Lyrics By The Pound

My earliest Internet music experiences were sharing lyrics on Usenet. Check out this now-embarrassing post from 1992 in rec.music.funky where I’m trying to decode the lyrics to “A Year And A Day” from Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique. I can still remember sitting in my walk-in closet, typing on an amber-monitor 8088, transcribing the lyrics to Diamond Dogs and Young Americans only to send them to someone I didn’t know so he could edit and post on Usenet (where are you, man? I think I owe you a cassette of that bootleg with SRV).

Until today, lyrics to popular songs have not been available legally in any mass capacity. The highly fragmented music publishing industry (not record companies) owns the right to publish lyrics and has been very slow to pull together and bless a way of legally distributing them on the Internet. As a result, lyrics have been relegated to rogue sites riddled with popup ads, inconsistent formatting, and often incorrect transcriptions. Every year we at Yahoo! Music say, “This is the year we’re going to sit down with the publishers and figure out how to offer lyrics to our users!” Unfortunately it’s proven to be an incredibly daunting task and we haven’t been able to pull it off on our own.

Today, however, we’re proud to announce that Gracenote has pulled together a comprehensive, consistent, and legal lyrics repository which we have licensed and integrated into the Internet’s #1 music site, Music.Yahoo.com. Now lyrics take their rightful place next to artist bios, discographies, videos, and downloads. All free to you, dear music lover. So check out the lyrics to hits like I’m The One, Start!, Freewill, or even Michelle (that’s right, we have The Beatles).

Also be sure to check our fancy Lyric Search, where you can search for songs by lyric snippet. What was that song that went …? Yahoo! Music can tell you.

Finally, thinking about those early Usenet posts got me all nostalgic so I decided to call professional lyricist Mike D from Beastie Boys and talk about lyrics for a minute. Here’s a snippet of the conversation, where he chides me for not knowing the lyrics to Brass Monkey (when he didn’t know them either), explains how the need for lyrics was the start of Grand Royal Magazine, and tells us that the lyrics for their new record (which they just finished last week) were “effortless”:

Download here

When you think lyrics, think Yahoo! Music. Or Rakim. But mostly Yahoo! Music.

ian c rogers
Yahoo! Music

Save Net Radio

By now you’ve likely heard the news about the Copyright Board’s ruling regarding net radio. Simply put, it approximately triples the amount paid to record labels via SoundExchange for streaming Internet radio over the next three years, changes the way the payments are computed (from what is called an “Aggregate Tuning Hour” basis to a straight “per play”), adds a confusing and onerous “per station minimum” fee with no maximum, and extends the new rates back to the beginning of 2006. Many small Webcasters won’t be able to afford this, and you can bet large Webcasters like us are all taking a hard look at the Internet radio business and our products to decide if it’s really worth the cost. Big companies might have more money, but they can’t stay in businesses where they don’t make any profit, a pretty simple business fact.

Compare the implications of this decision to terrestrial radio which pays NOTHING to SoundExchange, or even satellite radio which pays only 3-7% of their revenue to SoundExchange, and it’s hard not to be left scratching your head. The irony of all this, of course, is that this ruling will keep LAUNCHcast, Pandora, and the like out of your living room and push you toward FM, where the labels are paid zero. This decision cuts off a genuine future revenue stream before it has had a chance to grow.

It’s not just the Webcasters that will suffer. Higher costs, fewer Internet broadcasters and stations means less diversity overall, and less opportunity for the unlimited spectrum of Internet radio to become a discovery tool for curious listeners and a launching platform for smaller artists. Internet radio features thousands of channels in the narrowest of genres as well as personalized services (LAUNCHcast) and recommendation systems (Pandora), while FM radio (where it still plays music) plays the same songs over and over and the total number of satellite channels is less than five hundred. I am a satellite radio subscriber and can honestly say it doesn’t even come close to representing the diversity I get from my personal LAUNCHcast station. Listeners and artists ultimately lose if this infinite spectrum of music choice evaporates or even shrinks to just a few players. The implications for innovation in the space are catastrophic.

