Music

An annoying trend with SiriusXM lately

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

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Just a few weeks ago the Foo Fighters were set to take over the station Lithium to promote the release of their latest album, Sonic Highways. This would’ve been fine, however it seemed like SiriusXM as a whole would stop at nothing to promote the takeover and the album. Foo Fighters were getting played regularly on channels that I’ve never heard play the Foo Fighters (or at least not very often) such as Octane and Faction. It seemed like every time I got into my car I was hearing “Something From Nothing” on just about any station I turned to. If I wanted to listen to the Foo Fighters, I would’ve tuned into Lithium and listened to them there.

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Not only was “Something From Nothing” receiving an abnormal amount of airplay all over the place, but every station was promoting the Foo Fighters takeover excessively. You could easily hear a plug for the takeover what seemed like several times an hour, all day, all over the place. It quickly got on my nerves.

Now AC/DC has taken over Classic Rewind and it seems the same thing that happened with the Foo Fighters is repeating. I can’t say that I’ve ever heard AC/DC receive airplay on Octane, but over the last few days I’ve heard “Rock or Bust” on Octane more often than it should be. I’m not saying it’s terrible, heck I enjoy it a lot more than the Foo Fighters, and the band fits in better on Octane than the Fighters, but still I feel like money and promotion is causing songs to get preferential treatment over the music listeners might actually want to hear.

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I understand this is nothing new to radio, but I always felt like satellite radio was at least just a little above that. I’ve listened to Sirius for several years, and maybe this has been happening for awhile, but it seems like it’s been getting more frequent lately.

I know I’m not the only one reacting this way. For example Octane has had exclusive content from In This Moment and Twelve Foot Ninja recently and around the time those events aired both bands saw an abnormal spike in airplay. Posts promoting the bands on Octane’s Facebook page saw an overwhelmingly amount of negative comments about both bands. For as often as they promote the Octane “Air Force”, where listeners get a say in what should be played more often and what shouldn’t, it’s difficult to believe they really listen to their audience’s feedback when these promotions take over the airwaves and the music their listeners want to hear gets put on a back burner.

More often than not lately I find myself plugging my phone in and listening to Spotify where I can control what I want to listen to. Most of the time I do still enjoy listening to SiriusXM, but I’m getting a little sick of having all this promotional stuff shoved down my throat over and over again. Anyone else feel the same lately?

 

Just Dance 2015 and Dance Central Spotlight on Xbox One

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

Yesterday I played my first two Kinect games on the Xbox One. That’s not to say the Kinect hasn’t been useful, I love using it for voice commands, streaming, logging in, switching / snapping apps, changing channels, the list goes on and on. I just haven’t used it to play a Kinect game yet (I have used Kinect features in games and enjoyed it). Last night I downloaded both Just Dance 2015 and Dance Central Spotlight and enjoyed both quite a bit.

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I had never played a Just Dance game before, but right from the start I was impressed. I really love the sleek and quick menus and the collection of songs available is quite enjoyable. The game features about 40 songs but you can buy more for $1.99 a song (we bought a handful including PSY’s “Gangam Style” which is so fun to dance to I’m surprised it wasn’t included in the game).

Just Dance 2015 menu

A look at the menu on Xbox One. You can navigate either with hand motions, voice commands or with a controller.

The dancing in Just Dance 2015 is simple enough to make it accessible to just about anyone, but it can be challenging in a fun way with some more complex moves (some even requiring you to get down on the floor, or hold another dancer). At the end of the song you’re presented with a highlight reel edited by the ‘autodance’ feature which will make you look as good as possible (but still quite goofy if you’re me).

You can choose to share your highlight reel with the Just Dance community and even Facebook if you like. At the moment, however, the Facebook functionality in Just Dance 2015 is not working on the Xbox One for many users. Once it launches the IE app to connect to Facebook there’s a URL redirect error. I’ve e-mailed Ubisoft support (as have many other users) but I haven’t seen a response yet.

