VonGeekenstein » Music

Spotify Arrives in the US! Yay!

Brian Rubin — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 16:49:55 +0000

If there’s one thing I’ve been jealous of Europeans for — besides more progressive and accepting attitudes, better treatment of workers, universal health care that actually works and so on — is their access to Spotify. Now, I love my streaming music services. I pay for access to Pandora and Grooveshark, and also use Subsonic to stream my own music, so why would I care about another one?

Because everything I hear about Spotify makes it sound quite awesome. Millions and millions of tracks to stream, an easy to use interface, deep social networking and more! Well, imagine my delight when, upon reading Engadget this morning, I found that Spotify has finally arrived in the US! I’m using it right now to stream some Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman, and it not only SOUNDS great, but is insanely easy to use. While it’s not a music discovery service like Pandora or even Grooveshark’s radio feature, having quick access to millions of tracks is quite compelling.

Head over to Spotify and request an invite now, and enjoy!

A Gaming Music Treasure Trove

Brian Rubin — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 17:51:54 +0000

Anyone who knows me knows I love, love, love video game soundtracks. I currently have around 200 video game soundtracks and am always looking to hear more. You can therefore imagine my surprise and delight when I came across YouTube user garudoh’s channel entitled “The Music of Video Games“. Here, garudoh has taken samples from the soundtracks of over 500 (547 at this time!) games and made montages out of them, allowing one to sample the music — if not the entire soundtrack — of all of these games.

Where this comes in handy for ME is it has a lot of music to games I’ve never played. I never owned a lot of classic consoles (my console history stopped with the Atari 5200, only to be slightly resurrected with the Dreamcast and ultimately the Playstation 3), so I missed a lot of great gaming music that I’ve read a lot about. I’ve thus begun listening to all of these from the beginning, so as to build a list of the soundtracks I really want to find a copy of.

Anyway, this is so silly awesome that I just HAD to share it with y’all. Here are some examples of garudoh’s work:

I hope y’all get as much enjoyment out of this as I am.

Video Game Music Nominated for a Grammy for First Time!

Brian Rubin — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 17:57:09 +0000

Several years ago, a game called Civilization IV was released, and it was amazing. One thing that stuck out to me — and many others — however, was the opening song, called “Baba Yetu” by composer Christopher Tin, which was composed specifically for the game. Later, the song was placed on an album of world music called “Calling All Dawns”.

Well, a couple of days ago, when the Grammy nominations were announced, “Calling All Dawns” received two nominations, one for ‘Best Classical Crossover Album’, and one for ‘Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalists’ for “Baba Yetu” specifically. This is the first time music from a video game has been nominated for a Grammy, as far as I can find, which is pretty monumental. Sure, the song was picked from an album and not from the game, but those of us who know its roots are extremely excited.

If you’ve not heard “Baba Yetu”, head over to Tin’s website and give it a listen. It’s a really amazing piece of music.

Soundtracks That Hold Up Over Many Years

Brian Rubin — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 21:51:56 +0000

This Saturday, in Los Angeles, there will be a midnight showing of “Transformers: The Movie”. No, not the Michael Bay pieces of crap, we’re talking the original 1986 animated film that many people in my generation consider a beloved and seminal piece of work…so of course I’m going. (Thanks to my friend Josh for the tip on the screening, BTW, which you can learn more about here if you’re in LA).

This made me want to listen to the amazing soundtrack that came out at the same time, with songs like “Dare” and “The Touch” by Stan Bush, “The Transformers” by Lion and “Instruments of Destruction” by NRG. This was actually the first album I ever purchased with my own money, and twenty-four (oh my god) years later, even though the music is so, so, SO 1980′s, it still holds up beautifully.

Now does it hold up because it’s part of a cherished childhood memory, or because it’s actually good music? I’m not sure, probably a bit of both. To experiment, I listened to another soundtrack I have on my media player, “Blade Runner” by Vangelis. Now, I love the movie “Blade Runner”. Love, love, love it. But do I love the soundtrack? Kinda. Maybe one has to be in a certain mood to listen to it, but it doesn’t have the same resonance that “Transformers: The Movie” does for me.

