahoo! Music

Fans Pay Tribute to the King of Crunk

Check out the exclusive video for Lil Jon “Snap Yo Fingers”. We had Lil Jon fans from all over the US submit themselves doing the Lil Jon “Snap Yo Fingers” dance and we turned it into a special fans only video. The video even contains a special thanks from Lil Jon while surrounded by cans of crunk juice. Gotta love Lil Jon.

I love the Yahoo! users who are not shy about shaking their butts to Lil Jon. My favorite submissions are as follows:

• The girl in the opening who lip syncs. If you look closely her shirt says “Drunk Whore”. I heart her!
• Guy dancing with poodle. This submission speaks for itself.
• Mother and daughter team in matching camouflage pants. So cute!
• The guy with the heavy metal wig and scary teeth. I swear he thought we was submitting himself for a Korn video and not Lil Jon.
• The breakdancer who dances in the middle of the street. Someone hire this guy. His dance moves are awesome.

Thanks to Lil Jon for letting us make a special video that lets the fans show their moves and very special thanks to all the Yahoo! users that participated in the contest.

Get watchin’.

Robyn Vantol
Yahoo! Music

Mojo Filter vs. Yahoo! Music Unlimited, April, 2006

Aw yeah! It’s that time of the month again. You know, the one where I look up every album in Mojo Magazine’s reviews section in Yahoo! Music Unlimited, make a playlist (this month’s is good!), and talk about how Yahoo! Music Unlimited’s catalog compares to the albums Mojo saw fit to include this month as well as how iTunes, eMusic, Napster, Rhapsody and others fared on the same searches. Not familiar with this monthly ymusicblog feature? Check last month’s review and follow the thread backwards for more than a year’s worth of playlists and statistical catalog fun!

Mojo Filter, April, 2006

The following albums ARE in the Yahoo! Music Unlimited catalog and are contained in this playlist of more than 650 songs, 45 hours of music:

The Flaming Lips – At War With The Mystics
Candi Staton – His Hands
David Gilmour – On An Island
Morrissey – Ringleader of the Tormentors
Gary Numan – Jagged
Van Morrison – Pay The Devil
Seth Lakeman – Freedom Fields
Broken Family Band – Balls
Drive-By Truckers – A Blessing And A Curse
Tina Dico – In The Red
Grizzly Bear – Horn Of Plenty
Secret Machines – Ten Silver Drops
Joan Baez – Bowery Songs
Neko Case – Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
Josh Ritter – The Animal Years
Howe Gelb – ‘Sno Angel… Like You
Arizona Amp And Alternator – Arizona Amp And Alternator
Various – Brokeback Mountain OST
Rocky Votolato – Makers
Pink Mountaintops – Axis of Evol
Readymade FC – Babilonia
Mudhoney – Under A Billion Suns
The Like – Are You Thinking What I’m Thinking?
Kieran Hebden and Steve Reid – The Exchange Sessions, Vol. 1
My Latest Novel – Wolves
Stanton Warriors – The Lost Files
Hundred Reasons – Kill Your Own
Wooden Wand & The Vanishing Voice – Gipsy Freedom
George Clinton & The P-Funk All Stars – How Late Do U Have 2BB4UR Absent?
Roots Manuva – Alternatively Deep
Stereolab – Fab Four Suture
Ben Harper – Both Sides of the Gun
Nightmares on Wax – In A Space Outta Sound
Anthony Hamilton – Ain’t Nobody Worryin’
Ursula Rucker – Ma’at Mama
The Little Willies – The Little Willies
Donald Fagan – Morph The Cat
Hans Fjellestad – Kobe Live House
Stephin Merritt – Showtunes
Andrew McCormack – Telescope
Chick Corea – The Ultimate Adventure
Jimmy Cobb – Honors Series
Bob Dorough – Small Day Tomorrow
Elvis Costello – My Flame Burns Blue
Dolly Parton – Those Were The Days
Horse Stories – Everyone’s A Photographer
Sol Seppy – The Bells of 1 2
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Show Your Bones
Burning Spear – Our Music
Peggy Honeywell – Faint Humms
Placebo – Meds
The Concretes – In Colour

These albums were NOT found in Yahoo! Music Unlimited, and in parens you’ll find the label releasing the album as well as other services which carry the title according to Yahoo! Audio Search:

Buzzcocks – Flat-Pack Philosophy (Cooking Vinyl; iTunes, Napster, eMusic)
Jody Wildgoose – Afterlife (Sketchbook)
Mystery Jets – Making Dens (679; Napster, Wippit)
Archie Bronson Outfit – Derdang Derdang (Domino)
Mohair – Small Talk (Ear Candy)
Willard Grant Conspiracy – Let It Roll (Loose)
The Durutti Column – Keep Breathing (Fullfill; iTunes, Rhapsody)
Johnny Dowd – Cruel Words (Munich) *
Wanda Jackson – I Remeber Elvis (Cleopatra; Napster, PassAlong)
Marley’s Ghost – Spooked (Sage Arts; iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody, AudioLunchbox, eMusic)
Radar Brothers – The Fallen Leaf Pages (Merge; iTunes, Rhapsody, eMusic)
Heligoland – Pitcher, Flask, and Foxie Moxie (Independent; iTunes)
Spires That In The Sunset Rise – Four Winds The Walker (Secret Eye)
Ufomammut – Lucifer Songs (Rocket)
Guitar Wolf – Golden Black, The Best of… (Must Destroy)
Paul Duncan – Be Careful What You Call Home (Hometapes; iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody, AudioLunchbox)
Corinne Bailey Rae – Corinne Bailey Rae (Capitol; Napster)
Roachford – Word of Mouth (Peppermint Jam; iTunes)
Tony Allen – Lagos No Shaking (Honest Jons) *
Nicole Willis and The Soul Investigators – Keep Reachin’ Up (Timmion) *
C-Mone – The Butterfly Effect (Son)
Life – Realities of Life (Zebra Traffic)
A-Alikes – Kill The Middleman (Guerilla Nation)
Janis Ian – Folk Is The New Black (Cooking Vinyl; iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody)
New Cool Collective – Trippin’ (Dox)
Graham Coxon – Love Travels At Illegal Speeds (EMI; Napster)
The Hollies – Staying Power (EMI)
Hilken Mancini and Chris Colburn – Hilken Mancini and Chris Colburn (Kimchee; AudioLunchbox)
Morning Runner – Wilderness Is Paradise Now (Parlophone)
Suzi Quatro – Back To The Drive (Emi/Liberty)

Aight, lets do some math:
Total albums: 82
We have: 52 (63%)
We don’t have: 30 (37%)

Wow! This is our best score yet! If you’re new to this exercise you’re probably thinking, “What are you so excited about, 60% is a D, fool,” but if you’ve been following this for a year you know this is a huge number. Mojo is a UK magazine often featuring music that isn’t available in the US, period, so when testing against a US digital subscription/download service the curve is set relatively low. Note that adding in the other services you don’t fare much better, and there are definitely labels that we carry that the other services do not.
I’d like to send a shout out to my man John Jones at MusicNet — impressive coverage on the indies, sir. Great job overall. If you’re looking for where this exercise points to room for improvement, Cooking Vinyl, Hometapes, and Sage Arts seem to be the ones that other services have that we do not this month.

Music is the best,
ian c rogers
Yahoo! Music

Y! Music Weekly Music News Recap

Visit Yahoo! Music’s weekly Top Events page

1. Divorcing McCartneys: We Can’t Work It Out – Apparently Heather will not be needing or feeding Paul when he’s 64.
2. Keith Urban And Nicole Kidman Unite To Form Superior Gene Pool – The country crooner and movie star announce plans to wed.
3. Snoop Dogg: Britain’s Least Wanted – The rapper is banned from the U.K. forever.
4. New Yorke – Radiohead’s frontman Thom is releasing a solo album. He just doesn’t want you to call it a solo album, OK?
5. Oops, She Did It Again – Britney Spears still doesn’t quite know how to use a baby carseat.
6. DMX’s Ruff Ride – The X-man is arrested after refusing to buckle up for a flight.
7. Kylie Minogue Returns – The Aussie pop phenom is planning her post-cancer comeback.
8. Bo Knows Audioslave – Idol’s rockin’ runner-up Bo Bice performs “Doesn’t Remind Me” for Y! Music.
9. Lady Sovereign’s Not-So-Secret Admirer – One fan launches an Internet campaign for a dream date with the British rap star.
10. A New Baby Spice – Ex-Spice Girl Geri Halliwell gives birth to a daughter.

This week’s report is all about the cycle of life. See, as one door closes (Paul McCartney and Heather Mills calling it quits), another door opens (Nicole Kidman replacing her former hubby Tom Cruise with notably less, um, eccentric new fiancé Keith Urban–who’s never jumped up on a sofa to profess his love, but is surely quite fond of Nicole just the same). And of course, the cycle of life continues literally this week, with ex-Spice Girl Geri Halliwell giving birth to her own little wannabe and the almost equally faded pop star Britney Spears continuing to carry yet another Kevin Federline spawn…

Speaking of which, hopefully Britney will have this whole parenting thing down by the time baby #2 arrives–especially when she gets behind the wheel. At least now she’s remembering to strap little Sean Preston into his carseat, but recent paparazzi pics reveal she still isn’t placing the seat in its recommended rear-facing position. Doesn’t she know seatbelts save lives? Well, maybe she’s just trying to be all tough and keep it gangsta like rapper DMX, who was arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport this week after refusing to fasten his seatbelt on a transatlantic flight. However, much like Britney when concerned child welfare authorities visited her a couple months ago, DMX got off with just a warning this time. Too bad the same can’t be said about DMX’s hip-hop peer Snoop Dogg, whose own recent Heathrow brawl just got him permanently kicked out of U.K…

And just to prove that there’s some credence to this whole cycle-of-life theory, we’ll come full circle and wrap up with a story that incorporates hip-hop, pop, England, and even the Spice Girls. See, it seems British pop/rap sensation Lady Sovereign–who bears an uncanny resemblance to Melanie “Sporty Spice” Chisholm and was once (falsely) rumored to be Mel C’s illegitimate daughter–is being courted online by an intrepid (and hopefully harmless) fan named Zach Slow. Zach has launched a website, helpmegetrandonwithladysovereign.com, for the sole purpose of raising money to take Lady Sov out on a date–and the upside is, if Sov turns down his invite, he can always use the 700 or so dollars he’s raised thus far to hire an attorney. He’s going to need one to defend him against those stalking charges…

OK, our time is up, but do make sure to come back next Friday for a full Taylor-versus-Kat Idol report, plus a look at whatever non-Idol news takes up slots 2 through 10 next week. Seacrest out!