My highlight reel from “Gangam Style”. Not the best dancer, but hey there was alcohol involved!

Just Dance 2015 challenges

There’s some multiplayer functionality available in Just Dance 2015 as well. You can compete with other dancers by adding challengers and you’ll see their scores alongside yours throughout the song. These are pre recorded scores you’re competing against but it gives you an incentive to up your game. I’ve also received challenges in my Just Dance feed from other players. I assume the game is curating these challenges rather than being issued by the players, but I haven’t played enough to know for sure. You can also compete against live dancers in the World Dance Floor mode, however I haven’t had a chance to try it out yet. When I was playing last night there were on average 25 dancers online in World Dance Floor mode at any given time throughout the evening.

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Dance Central Spotlight is Harmonix’s dancing game available as a $9.99 download on Xbox One. As opposed to Just Dance which bundles 40 songs into a $50 package, Spotlight charges a minimal fee for the game and throws in a small sampler of songs (10 songs) and then allows you to purchase only the songs you want for $1.99 a song (some bundles are available for $3.49). I actually like this business model of charging just for the content you want. There are quite a few DLC songs available for download already with more to come (I picked up “Turn Down for What” and “Party Rock Anthem” so far and plan to pick up a few others).

Dance Central focuses more on a core set of moves and incorporates those moves into the various songs. The game wants you to learn those moves and master them as the difficulty raises and more and more moves are introduced. From my experience Just Dance has unique dances for each song and doesn’t reuse any routines, however this can lead to quite a bit of chaos (which can also be fun). Once you learn the moves of Dance Central it’s easy to nail routines and feel like you’re not just flailing limbs around like what tends to happen in Just Dance.

So far I’m enjoying both games quite a bit and they have me wanting to check out Harmonix’s Fantasia Music Evolved as well. I may end up picking Fantasia up in the few weeks to experience some more Kinect content. If you’re looking for some fun party games that make use of the Kinect I highly recommend checking out Just Dance 2015 and Dance Central Spotlight on the Xbox One.

Listen Now: Weezer- Everything Will be Alright in the End on iTunes First Look

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

Weezer on iTunes

You can now listen to Weezer’s upcoming Everything Will Be Alright In the End on iTunes for free! Check it out here!

I have yet to give it a complete listen, but I’ll be checking it out after work tonight. I already pre-ordered the vinyl LP and can’t wait to get home and give it a listen on my turntable when it arrives. “Back to the Shack” is already one of the best Weezer songs I’ve heard in quite awhile, so I’m excited to listen to the rest of the album.

Everything Will Be Alright In the End is set to be released on October 7th. Be sure to head to their Pledge Music page and pre-order the album in a variety of formats and packages.

First Listen: Gerard Way – Hesitant Alien

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

Hesitant Alien

Yesterday Gerard Way released his first album since the breaking up of My Chemical Romance in 2013. I always enjoyed listening to My Chemical Romance right up until the end (The Black Parade is Dead! is probably my favorite concert DVD of all time, I absolutely love their stage presence) so I was excited to hear there would still be new music post MCR.

Hesitant Alien starts with the heavily distorted “The Bureau” which chugs along overpowering the shouted vocals, and it almost sounds like something that could’ve come from Danger Days. It works well as an intro track, but the rest of the album sounds quite differently.

“Action Cat” is upbeat and peppy and Way’s vocals on the track remind me a lot of the track “Lust for Life” by Girls. I definitely like the sound. It’s quite catchy even as the guitar track continues to overpower the vocals.

The album definitely has more of a pop feel (with a bit of alt rock thrown into the mix) with tracks like “No Shows” and “Millions”, yet I enjoy it quite a bit. I love Way’s voice and it continues to be hypnotizing on this album. There are hints of MCR here and there, but there’s enough of a unique direction it’s understandable that he had to part ways with the band.

