Yahoo! Music, Rhapsody, and FoxyTunes

Last year, shortly after I assumed the role of Yahoo! Music’s General Manager, we started saying publicly that we were “de-emphasizing” our premium music offering, Yahoo! Music Unlimited. The fact of the matter is that building a great premium music service takes a huge amount of resources and effort, and it was taking energy away from our important main offerings, music.yahoo.com (the Web’s #1 Music destination), music videos, and LAUNCHcast Radio. Around 25 million people visit Yahoo! Music each month. Relatively speaking, a small percentage of those use Yahoo! Music Unlimited, yet an large portion of our resources were being poured into this service. It was clear to us that we needed to make a major strategic shift.

It wasn’t an easy decision. We’re huge fans of Yahoo! Music Unlimited and those customers include many of our most loyal and valuable. We wanted to be sure those users had the best on-demand music experience available on the Internet.

As a result, we’re pleased to announce Rhapsody as our exclusive partner for on-demand music. Yahoo! Music Unlimited subscribers will have a chance to easily take their music catalogs and migrate to Rhapsody. Later this year we will be integrating Rhapsody into music.yahoo.com, so you can continue to use Yahoo! Music for music discovery, news, videos, lyrics, radio, concerts, blogs, and more, and always be a click away from music on-demand. Also, our subscribers will finally have access to the best off-PC experiences such as Rhapsody for TiVo, Sonos, and Control 4 in the living room.

We hope being able to take your Yahoo! Music Unlimited collection to the best subscription service on the Web — the one which works on PC or Mac, Firefox or Safari as well as TiVo, Sonos, etc. — at the Yahoo! Music Unlimited price, is an acceptable outcome. We sincerely apologize for any hassle and thank you for joining us in the Yahoo! Music Unlimited run. It was a wild ride for all of us.

I’m sure a question many people are going to ask is if this means Yahoo! is backing away from online music. Au contraire. It is a major strategy shift but we’re still investing in our music business as evidenced by my second bit of news: our acquisition of FoxyTunes. FoxyTunes is the world’s most popular media toolbar, a plug-in for either Firefox or Internet Explorer. FoxyTunes adds useful functionality to more than 30 media players, including iTunes, Winamp, and Pandora. With FoxyTunes you can easily control your media player from the place you spend most of your time, your Web browser, and jump from a track playing in any media player to lyrics, biography, videos, or more music in a single click. What’s more, the innovative “Signatunes” feature helps you express yourself via your music tastes by automatically inserting signatures into your favorite email program (Yahoo! Mail, Gmail), social network messages (Facebook, MySpace), or blog authoring/commenting platform, based on the currently playing track.

For an excellent tour of FoxyTunes’ far-reaching functionality, please see the screencast on FoxyTunes.com.

While it doesn’t tell the whole story, this news, along with the recent news of our Web Media Player (for a great example of the player in use, check out Aurgasm.us), points the direction for a new Yahoo! Music. We’re focusing on delivering relevant music experiences on the Web and are happy to be partnering with Rhapsody to bring you a simple, integrated, on-demand music experience.

If you’ve never used Rhapsody, check out my best of 2007 playlist on Rhapsody now for free. And be sure to control Rhapsody.com and learn more about each artist with FoxyTunes.

Enjoy,
ian c rogers
Yahoo! Music

Playlists, new samples player, web subscription playback

Continuing the torrential pace of new software, we have released a playlist page, a new player for thirty-second samples, and the ability to play subscription tracks in the browser. All of this software is somewhat beta.

Until a few weeks ago, when you opened a playlist created in Yahoo! Music Jukebox in the browser you were likely to get a nearly-blank white page that looked like an error message. No more. You will now see a full-featured module which includes the ability to play tracks and to comment on playlists. You can browse playlists by creator and you can browse playlists which a person has commented on, so there is a content-focused social network.

Play buttons will give you full songs if you are a Yahoo! Music Unlimited subscriber, and 30-second samples otherwise. The player is now rendered in the page rather than in a pop-up window.

Here are some playlists to help you get started:

• The Big Takeover by Ian Rogers is, I think, about exploring fresh releases, and has tunes from Dizzee Rascal, Pharoahe Monch, Bad Brains, and Betty Davis.
• My Acid Soul playlist is instrumental soul jams.
• Ilianna Car Songs by Adam Brett is music for his baby daughter. This is a fun theme, and if you have another playlist like it you might want to leave a note on Adam’s playlist.
• International Lounge Music by Steve Raymond is a playable version of a text-only playlist published in Food and Wine magazine.
• Ode to Rubber playlist by the great Robert of the Radish. See also his personal blog entry about this playlist.
• Over In About An Hour: Volume 8 (dishwashing music) by Johnny O’Brien.  See also his personal blog entry about this playlist.
  