Maybe this means that, for a soundtrack to hold up, it’s up to our individual connections to the music? Does the music itself transcend these connections and become timeless? I’m sure these questions have different answers for each individual person, album, and so on, but for something as timely and possibly dated as “Transformers: The Movie”, I’m sure someone else would find it horrifically too 80′s while I just totally love it.

So what about you? What are some soundtracks that, for you, stand up to the test of time and repeat listens regardless of when they were recorded? I’d love to hear your answers in the comments. Thanks for reading.

Library of Congress Alters Digital Millennium Copyright Act

Brian Rubin — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:02:05 +0000

According to an article on Ars Technica entitled, Apple loses big in DRM ruling: jailbreaks are “fair use”, the Library of Congress has added a bevy of new exceptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act altering the way we’re allowed to use much of the digital media and devices we have.

The biggest loser in all of this, of course, is Apple. For a long time, Apple claimed that the process of “jailbreaking” their iPhone was illegal. However, now it’s covered under “fair use,” and therefore can be now done legally. This should make a lot of people who jailbreak their phones really happy. The same is true for Google Android users who wish to “root” their phone legally, though Android phone manufacturers didn’t make as big a stink about it as Apple did.

Other new exemptions apply to DVD’s and ebooks. Now you can legally use portions of a film on DVD if it’s being used for documentary or non-commercial purposes, so maybe we’ll see all those “Downfall” parodies come back to YouTube. Ebooks can now also be hacked to be allowed to be read with a voice synthesizer, where before many complained this would eat into their ebook sales (which is very doubtful).

There are other little tidbits, but those above are the most notable. How long will these exemptions last? That’s something we don’t know, but for now, people should enjoy their new exemptions as much as possible.

Gaming Music For Ya

Brian Rubin — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 22:46:50 +0000

Hey there y’all, hope y’all are well. Busy as hell here at work today, so won’t have much time to post anything (plus my brain is wombly from lack of sleep). I therefore thought I’d share something with ya, the soundtrack to one of my favorite PC games, Interstate ’76, courtest of the awesome music streaming service Grooveshark.

If you’re unaware as to the awesomeness of Interstate ’76, read all about it on Wikipedia or MobyGames.

'Rock of the Dead' Looks to be Made of Awesome

Brian Rubin — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:07:13 +0000

Did you like the classic games “House of the Dead,” or “Typing of the Dead”? How about “Rock Band” or “Guitar Hero”? If so, then there might be just the game for you coming out on the Wii called “Rock of the Dead.” According to the story on 1Up, later this year, “Rock of the Dead” will be released for the Wii, featuring voice actors by Felicia Day and Neil Patric Harris. The game lets you use your Guitar Hero guitar controller to play riffs in order to shoot down zombies. It looks really pretty cool, and since I was a huge “Typing of the Dead” fan, I would love to try this out. This kind of thing might actually make me get a Wii.

"Uncharted 2: Among Thieves" Soundtrack Released Today

Brian Rubin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:43:59 +0000

Okay, I’m something of a soundtrack nut, sue me. However, I’m not just mentioning this one because it’s an ordinary soundtrack, oh no. This soundtrack was composed by none other than Greg Edmonson, the fantastic composer behind the music for Firefly.

Anyway, according to the Playstation Blog, the soundtrack to “Uncharted 2: Among Thieves” — again, composed by Greg Edmonson — is available today on iTunes and Amazon. Even though I’ve yet to play this game, I’m likely gonna get this soundtrack.

Dark Void Soundtracks Released

Brian Rubin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:09:10 +0000

Over on Bear McCreary’s blog — you know, the guy who composed the amazing music to Battlestar Galactica — he’s announced that the soundtracks to Dark Void and Dark Void Zero have been released today. You can get the Dark Void soundtrack over on Amazon, and the Dark Void Zero soundtrack on iTunes for $13.99 and $1.99, respectfully.