Lyndsey Parker
Yahoo! Music

Wanna Be In A Lil Jon Video?

Calling all Lil Jon fans! Show us your dance moves and win a chance to be in the Lil Jon fans only video for “Snap Yo Fingers”. Submit a 30 second video of you (your friends, your teacher, anyone you want) dancing to “Snap Yo Fingers” and you have a chance to make Crunk Rock history. We are accepting submissions this week and the deadline is May 19th at midnight. Just follow the instructions here and you will be on your way to starring in the King of Crunk’s fans-only video. Check back on May 22nd to see if you made the cut!

Robyn Vantol
Yahoo! Music

Yahoo! Music Engine Remote Widget and Taskbar Remote

Our good friend Tomi Blinnikka has delivered a cool companion to the Yahoo! Music Engine. The YME Remote Widget helps you focus on the currently playing song in a smaller window. You ratings masters will also appreciate that you can use the remote to rate the currently playing artist, album, and track on the 100-point scale. You can use the widget preference to keep the song info always on top.

If the widget remote isn’t enough for you, you might want to check out the YME Taskbar Remote plugin. It’s similar to the Remote widget, but also offers the following:

• Autostart a playlist or your LAUNCHcast station when YME starts
• Hot keys to control Play/Pause/Stop/Previous/Next/Show Now Playing/Show Visualization/Show YME and copy current
• Control YME across a network
• Mouse over track/album/artist Info display which can be disabled
• Display customization
• Shows when Yahoo! Music Engine is minimized and hides when YME is restored
• and more!

Minimize your YME ride today by downloading one of these incredible shrinking machines now:

• YME Remote Widget
• YME Taskbar Remote
  

Todd Beaupré
Yahoo! Music

Original Ringtones by Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige and the All-American Rejects

Yahoo! Music and Pepsi Smash bring you original and exclusive ringtones written and recorded by today’s top artists. Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige, The All-American Rejects and renowned producers Scott Storch and Luny Tunes are a few of the artists who have produced exclusive ringtones for this promotion.

Here’s how it works:

• Look for a unique code printed under the cap of specially-marked Pepsi products
• Enter the code online at http://smash.yahoo.com to learn instantly if you will receive a ringtone
• Select a ringtone from a catalog of more than 150 selections
• Each code is automatically entered into a sweepstakes for a chance to win a Motorola phone

One in three codes found under the caps of the Pepsi products will be good for a free ringtone.

Also, in support of the promotion, Yahoo! and Pepsi created one of the first full-length music videos ever produced specifically for ringtones. Mary J. Blige and The All-American Rejects star in two separate videos that feature the original ringtones they wrote and recorded exclusively for the promotion.

If you haven’t had a chance to check out Smash yet, now is the time. Smash provides music fans an array of exclusive on-demand footage including performances, lifestyle segments and interviews.

This month we have a rockin’ performance by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, a behind the scenes look at Tom DeLonge from Blink 182, Rihanna covering the Bob Marley classic “Redemption Song”, Mic Pass Oakland featuring E-40 and Too Short, plus archive footage from Kanye West, Coldplay, Busta Rhymes, Hawthorne Heights, Chris Brown and much more.

Brian Marshall
Yahoo! Music

Yahoo! Music Engine 1.1.1 Released!

Hi all,

Just wanted to let you know that we just released a new build of the Yahoo! Music Engine. You can download it here: http://music.yahoo.com/musicengine/

While releases of new builds sometimes include overt bells and whistles, this particular one is more of an “under the hood” release. With this build we have worked to address some of the issues that we’ve heard our users mention via feedback boards, through customer care and other vehicles.

Some of the enhancements include:

1. Improved license refreshing – This is complicated to explain (and I don’t want to bore you with the technical mumbo jumbo), but suffice to say, we have made some improvements regarding how YME/YMU handles various track licensing scenarios. This should result in an overall improved user experience.
2. Improved bulk relicensing of tracks – We’ve put some enhancements in place to improve the experience when re-licensing tracks in bulk. Based on a new root license renewal, this should resolve the need to batch relicense, unless you have encountered an expired sync license or ran out of transfer counts.
3. Carrying over double-click play settings – Now when you get a new build of YME, any double-click play settings you had in the previous build will be carried over.

Plus many more little niceties that should fix and enhance issues you’ve reported annoying/broken.

Thanks for all the great feedback and please keep it coming. We’re listening to you and working hard every day to improve YME and YMU.

Thanks,
Doug Clark
Yahoo! Music