We hope you’ll dig it.

Release notes

• There isn’t yet a convenient way to look up a playlist URL or to your find your own playlists in the browser. If you have Yahoo! Music Jukebox you can open it up, navigating to a playlist, copy the link to the clipboard, then go to a browser and open that link. In the browser you can submit a comment on a playlist, then click on the link to your playlists in the posted comment.
• Yahoo! Music Unlimited playback only works in Internet Explorer on Windows. In Firefox you can either use the IETab plugin or wait for our own plugin to be ready.
• Many alpha users had to upgrade or rebuild their Windows DRM setup.
• Sample playback works on the Mac if you have Flip4Mac installed. We could only deliver subscription tracks if Windows DRM was supported, which it isn’t, so this is blocked on the same old same old. About Linux support, we’ll do samples if we can find a reliable way to do WMA in the browser.
• The new player is only used in the playlist pages for now. We will hook it up to the rest of the new pages soon.

A Mathematical Analysis of the Mountain Dew “Transform Your Summer” Promotion

We have partnered once again with long time friends Pepsi Co. to help deliver the Mountain Dew ‘Transform Your Summer’ sweepstakes. I’ll let an excerpt from the official press release best explain what’s going on:

Consumers can enter the “Transform Your Summer” sweepstakes online at http://www.transformyoursummer.com. Thousands of prizes will be given away each day and consumers will be able to choose the prize they would like the chance to win by entering the daily drawing of their choice. There will be several daily drawings each offering a different prize. The “Transform Your Summer” prizes include the Ultimate Gaming Package (Xbox 360, Panasonic 42″ Plasma HDTV, games and accessories), trips to major sporting events, vacation packages and many other items. In addition, a limited-edition Pepsi(TM) Optimus Prime(R) collectible truck figure will be available as part of the promotion. Here’s how the “Transform Your Summer” sweepstakes works

1. Look for codes under the caps of specially-marked 20-ounce and 1-liter bottles of Mountain Dew, Pepsi and Sierra Mist
2. Register at http://www.transformyoursummer.com
3. Enter your code during the daily drawing featuring the prize you would like the chance to win.

As you can see, you get a chance to enter your code for a daily drawing with a limited amount of each of the prizes given out everyday. But how best to decide what you bid for? Do you go for the Ultimate Gaming Package with a smaller chance of winning, or do you go for the high probability of scoring a $2 Yahoo! Music Download Code?

The Yahoo! Music marketing department is here to help with this decision by taking a mathematical look at the matter. We advise that you look at Expected Monetary Value of your code - weighing the value of the prize vs. the probability of winning that prize. For example, Mountain Dew is giving away $100 prizes every day with a probability of winning at about 1%. That would effectively make your code worth $1.

With this in mind, we took a sample day and calculated the best value for your code. The results, please..

• 6th Place - Panasonic 42” HDTV — $0.36 value per code
• 5th Place - XBOX 360 — $0.48
• 3rd Place - Yahoo! Music $2 Download code — $1
• 3rd Place - tie - $100 cash — $1
• 2nd Place - $25 cash — $1.85
• 1st Place - Official Mountain Dew Hoodie — $4.45

Our initial thoughts based on these results:

• People are absolutely disrespecting the official Transformers Mountain Dew Hoodie. We had it conservatively appraised at a $40 value. That’s your best value right there.
• The most intriguing prize is the $25 cash prize. It sits there over-shadowed by the shine of the $100 prize, but it’s a far better value for the money. Our results show that if you had unlimited codes, you would make an average of $1.85 a code entered for eternity. Unfortunately, this promotion ends in early August.
• We are amazed by the value of these codes! What other promotion lets you buy a drink for about a dollar and get a code that is essentially worth $1.85? One of the great values in modern online promotion history.
• Despite the results above, our official position is that you should take the $2 Yahoo! Music Download code because music is priceless and anything times priceless is priceless (except for maybe 0).

So go get yourself a ton of 20 ounce or 1 liter bottles of Mountain Dew, bid them all on the $25 prize, and become a Soda-Promo Entrepreneur.

