This is just a quick post in tribute to Michael Jackson. He was a great performer, singer and dancer, and his music is and will always be the stuff of legend.
JK
Tonight is Eurovision, and I will be watching and supporting the UK. Below is the first rehearsal of Jade Ewen, and I am very impressed. She has a great voice, and this is well worth a look:
JK
The Pirate Bay founders have now be sentenced to one year in prison, and a huge £3 Million fine. There site is the webs biggest illegal file sharing website, and home to free downloads of Music, Videos and Software. But will this be the end of the site?
I don’t believe so. The site has already survived a raid, and if it did go down, there’s always another site to instantly take its place. But I don’t believe this is the real question. The question we shoudl be asking is one of morality: Is file sharing right?
Of course, the content creators need to make a living; their job is making Music/Movies/Software or whatever. But are any of these people empoverished? Madonna/Britney Spears/Take That? The music industry is worth several billion dollars.
The Internet has arrived, and its popularity is reflected by the huge number of users of Facebook and Myspace. The Music and Movie industry need to embrace this. Record Artists make a huge proportion of their money through Touring and Merchandise. If the music is out their, then maybe more people will start listening to it. I believe that the time has passed from where Music was paid for, and delivered in physical form. Piracy will never be defeated, beacause so many people are not willing to pay for their music anymore. The Industry should stop being in denial of this, and accept it, and develop.
JK
It’s nothing personal Lady Gaga, but you are kind of weird. With three inch false eye lashes and an “out-there” fashion sense, your hardly conventional. However, your music is amazing, and Just Dance is a fantastic song! The fact it was number 1 here in the UK proves it.
See the video below:
JK
Alexandra Burke is this year’s winner of the nationwide talent search, the X Factor.
Her first single, a cover of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah has already reached the number 1 spot, and out sold Leona Lewis’ Run.
But some are not happy. Hallelujah is a special song, that took Cohen 5 years to write, and the late Jeff Buckley’s version, (which is currently number 2), is regarded as the definitive version of it. How dare Simon Cowell manufacture the song?
I disagree with their arguments. Hallelujah is an amazing song, but I think anyone has a right to sing it. That is the intended point of a song; to be sung. The song gives praise to God, and I believe this is something to be shared.
Why should she not sing it? Just because it has brought the song to the public’s attention. It’s a good version too; perhaps not as simple but effective as Buckley’s, but still a good cover. And the nation agrees.
JK
Britney’s performance on the X Factor last Saturday has been heavily criticized in the press. To some extent I agree; the performance wasn’t as good as it could have been. It was disappointing that she didn’t sing live, and she was thinking a lot when she was dancing, which disrupted it’s “natural flow”. However, I think she should be given a break. She’s had a tough year, and it’s great to see that she’s coming over the hill from that. Her confidence will surely grow again, and we’ll see her back on top soon.
When she performed Womanizer on Star Academy in France, her performance was better I thought. See it below:
UPDATE: This video has now be removed because of TF1. See the X Factor video instead.
JK
Same Difference, from last year’s X Factor performed on yesterday’s result show. They followed in the footsteps of Mariah Carey, Leona Lewis, Take That and Celine Deon. All those artists sang live, and they haven’t even been competitors on the show. Then it was Same Difference’s turn. And they mimed. It was terrible miming too, and if that wasn’t enough, you could hear that there voices had been enhanced, because the song had almost quite an ‘electronic’ ring to it. Then, at the end when they spoke the sound became completely muffled. Wow. Watch it for yourself below:
It’s despicable for them to Mime on the X Factor. Being contestants who sang last year, they should have done the same yesterday. Big difference.
JK
Spotify is a new music service, where you listen to as much music as you like for free! It all runs through it’s very well designed client, and the service has all the latest music.
Getting an invite to the service was the easiest! Luckily, I managed to win a competition to get an invite; the code arrived today in my inbox!
Downloading the software was very quick, and installing even more so! I only had to make one click inside the installer window!
Once installed I opened the program. I was shocked! It look almost identical to iTunes, except with no prices! The choice was good; ‘Funhouse’ by Pink and ‘Human’ by The Killers were just two of the available albums.
You would expect with such a service, (especially one in beta) would be very slow to load. Not at all. The songs start straight away, and actually, quicker than in Napster or in iTunes. Neither have I had any problems with the streaming.
The service is also meant to have ads, but after 20 songs, I’ve only heard one of these, which lasted about 15 seconds or less. It was for Xbox Guitar Heroes, and I didn’t really bother me much.
The only thing that could improve the service would be the ability to download the songs free as MP3s! Here’s hoping. If it wasn’t for my Napster subscription, which allows me to download, than I’d probably switch to it.
So, if you want to give the service a go, I have some invites to give out. The first commenter’s on this post will be sent one each, (to as many as I get).
Update: 30.1.09 I have just recieved new invites. Please comment below. Due to the high number of requests, I will give priority to those who have commented elsewhere on the blog. Thanks.
JK
So last Saturday Laura White was evicted from the X Factor, despite being a hot favourite to win.
As we could see from her and Cheryl Cole’s face, there was a lot of shock at this result. It all fell to Louis to cast the judges vote of cause, between her and Ruth Lorenzo.
Now it is being said how it was “tactical” voting on behalf of Louis, and how the public was angry because she was supposedly going out with an X Factor executive, which actually wasn’t true.
All I know is that I think Ruth was actually better in the sing off. Laura too was amazing. What is strange is how certain people are still in the competition, such as Daniel. He tries his best, but he’s just isn’t in the same league as Laura.
I think as always, the public voting goes down to who has the best story, and who gets the nations sympathy.
Here’s Laura’s performance:
JK
Funhouse is P!nk’s new album, which I downloaded from Napster yesterday. And I love it!
P!nk is amazing artist, and as everyone should know, she doesn’t make bad music.
So What, the album’s first single is probably my favourite. However, I also much recommend Sober, Funhouse, I Don’t Believe You, Mean and It’s All Your Fault.
Here’s looking forward to the next album!
JK