Which is why we are asking you to take action RIGHT NOW. We are supporting DIMA (a trade organization representing Yahoo!, AOL, MTV, Pandora, Real, Live365, and many others) and the SAVE NET RADIO campaign on this issue. Please take five minutes right now to visit SaveNetRadio.org, let your representatives know how you feel about this issue, send this post and these links to a friend, and put a link to SaveNetRadio.org on your blog, MySpace page, or site. We are on a very tight timetable to get our voices heard in Washington and legislation introduced before May 15th when the first payment is due under this new ruling. We need your help in making sure Congress is paying attention to this issue.

Thanks for your understanding and support,
ian c rogers
Yahoo! Music

Wifi-Enabled SanDisk Sansa Connect Features Yahoo! Music Unlimited, LAUNCHcast, Messenger, and Flickr

It’s with great pride I announce the release of the SanDisk Sansa Connect, the new Wifi-enabled portable MP3 player set to free you from the USB cable chaining you to your PC, allowing you to listen to personalized radio, download music, share music with friends over Yahoo! Messenger, and view photos from Flickr, all direct over any Wifi network. Here are a few of the features not shared by either iPod or Zune:

• Personalized streaming LAUNCHcast radio
• Unlimited music downloads for $12/month direct over Wifi from Yahoo! Music Unlimited
• Dynamically updated “mix lists”
• Share music recommendations with friends via Yahoo! Messenger (your friend doesn’t even need the Sansa Connect)
• Photos from Flickr

It’s pretty fresh if I do say so myself, but why trust me? Here’s what Engadget had to say after spending a day with the device:

The Connect is tied to Yahoo! Music Unlimited for its subscription download model and streaming radio, and we’ve gotta say, a WiFi DAP really brings the model into its own.

Hells yeah. But they aren’t the only ones. Gadgetaholic liked it, too:

Sandisk has another winner here; I have no doubt. I am thoroughly impressed with the features available on this little device. Once you hooked this player up to your wifi network, it is almost impossible to put it down. This is what the Zune should have been.

You said it, homey. I also wanted to give a special shout out to my man Chris Leckness from Mobility Site for his very informative (and complimentary) unboxing and initial walk-through videos. Thanks, yo.

For me personally, the SanDisk Connect has put me in a completely different mode of portable music listening and discovery. I didn’t even connect mine to a computer for a week. I fired it up, started listening to personalized LAUNCHcast, and as songs I loved would play I’d grab the whole album. Then it was time to leave the house so I walked out the door and into the car, connected it to the line-in, and backed out of the driveway. The device elegantly said, “um, lost the connection to Wifi, dude”, so I flipped over into “My Library” and hit “Shuffle All” to start listening to the many songs I’d downloaded. Then when I got home the device was smart enough to wake up, realize there was Wifi available again, and restart my downloads. Simple and genius management of limited connectivity.

But there’s so much more. The Sansa Connect really underscores Yahoo! Music’s strengths and future direction, showing that we’re not just a way to get your music, but a set of services you use to manage your music experience across multiple endpoints. When you add songs to your library on the Sansa Connect, you’re also adding to your library on our servers and in Yahoo! Music Jukebox. The playlists you create in Yahoo! Music Jukebox show up on the Sansa Connect. When you rate songs on the Sansa Connect, the ratings will impact your LAUNCHcast station when you’re listening in the Web. The Sansa Connect is not an island, it’s part of your holistic Yahoo! Music experience. Yahoo! Music knows your music preferences, and helps you take them anywhere. Invest now, much more to come.

And of course you get other great Yahoo! features such as music sharing via Messenger and photos via Flickr. Can Rhapsody or Napster give you that? Thought not. How about Zune or iPod? Neither can give you unlimited music for one low price and neither are connected to the Internet for music discovery, playlists, and library management. My sixteen year-old daughter has a Zune, goes to a high school with 3700 kids, and has never once encountered another person with a Zune, shared music, or even used the Wifi functionality on the device. Welcome to the social? It’s 2007. How about welcome to the Internet. Duh.

[unfortunately controversial paragraph removed, explanation here]

So what are you waiting for? Buy one (or more!) now from Circuit City and subscribe to Yahoo! Music Unlimited if you haven’t already.

Word up,
ian c rogers
Yahoo! Music

LA Times on the “‘Hips Don’t Lie’ Effect”

Hopefully you’ve seen our Get Your Freak On corner, in which you, dear music fan, submit video of yourself dancing, lip syncing, or just generally messing about to your favorite song and we edit it together into a hit video. We’ve done these videos with everyone from Shakira to Weird Al, and the results have been sometimes hilarious, sometimes disturbing, but always popular.