Michael Cowan
Yahoo! Music

How to get the most from your Sansa Connect

There continues to be a lot of interest in the Sansa Connect portable player (SanDisk Connect Does Stuff You Wish Apple’s iPod Would) that we released this month with our partners SanDisk and Zing. We’re glad that the product has created some excitement for what’s next in the digital music - namely access to your music wherever and whenever with a payment model that maximizes your ability to rock out. We agree that we are turning it up to ELEVEN.

The biggest ask we’ve seen from reviewers and early customers is to be able to search the YMU catalog directly from the device. We hear you, its coming. Its actually not a trivial feature to “get right” from a usability standpoint - how do you find an artist or track you are looking for (out of a catalog of over TWO MILLION tracks) on an itty-bitty screen with no keyboard or mouse? So rather than bringing a frustrating product to market we decided to KISS (Keep it simple stupid) and release the product with its current rich feature set.

There is a reason why we felt we could make that decision: you don’t need to be able to search for specific artists, albums, or tracks to fill the device up with great music that you love - which is, after all, the goal.

You just think you do cause thats how you’ve always done it, until now.

It’s MUCH easier and arguably more entertaining to use Yahoo’s recommendation engine and the device’s mixlisting capabilities to fill the device up. After you have created a half-dozen or so mixlists, the device will leverage the YMU subscription and its own Wifi capabilities to keep the device filled up with fresh content based on your personal preferences. Trust me, its amazing, and your boring old iPod will start seeming very dated (almost brickish) after the lightbulb goes on. We haven’t talked up the technology much until now cause its so mindblowing, and really only suited for power users like you. Here’s what you do:

1. Go to the Settings>Music&Mixes>Mixes&Recommendations menu and set to 50% of capacity.
2. Also set Autodelete to “ON” from the Settings>Music&Mixes>Auto-Delete menu
3. If you have time, its helpful to have identified some playlists on YMU that you really love and to have rated a reasonable amount of music. A couple of playlists that are working great for me are Like Ryan Adams and Mojo 70-71. But this step is totally optional because you can make mixlists off of particular songs, genres, etc.
4. Start creating mixlists from the Zing menu on the device.
5. Create 1 or 2 based on existing playlists by navigating to Get More Music > My Yahoo! Playlists. Highlight a playlist, press the Zing button and select “Make a mix like this”
6. Create a few based on a genre by navigating to Get More Music>Yahoo! Music Recommendations and drilling into the genre tree. Once you have a genre selected press the Zing button and select “Make a mix like this”. This will have the added benefit of having the seed artists filtered through your personal ratings.
7. Listen to a Launchcast station and when a song comes on that you like press the Zing button and “Create a mixlist based on this song”
8. Find some other ways to create mixlists.
9. Start listening to the mixlists (they are saved in your Music Library on the device)

What happens next? Well, the device is going to do everything it can to keep those mixlists fresh for you. After you have listened to the tracks in a mixlist it’s going start deleting tracks you’ve already listened to and putting new ones on there based on the mixlist criteria and your personalization preferences (based on ratings) as well as some fancy backend algorithms. As long as the device is fairly well charge its going to try to do this housekeeping whenever it notices a WiFi connection that works for it. Like when you are asleep. When you least expect it, expect it.

Creating and modifying mixlists is so easy (and the music is so good!) that if you are like me, this is primarily how you are going to choose what to listen to for your bike ride to work etc. Maximizes control and personalization with a minimum of keystrokes and fuss. We’re thinking features like this are the way people will to interact with music and contact on connected devices in The Future.
For now if you really really need to find a particular track or album you are going to have to do it the old fashioned way and drag it over from your PC. Or you can create a playlist and use the WiFi on the device to get it. And pretty soon you’ll wake up and the device will have updated the firmware over WiFi and you’ll be able to search the catalog in a form factor appropriate way. But I bet you don’t use that feature anywhere near as much as you use mixlists.

Steve Raymond
Yahoo! Entertainment

P.S. Check out Pogue’s comment at the end of this. He gets it. I can’t believe people write reviews of reviews. But I also couldn’t believe that people posted video of themselves opening a box.

P.P.S If you are a Connect User join this group.

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

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

Yahoo! Music Unlimited Gift Certificates

Ah yes, the holiday season. Shopping at Best Buy and your local mall with the cast of COPS and the same thirteen songs pouring out of the ceiling everywhere you walk. My favorite time of year.

I haven’t been to a store yet this year, though. I’m getting everyone the same two things: Sesame Street’s “Old School” DVD and Yahoo! Music Unlimited gift certificates.

