Igor Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" caused riots when it debuted in 1913 in Paris. The composer's use of discord was simply too much for audiences of that time. However, the piece is now seen as a revolutionary musical innovation that heralded more complex music to come.

When laptronica musicians melded with the brass and musicians of the Metropolis Ensemble to perform "The Rite: Remixed" in Brooklyn's Prospect Park on Friday, nary a riot ensued, but "The Rite of Spring" sounded more riotous than ever with the addition of electronic tweaks.

Update: Deerhoof performed separately -- thanks, m.

WNYC recorded the whole thing, and you can listen to the 34-minute stream here for free. We recommend a listen, unless you're the type who would have rioted over the original back in 1913.

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Image courtesy of Every Note

Good news for you Rupert Murdoch fans out there. The mogul's UK-based pay-TV juggernaut is preparing its own music service, and it's inked a deal with bigwig major label to help make it happen.

Yes, BSkyB is getting into the subscription game, and it has joined forces with Universal, with more to come. That sound you hear in the distance is not iTunes quaking. It's Apple's stock getting batted around by short-sellers.

The bad news, such as it is, remains to be seen. It's not particularly promising when Reuters is saying that the new subscription service will feature "downloads to keep," as if you shouldn't be able to keep something you buy. Nor is it encouraging that the price is still up in the air. Free unlimited streaming is cool, but not if you only have Amy Winehouse and other Universal artists to listen to all day. The press is a bit premature on this one, in regards to Apple: It's going to take more than the Murdoch clan and Universal to bring the House of Jobs down, even in England and Ireland, and it's going to take more than an iTunes clone too.

How about a torrent service with unlimited downloads and unrestricted portability for a fair monthly fee? Now you're rocking.

Photo: Wikipedia

The eMusic MP3 subscription service has a new strategy that involves pushing its content out to social networking sites while integrating links to relevant online media from its own site.

Subscribers can now embed eMusic album art and song samples on Del.ici.ous, Digg, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Twitter and 13 similar sites, with others apparently set to be added soon.

In addition, eMusic album pages now include links to YouTube videos of bands playing live, photos of artists on Flickr and links to bands' Wikipedia pages. Users will be able to interact with Flickr and YouTube without leaving the eMusic site, with the ability to forward media to friends, write reviews, bookmark or embed photos and videos.

Continue reading "EMusic Extends Into Social, Media Networks" »

Grafting sonics onto someone else's visuals goes back as far as silent film, but the YouTube era has ushered in some hilarious mutations of the practice. The latest comes from New York brain-teasers One Ring Zero, which has reinvigorated Loverboy's "Working for the Weekend" video with a dose of accordion and foul language.

One Ring Zero has released six full-lengths, but its strangest mash is appropriately found in As Smart as We Are. That 2004 effort appropriated original lyrics from Jonathan Lethem, Paul Auster, Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood and further literary lights and set them to toy pianos, theremins and further niche instruments to concoct lobe-tickling ruminations on sin in Cincinatti and Jesus flipping believers the bird while shredding lottery tickets. Fun stuff.

The live version of "Radio" comes from its recently released concert disc Live at Barbes. And while the Loverboy visuals may be hard on the eyes, the song is definitely not safe for work. Keep the headphones on, and remember, I just mentioned the video. I didn't make it. Don't sue the messenger!

Bands looking to copy Radiohead's pricing optional music sales plan have a new option in NoiseTrade, which handles all the required back-end stuff that Radiohead handled in-house so that bands can concentrate on the important stuff, like recording songs and updating their web presences.

Bands who pay for the service get a widget they can embed anywhere HTML is used. Listeners who encounter the widget can use it to preview samples of the songs and download the entire album for the price of their choosing (including zero), or in return for by entering the verified e-mail addresses of three friends.

According to the company, each  collected e-mail address is worth about $1 to a band in music, merchandise and ticket sales over the long term.

A NoiseTrade spokeswomam told us via e-mail that 5 percent of listeners are choose to pay for albums, while the rest have chosen the e-mail address route, adding that the average price paid for an album on the site is $3.97. Since the site launched on July 4, she says over 50,000 unique visitors have downloaded over 22,000 albums -- not bad for the first two and a half weeks.

Continue reading "NoiseTrade Offers Radiohead-Style Releases" »

Devendra Banhart stars alongside girlfriend Natalie Portman in his latest music video, for the song "Carmensita." In the Bollywood-style video, Banhart portrays a prince with a "rebellious" beard who is trying to win (what else) the love of a princess, played by Portman, whose dad is a real stick in the mud.

This entertaining video reminded us of previous instances in which musicians have featured their girlfriends in music videos.

By including Portman in his video, Banhart joins these illustrious ranks:

Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley - "Uptown Girl"
Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minillo - N/A
The Cars' Rick Ocasek and Paulina Porizkova - "Drive"
Whitesnake's David Coverdale and Tawny Kitaen  - "Here I Go Again"
Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson - "Welcome to Planet Boom"

Thanks to Ria for some of these suggestions (I had no idea how to spell "Nick Lachey," let alone professing any degree of familiarity with his work).

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By combining some of the finest online music services, the folks at Favtape have concocted a lightening-fast online mixtape creation tool that creates sharable mixes of your favorite songs in under a second.

Assuming you already have a Last.fm or Pandora account (and really, who doesn't?), all you need to do is enter your user name or profile page URL for that service into Favtape, and it will retrieve 10 songs that you have bookmarked or favorited there into a mixtape that approximates the interface we saw earlier on Muxtape. Songs are delivered from SeeqPod's directory of online MP3s using SeeqPod's readily-available API, as pointed out by monkey_bites.

Ryan Sit of FreeStyle Labs told us that they made the service to solve problems with some of the very sites upon which it relies. "It started because it really sucks when you bookmark a song on Pandora or 'Love' a song on Last.fm and can't play it on-demand later," he said via e-mail.

Continue reading "Favtape: Mixes Don't Get Any Faster Than This" »

Former Replacements' frontman Paul Westerberg finished a 12-song album last Monday. On Tuesday, he sent it to his manager. By Saturday, the entire thing was available on Amazon as one big 44-minute MP3 for 49 cents -- approximately a penny per minute of music.

Westerberg played everything on 49:00 himself, according to Billboard, which asked his manager Darren Hill about the offer. "It's just wonderful that you can actually do this," said Hill. "The freedom an artist can enjoy these days is fantastic. Can you imagine me pitching this idea to a label?"

Most digital music stores were no more understanding about his plan than labels presumably would have been. Apparently, Amazon was the only one to go along with the idea of charging 49 cents for a 44-minute MP3 -- a policy consistent with the pricing flexibility it has offered other labels.

I just paid for the MP3, and from initial inspection, the songs it contains are worthwhile for anyone who digs the Replacements' sound or wants some solid tunes from a proven entity who is one of the first artists to charge an appropriate amount of money for digital music.

Only a true Scrooge would bother pirating this album when it's available on Amazon for less than the price of a pack of gum.

Continue reading "Paul Westerberg Sells 44-Minute MP3 for 49 Cents" »