I Love iTunes

How revolutionary - all your music, every single, every album, every great hits collection, all in one fast, easy place. It seems so normal, so ordinary, but it is truly incredible that we no longer have to go trawling through mountains of EPs to get the song we want to listen to. The sorting options are amazing - just plug a couple letters of the title and whoops, there's the song in all of two seconds. Plop in the artist, the album, the genre, or sort by highest rated, or most played. Put any random combination of these songs into a playlist. Listen to all your thousands of songs at the touch of a button. Stick them all on your iPod and carry your entire album collection with you in your pocket. It's amazing, when you think about it.

Anyway, here are a couple of songs at the top of my own "recently played" playlist:

1. Ghosts - Laura Marling

2. Cry Me A River - Michael Bublé

3. Bad Romance - Lady Gaga

4. Oh My God - Lily Allen

5. 3 Words - Cheryl Cole and Will.I.Am

6. Fascination - Alphabeat

7. Dreams - Fleetwood Mac

8. Daniel - Bat for Lashes

9. In My Life - The Beatles

Musicians and the Media

Accessibility has always been essential to the music market. Even back in the days of Mozart or Tallis, the composer who knew the most important kings or nobles of the day was invited to perform at their balls or concerts, thereby elevating their status, and inviting more invitations of the same sort. Exposure equals money and fame, and although some musicians might say they're only working for the love of the job, I like to think (and this is just me being a little bit cynical, but this is my blog) that they understand that. They know that they have to get their names in the papers, that they have to be seen, because when they're seen, they're heard.

The Beatles rose to superstardom in America after they performed on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. Had they not, who knows if they would have gained the prestige they are known for today. While television was the most important technological medium in the 1960s for getting word out about an album or singles, it can be argued that today, the fastest, easiest, and most reliable way to tell others about an album drop is by way of the internet.

Stars are born and flourish on the web - just look at Lily Allen, who was found on MySpace, and who has now had multiple number 1 singles, a wall of awards, and more celebrity than you can shake a stick at. Even your average single 20-something, singing Beyoncé songs in their basement can get their name out there to that critical public audience just by putting a couple videos on YouTube - just look at Esmée Denters, who was recently signed to Justin Timberlake's label and whose first single "Outta Here" was an international hit.

Even the reality-show flukes find fame and fortune on the Internet - Susan Boyle, the crotchety, granny-looking contestant on Britain's Got Talent whose amazing voice shocked the judges, and the rest of the online audience. Everyone from Oprah to Larry King wanted to interview her, and even though she came in second in the competition, her album has the highest-selling pre-release figures of all time on Amazon.

The internet is the source of fast and cheap marketability, which is perhaps why there are so many stars that we see just briefly as quick flames of interest on Digg.com, or as trending topics on Twitter, or as this week's top-watched on YouTube. But how many of these have lasted? Will any of them prove to be long-lasting? It will be interesting to find out.

Tomorrow Never Knows

My friends know that I am pretty much a crazy Beatles fan, so it should come to no surprise that I have to feature at least one of their songs somewhere on this blog.

"Tomorrow Never Knows" was one of the most progressive songs of its time. Using a mix of the Fab Four's amazing musical ability, and their producers Brian Epstein and George Martin's technical mastery, they created something so other-worldly, so strange, and actually a little bit frightening, that it must have shocked those who were listened all the way through the end. "Revolution 9" might have been infamous for its experimental production techniques, but "Tomorrow Never Knows" was an experiment that succeeded.

Auto Tune

Love it or hate it, you can't deny that Auto Tune technology has rapidly become the focus of a lot of the music industry. The charts are filled with it, and everyone seems to have an opinion on whether it is simply a progression of the industry technology, or whether it is destroying the entire concept of a musician generally needing singing technique to make a song.

Auto Tune uses something called a "phase vocoder" to correct pitch in vocal and instrumental performances. It was originally used in the industry as a quick fix for some of the more basic pitch errors, but now the technology has evolved into something much more than that. Perhaps the most evident example of Auto Tune usage comes from Kanye West in his song "Love Lockdown."

This is not a singer - this is an rapper hitting notes close to the ones he's aiming for, and letting the software do the hard work for him. It's a catchy song, but what does this mean? Can anyone be a perfectly-pitched singer? What use will any sort of talent factor go in an industry that can provide just that for anyone that signs on to a label?

Rapper Jay-Z has these same concerns. In one of his recent singles of "Blueprint 3," he goes on a four-minute tirade against the software in a song called "D.O.A," or "Death of Auto Tune."

"This is anti-Auto Tune/Death of the ringtone/This ain't for iTunes/This ain't for singalongs" raps Jay-Z, and waxes lyrical later on about some of his more prominent contemporaries, like T-Pain and Little Wayne, who use the software frequently on their tracks.

The media has taken a keen interest in the technology as well - this time as a comedy tool. One of the most popular YouTube subscriptions is to "Auto Tune the News," where the software is used on everything - from Palin's speeches to health care debates, and puts it to a beat and backing vocals. This is a classic example:

What's it all about?

Music and technology have always gone hand in hand. Back in the day (read: in the 1960s), new technology came in the form of fancy microphones, advancements for in-studio editing, and a growing number of electric instruments. Now, it sometimes seems like technology has completely overwhelmed the music industry; from T-Pain's Auto-tune to Apple's iTunes store, the gap between music and technology is rapidly closing. This can be for better or for worse - we've all heard the earphone-splitting noise that results from when the synths become inseparable from over-produced vocals. But technology has also made it incredibly easy to find, download, and listen to music at a click of a mouse. Good or bad? I don't think we'll ever find out, but we'll discuss it here.