Everyone knows that Sesame Street was best before Zoe Monster and Elmo just like everyone knows that Yahoo! Music Unlimited is the best and cheapest way to give your friends and family the entire canon of music for one low price.

So come on, get your nephew off those P2P services before the RIAA comes knocking on his door. Give the gift of unlimited music this holiday season.

Enjoy,
ian c rogers
Yahoo! Music

May I See Your License Please?

One of the great things about portable subscriptions like Yahoo! Music Unlimited To Go is the ability to put subscription music on your MP3 player. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a few extra Gs laying around to fill my portable.One of the frustrating things about those subscriptions is that this technology is still relatively new, and there are some kinks that pop up now and then.

We recently knocked out one of those problems. When you transfer a song to your MP3 player, that player needs to be sync’ed up to your PC once a month to ensure your subscription is still active. The problem was that sometimes that sync would be required only a few days after you transferred the song, so it was becoming unplayable much faster than you’d expect. That wasn’t a great experience for sure. A few weeks ago, we were able to reconfigure the process so that when you transfer songs to your MP3 player, it always gets the freshest license available. This means more play time for your music and less hassle with syncing.

Subscription music isn’t for everyone, but hopefully it just got easier for a lot of people. Stay tuned for more improvements – we’re still hard at work!

Mick O.
YMJ Product Manager

This Week in Playlisting

In playlisting news this week, the San Luis Obispo Times selected the “greatest songs ever inspired by a rumbling stomach”. Tegan Quin, half of the Canadian indie outfit Tegan and Sara, talks about tracks that are loaded onto her iPod over at the Onion A.V. Club. Eric Berlin of Blogcritics.org selects his 5 favorite bands of all time. Andrew Careaga continues with his podcast of the “100 Albums That Changed His Life” over at Bloggedy Blog. The New York Times’ new playlist includes Mars Volta, Mammatus, Bibio, Nick Cave, Moondog and Feathers. Johnny Knoxville creates a “Big Gay Playlist” to coincide with his appearance on the cover of Out magazine. And last, but not least, the Yahoo Music Unlimited playlist community turns up some great lists: Fullmanator crafts a Break Up/Move On compilation for the broken-hearted. Circular Reasoning puts together 20 Forgotten (Alt Rock) Hits of the 90s, The Rugs Don’t Work publishes Volume 4 of their mix tape series Over In About An Hour, YMU Playa creates (on purpose) “An absolutely horrific playlist, bookended by 2 Technotronic tracks, featuring some of the cheesiest (or darn catchiest) pop-techno hits to come out of the early ’90s”, and Jay Frank creates a playlist of number one songs from 12 prominent radio formats over at the YMUplaylisters group.

In this latest edition of our ongoing playlist-centric series, I want to talk about the “inspired by” playlist. Where a themed playlist is made up of songs about one specific topic (clowns, fire, mice, rivers, McDonald‘s, etc), an “inspired by” playlist contains compositions that may, on the surface, sound like they’re about different things, but are in fact, inspired by the same thing. The inspiration can be a person, like an actor, a murderer or politician. A geographic location, like a country, city or natural wonder. A work of art, like a painting, a song or a book. Or it can be an idea or concept, like communism, childhood or resurrection. The possibilities are endless and the hardest part is discovering what the true inspiration was for the songwriter. Luckily, there are gazillions of songs where the original inspiration is self-evident, besides these, a little digging into published interviews on the web can reveal a wealth of information in regards to what inspired an artist to write a song.

Below are some examples:

Rush Songs Inspired By Literature

Play It! “Neil Peart is considered the best rock drummer in the world and I won’t argue the point. Neil is also a writer, of sorts, and the lyricist for the band. I feel comfortable in saying that his lyrics are over-the-top, but at least he’s well read. This playlist features Rush songs inspired by literature.”

Songs Inspired By Pachelbel’s Canon In D Major

Play It! “Pachelbel’s Canon In D Major is one of the most heard songs at weddings across the nation, second only to the Wedding March. There is no denying that the composition is beautiful and bursting with emotion. This playlist starts with Pachelbel’s Canon and is followed by 9 songs which are inspired by the Canon or sample it. Artists include Blues Traveler, Coolio, Oasis, The Farm, Green Day, Vitamin C, Brian Eno and more.”

Songs Inspired By Actors

Play It! “Many songs have been inspired by the lives and work of actors and actresses, as well as by the personal relationships they have had with musicians. This playlist contains 22 tracks that have been inspired by actors or actresses. You can read the story behind many of these at songfacts.com.”