We were aware the industry had taken notice, but now the LA Times has taken notice of the industry’s notice! Check out this LA Times article about the “‘Hips Don’t Lie’ Effect” in which they say Get Your Freak On “sent shock waves through the industry.” Congrats to the team for shocking the industry. Thanks Shamal for sending the link.

Hurry, I think today is the last day to submit yourself for the J-Lo video. Check out all the submissions as well as the completed videos in the archive while you’re there.

GYFO,
ian c rogers
Yahoo! Music

New Yahoo! Music Video Player Gives You More Control, Works on Mac/Firefox

Hi Everyone:

Yahoo! Music has released a new music video player and it’s hot like Spring Break Daytona 2007. With the new player we are giving you control of your video experience, plus higher quality videos across both Mac and Windows, Firefox included. Try out these new features:

• When you watch a video in the new player, you will see a list of videos directly to the right of the video screen. This is the lineup of videos that will play next. If you like the videos in your lineup just sit back and enjoy the show. If you don’t like some of the videos, just click the ‘X’ button next to the video you want to remove, and it will delete it from your lineup.
• Also, you can finally browse more videos to play without leaving the comfort of the video player. Directly below the video, you will see a list of channels such as “Recommended,” “New,” “Top 100” etc. If you see any videos that you like from these channels you can watch them right away by clicking the play button, or you can add them to play next by clicking on the + Lineup button.
• If you don’t see the video you are looking for within the channels, you can also use the search box at the bottom right of the player. Perfect for when you want to interrupt that J-Lo video and switch over to nice-yet-obscure joints from Abstract Rude or maybe Capleton.
• Finally, you’ll be pleased to know we’ve finally joined the 21st century and our video player serves OS X and Firefox. Not only that, but we’ve raised the quality to 700kbps for all users.

We are still working out a few of the kinks, but please feel free to send us any feedback.

Also, for more information you can check out our complete tutorial.

Remember to rate artists and videos so we can continue to improve your recommendations.

There is a lot more to come. Stay tuned.

Brian Marshall
Yahoo! Music

Makin’ It Faster: Yahoo! Music Jukebox 2.1 Is Here

When I talk to Yahoo! Music Jukebox users, I eventually hear a certain 4-letter word that makes me cringe: S-L-O-W. And, as much as I like to defend my favorite music player, that’s one I’ve never really had a good answer for… until now. On Tuesday, we made YMJ version 2.1 live as the download from our Web site. As I’ve mentioned before, we’re not trying to pack more features in as much as we’re trying to keep improving quality and performance. I can talk about things like fewer crashes and improved performance, but this time I’ve got some hard numbers to share.

I sat down with a stopwatch and tried some common tasks on my machine, from playing an MP3 to streaming a song from Yahoo! Music Unlimited.

Certainly every system is different, and your mileage may vary. But, I’m extremely proud of what we’ve accomplished here, and I hope you feel it too.

Get Yahoo! Music Jukebox 2.1

As with every release, there are a ton of under-the-hood changes – too many to mention, but I went through the list and picked some other highlights you may be interested in.

• Burner settings now available in Preferences dialog.
• My Music: right click menu items better enabled
• Memory leak in user interface fixed
• Uninstall/Reinstall no longer uses up a machine activation
• Auto update causes no longer causes improper shutdown
• Uninstall of YMJ no longer uninstalls Messenger skin.
• Save playlists in “Playlists” folder by default for MTP devices. Allows playlists to work on more devices
• Improved relicensing of YMU tracks
• Mini Mode YMJ now retains window position
• Ripping a CD no longer crashes when playing LAUNCHcast
• My Music loading enhancements
• Playlist created using “Create similar playlist” works again
• Navigating to the CD plugin no longer causes the playlist page to be unclickable
• Additional checks for album art for transfer to portables.
• Fixed crash when downloading lots of tracks
• Fixed deadlock if you go to the Download manager too quickly

Whew. We think that makes this one of the more important updates we’ve done. Let us know what you think.

And, if you’re into more new stuff, and need something to test drive the new YMJ 2.1, try out my FreshnessCounts playlist of new alt & indie rock for 2007. Let me know what you think of the tunes and the Jukebox they’re playing on.

Get to rockin!

Mick Orlosky
Product Manager
Yahoo! Music Jukebox