The stand out track that I can’t stop listening to from the album is “Brother”. I love the piano and steady drum beat building up to a hypnotic chorus. It’s an absolutely beautiful song, and I’m sure I’ll be listening to it over and over for quite some time.

I definitely recommend giving the album a listen whether you were a My Chemical Romance fan or not. There’s definitely a lot to like on Hesitant Aliens.

First listen: U2 – Songs of Innocence

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

Songs of Innocence

I’ve never actually sat down and listened to U2 before. I’ve heard their songs and have a good idea of what they sound like but I’ve never listened to any of their albums, or really actually paid attention to any of their songs. A lot of people love U2, I’ve just always known they’re not a band for me. Heck all I even know about U2 is they have hugely popular concerts, Bono wears sunglasses all the time and they seem to be involved in a lot of causes and world politics (whether this is true or not I couldn’t say).

U2 has been in the news a lot lately because Apple in a sense ‘bought out’ their thirteenth album Songs of Innocence and released it to half a billion iTunes users for free during their iPhone 6 reveal. Who doesn’t like free music? Well apparently the internet doesn’t. People immediately complained that the album snuck into their iTunes libraries unwanted. Personally, I feel the complaints are absolutely absurd and there will always be someone out there who will complain about anything. They could’ve given a $10 iTunes gift card to everyone in the world and somewhere out there on the internet someone would find a way to complain about it.

U2 songs of innocence iTunes page

Since I’ve never listened to U2 before I’ve decided I’d give the album a listen and write down a few thoughts about it. So here we go, I’m hitting play.

Aside from a handful of moments, (“The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone)”, “Volcano” and “Sleep Like a Baby Tonight”) I can’t say I’ve found much to like in this album. Most of it sounds unremarkable, background music that falls apart when listened to closely. Reading the lyrics in the digital book as I listen doesn’t help. Most everything just comes off as boring.

The parts I like most is when Bono doesn’t sound like Bono. “Sleep Like a Baby Tonight” and the verses of “Volcano” stand out as favorites (not a huge fan of the chorus). I like the darkness in his voice in those two songs in particular. The verses of “Volcano” even have a slight Marilyn Manson sound vocally which I love. If the rest of the album had more of that dark sound and less of the typical, soaring sound that has bored me for years without even having had to listen to a U2 album.

Songs of Innocence

I rated every song as I listened, and going off of the iTunes star rating Songs of Innocence gets 2 out of 5 stars based off my first listen. Seeing as how I’ve never listened to any other U2 album I can’t really say whether this is a particularly good or bad U2 album. I read in TIME that U2 sees this album as one of their best, so it may just be that I don’t like U2.

 

In 2014 paying for music is easier than stealing

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

In the early 2000’s up until the advent of iTunes store one of the most common reasons given for pirating music was that it was too easy not to. In recent years, however, going legitimate and supporting artists has become easier than ever. I’d even argue that that act of buying individual albums (even via iTunes or Amazon) will soon become as obsolete as renting movies at Blockbuster.

The reason for all this is the rise of streaming services such as Spotify, iTunes Radio, Beats Music, Pandora, Xbox Music and so on. Spotify has completely eliminated my desire to download albums, either by way of the Pirate Bay or legitimate services such as iTunes. For $10 a month I can stream or even download nearly any album I desire to any of my various devices. At any given time I have at least 20-30 albums downloaded to my phone via Spotify in addition to various playlists I’ve created, such as my gym playlist.

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It’s so simple to build a collection of albums, and the fact that you can listen offline is even better. Simply save an album as a playlist and tell your device to download it and you’re done. It’s nice to have the option to save music to your device so that you can listen in the car, gym or on a flight and not use any data or require a WiFi connection.

I should note, you can use Spotify for free and still save albums to playlists, however you must listen to albums on shuffle and Spotify will insert related music into your playlists as well as commercials. You also cannot download music without subscribing to Spotify’s premium service.