Until next time, won’t you try your hand at an “inspired by” playlist and share it with the world?

Here are a few more playlist ideas from the Radish for you to mull over.

Songs For A Divorce Party

I would not wish a divorce on my worst enemy, but if you become an unfortunate statistic on the battlefield of love then I may have the soundtrack for you. This playlist contains a perfect collection of songs for your next divorce or breakup party. There are literally thousands of separation songs sung from a “woe-is-me” perspective. If this is what you’re looking for, this is not the playlist for you. The majority of the songs found here are empowering and spiteful. When you’re going through a divorce you don’t need melancholy music to drive you further to depression. What you need are songs that tell it like it is, and lay the blame squarely on your ex, truth be damned. Snide remarks and an independent spirit hit the spot at a time like this and these songs may be just what the doctor ordered. So get some good friends together, put this list on, then lift a glass and a middle finger. You have my word, it will get better.

NPR’s All Songs Considered: June Through August 2006

All Songs Considered is a weekly music program started in January of 2000 by NPR’s All Things Considered director Bob Boilen. At first, the show featured information and streaming audio about the songs used as bumper music on All Things Considered. The program has turned into a source of discovery for new music of all genres. The program has featured such diverse artists as Ella Fitzgerald, Nick Drake, and Bright Eyes. One is as likely to hear electronica from the Congo, the latest indie buzz band, rock classics or world music.

In 2005, All Songs Considered began live concerts from Washington, D.C.’s 9:30 Club, and has featured acts such as Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Decemberists, Interpol, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Calexico with Iron & Wine, Lucinda Williams, Sigur Rós, Death Cab for Cutie, and many others. This playlist fetaures 30 artists that the show has featured between June 1st and August 10th, 2006.

Artists Killed in Automobile Accidents

Play The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that an average of 114 people die in car crashes each day in the United States. Most of these fatalities are caused by drunken driving, speeding or a general disregard for safety. However, the victims also include those who are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Although we don’t like to think about it, every time you get into a car you put your life at risk. Traffic deaths can affect every level of society, and that includes musicians, both famous and not. In fact, musicians are at greater risk because they must travel much of the time to make their living. Long days and nights on the road can be monotonous for the tour bus driver. Combine this with the pressure of making it to the next stop on time and the musician’s reputation for hard partying and you have a recipe for disaster. This playlist includes songs by artists who have lost their lives in automobile accidents.

Robert Burke
Yahoo Radish

This Week in Playlisting

There has been a lot of action this past week in the world of playlisting. Andrew Gilstrap of Popmatters offers song advice for increasing your friends tolerance for country music with his article entitled Sneaking in the Twang. The Guardian selects the Top 10 Songs About London, but leaves out the top choice of most music aficionados, “London Calling” by The Clash. Also, be sure to check out the Top 50 London Songs in YME. The Onion A.V. Club lists 12 Delightfully Odd Concept Albums, with the Louvin Brothers‘ Satan Is Real topping the list. Robin Hilton, the producer of NPR’s All Songs Considered, selects her Top 10 Living Songwriters. The New York Post lists the Top Summer Songs from the last 50 years. Keira Knightley, currently starring in the film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dean Man’s Chest, has revealed a personal playlist crafted specifically to help her get through pre-menstrual symptoms. And Greg Stepanich of the Palm Beach Post creates a Fourth of July playlist made up of compositions by American composers.

In other news, a new Yahoo Music Unlimited specific playlist blog was launched this week by Simon Carless. The blog is YMU Playa and is yet another place to visit when you’re longing to discover, or learn something new about music. Add it to your feed reader along with The Rugs Don’t Work and the Yahoo Radish and you can easily browse playlists daily in search of those that spark your interest. It’s exciting stuff, we are witnessing the beginnings of a community that offers so much more than the per-track download model does. I hope you’ll become part of it, if not as a participant than as an active listener. Remember, you can always kick around playlist ideas over at the YMU Playlisters group.

This week I wanted to examine the “Label Playlist”, that is, a playlist that pulls songs from albums which have been released by an independent record label. Of course, you could do this with major labels as well, but they’re certainly not as fun, or as well defined. Many independent labels have a particular sound they are looking for in new acts. This means that label-centric playlists not only give you an overview of the music released by a record company, but can have excellent continuity as well. Below are some links to YMU playlists organized by label.

Lo Recordings Sampler - This compilation comes to us courtesy of YMU Playa. It features songs by artists on the somewhat obscure electronica label Lo Recordings out of the UK. From down-tempo haze to full-out electronic assaults, this is an ultra-hip list.

Matador Records Sampler - Matador Records has a reputation for signing artistically significant indie bands to it’s roster. On top of the label’s commitment to releasing quality records, they also have an indie-friendly reputation for their anti-corporate culture.

SST Sampler - Ian Rogers put together this playlist of songs by artists on the legendary punk label SST, co-founded and run by Black Flag guitarist Greg Ginn.

Hush Records Sampler - Hush Records features mostly mellow, acoustic-based indie bands. Some of my favorite Hush artists include Corrina Repp, Reclinerland, and Super XX Man. They also have at least two Decemberists albums available.

Barsuk Records Sampler - Barsuk Records (pronounced bar SOOK) is Russian for “Badger” and this small Seattle label has helped launched some bands who are becoming (became?) household names, including Death Cab For Cutie and Rilo Kiley.

Sub Pop Box Set - The Seattle based Sub Pop set their place in history with the release of the debut album Bleach by Nirvana and their involvement with the birth of Grunge. Since that time they have released a diverse mix of indie, grunge, alternative and retro music.

There are still heaps of independent labels that need public playlists published. Won’t you build one for your favorite independent?

Finally, I leave you with some further playlist ideas from the past week.

Jethro Tull Family Tree

Play The All Music Guide lists 21 musicians who have, at some point in their career, been part of the renaissance rock unit Jethro Tull. This playlist selects songs by bands that are connected to Jethro Tull through at least one member. It contains a mix of celtic folk, classic rock and progressive rock, just as one would expect, but not as much flute as you would find on the typical Tull record. If this playlist was a visual medium, you would also notice a reduction in man tights and codpieces. So count yourself lucky. Band family trees are a great way to become familiar with the connections between groups through common members. And many times they can turn you on to an artist you were not familiar with, especially if you’re a fan of the band being traced. For example, most won’t be surprised by the Jethro Tull connection to Ian Anderson’s solo material, Fairport Convention and Pentangle, but Black Sabbath, Whitesnake and The Proclaimers? Yes, it’s true, and you can dig further by clicking on a band member’s name at the end of this article. Be sure to check out our other Band Family Tree playlists or create your own with the help of allmusic.com or bandtoband.com.

Ode To Chicago

Play Chi-town has played second fiddle to New York City since it was incorporated in 1837. This number two spot on the “greatest cities in America” list has earned it the nickname ”Second City”, in addition to numerous other labels. The metropolis is a ganglion of American culture and it’s musical heritage could spin off piles of fine playlists. For this one however, we focus on songs that pay homage to the city in some way. Of course, the list contains no-brainers like “Sweet Home Chicago” by Robert Johnson, “My Kind Of Town” by Frank Sinatra and “The Night Chicago Died” by Paper Lace, but also contains lesser-known odes from scads of musical genres. Sufjan Stevens kicks off this playlist with “Chicago” from my favorite album of 2005, Illinois, which is the second effort in his audacious attempt to create on full-length album for each of the 50 states. (Also, see Michigan). Other artists in the list include Ryan Adams, Wilco, Jim Croce, Merle Haggard, Smashing Pumpkins and more. Continue with this article to see the complete list with links to each artist.

Jazz Standards From The 1930s

Play The 1930’s were years marked by worldwide suffering caused by the great depression. About two months before the clock struck midnight on January 1, 1930, black Thursday happened. The great Wall Street crash of ‘29 ushered in an economic depression that would last most of the decade and the Dow Jones Industrial Average would not return to it’s pre-crash levels for 25 years. The 30’s were a time of pain and hardship and a period that would see nations march into yet another world war. However, one of the cultural benefits was the amount of great music produced in the 10 years between 1929 and 1940. Music experienced a boom during the 1930’s, in part, because musicians could draw on the creative energy created by hard times and partly because audiences were hungry to escape the dim realities of life. This energy between artist and audience sparked a creative explosion that gave us some of the most memorable songs ever written. This playlist contains 95 of these classic standards as performed by a diverse cross-section of jazz artists that span the last 75 years. From early jazz pioneers like Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, to golden age legends like Coltrane and Monk, to classic crooners like Sinatra, Bennett and Mel Torme, to modern day torch singers like Norah Jones and Diana Krall. This 6+ hour playlist provides an excellent overview of not only the music of the 1930’s, but a glimpse into how these timeless tracks have been interpreted over the years.

Robert Burke
Yahoo Radish