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On my Mac, however, I stream all of my music. I used to have countless hundreds of gigabytes of storage tied up storing music, however Spotify has allowed me to free up almost all of that space. There is one minor disadvantage to this form of ‘renting’ music as I like to look at it. Although you have a seemingly unlimited supply of new and old music at your disposal, nothing is permanent. For example, I really enjoyed Morrissey’s 2014 album World Peace Is None of Your Business, yet it recently disappeared from Spotify. The album was rescinded due to a record label dispute, and now I have no access to it at all (legally). Had I purchased it via iTunes I would presumably still own and have access to it.

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Beyond Spotify (which, if you can’t tell is my favorite music service) I also subscribe to SiriusXM and Xbox Music. I use Sirius mostly in my car, but I also enjoy the ability to stream it on my computer, phone or iPad on occasion. I enjoy using Sirius when I feel like giving up control of what I’m about to hear. It’s nice to discover new music on Alt Nation and pop open Spotify and add the album to my collection.

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I subscribe to Xbox Music because it’s an easy way to stream music from my TV and I love the interface. Xbox Music gives you the option to play music videos in place of songs when available so it’s nice to have on the TV as background noise while having drinks or conversation. Xbox Music doesn’t have quite the selection that Spotify has, but the enjoyable interface and music videos make the $10 a month seem justified.

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Thanks to streaming services I’ve saved hundreds of dollars a year while still supporting artists. I do, however, still enjoy purchasing albums on vinyl that I really enjoy. I pre-ordered Weezer’s upcoming album, Everything Will Be Alright in the End on vinyl via their Pledge Music page and am quite excited for it to arrive.

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Bose SoundTrue headphones

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

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I had been looking to pick up a decent pair of headphones to use while watching movies, listening to music and playing games without disturbing others. My budget was around $150 and I ended up narrowing my choices down to the Bose SoundTrue and Beats by Dre Solo HD 2. They were both priced around $150 at the NEX, though their prices vary elsewhere.

I initially liked the Beats as they had a lot of kick to them at high volume and sounded pretty good, but once I tried on the Bose I knew which one I’d be walking away with. The Bose headphones just have an incredibly rich and authentic sound that I don’t think the Beats are able to replicate. I especially love the sound of acoustic rock and classical music with the Bose headphones. You can close your eyes and feel like you’re right there in a concert hall, I love it! They sound great at any volume and are a huge improvement over the Samsung in ear headphones I had been using that came with my phone.

I’m not sure how I’ve gone this long without owning a pair of headphones like these, they’ve made listening to music on my phone and watching movies on my laptop or tablet much more enjoyable.

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I enjoy the way that they look and also that they’re quite comfortable to wear. They are so light you barely notice you’re wearing them, and they never get uncomfortable to wear even for long periods of time. I highly recommend trying the Bose headphones out if you have the chance.

A few songs

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

Just popping in to share a few songs I’m really loving right now and can’t get enough of. I’ve been on a huge alternative kick lately mostly fueled by enjoying listening to Alt Nation on SiriusXM almost religiously. Here are a few songs I can’t stop listening to.

Bleachers – “Rollercoaster”

This feels like the perfect summer anthem, and I just picture sitting on the beach at night by a fire watching the reflections of the flames and the moon on the waves while listening to this song. I absolutely love everything about this song.

American Authors – “Love”

Another great summer love song. Upbeat and cheery, its something you can just shout along to at the top of your lungs in the car.

Little Comets – “Dancing Song”

To me this sounds like a perfect mashup of Vampire Weekend and Modest Mouse. Cheery, wacky and full of energy throughout.

Suckers – “Roman Candles”

I don’t really know what else to say other than I just like the sound of this song. The whistling is catchy and the beat is soothing.

Last, but not least, I want to share one of my favorite music videos and songs of all time. Grouplove’s “Ways to Go”. I love the feel of both the song and the video, it’s catchy and uplifting and I can never stop watching the video.