Allmusic.com - Release Dates, Reviews, Track Listings and Discographies. Billboard Online - Trade magazine of the music industry featuring several internationally recognized record charts. Fact Magazine - UK based independent music review site with lots of great interviews and features. NPR Music - A staff favorite, with a plethora of well-written reviews, interviews, podcasts, and more. Tunefind - An index of music and songs appearing in popular TV shows and movies. Not comprehensive, but certainly accurate.
Discover New Music
Every Noise at Once - A one-page map of playable audio samples for more than 1500 music genres, from dance pop to bossa nova to black metal to Turkish new wave to swamp blues to deep opera. Prepare to kill an hour or more with this exhaustive and comprehensive interactive site. Gnoosic- A search engine for music, featuring a mapping system to locate music that is closely (or remotely) related to the artists you love. Music Ninja - A unique music review website, that has dozens of playlists covering all genres and moods. Noon Pacific - A playlist of music from hundreds of music blogs, hand-picked and delivered to your e-mail inbox every week.
Music in Film
Music makes a pretty compelling subject for a film, and our streaming movie database Kanopy has hundreds of music-related features for you to enjoy. Whether it’s a cradle-to-grave story biopic about a famous musician, or an enlightening documentary about a specific music scene, or simply a film with a killer soundtrack, Kanopy has you covered. You can access Kanopy through a variety of devices and platforms, and you get 10 play credits per month. Click here to peruse the music films available and stream (and listen to) a great movie today!
Listen to Music Online
Pandora - Free, personalized music that plays music according to what you love. Bandcamp - Discover amazing new music and directly support the artists who make it. Spotify - Free music, for tablets, smart phones, or computers. Slacker Radio - Hundreds of stations, adapted to your personal taste.
Freegal Pick of the Week
Are you using Freegal? How can you call yourself a music fan and not be using this excellent service that gives you five songs per week – absolutely free that you can keep forever. There are thousands of songs from popular artists (AC/DC, Pink Floyd, Michael Jackson, Miles Davis, Johnny Cash) and tons of new & upcoming bands and musicians to enjoy. Speaking of new stuff, Miranda Lambert's playful new LP Wildcardis here, as well as Bruce Springsteen's Western Stars, the soundtrack to the new biopic about him, and of course, the new EP from Lil Nas X featuring the ubiquitous "Old Town Road". Whatever your taste, Freegal is perfect for any music fan.
This week's pick: Various Artists – Cumbia Beat Vol. 1: Experimental Guitar-Driven Tropical Sounds From Perú 1966/1976 During the prolonged summer here in the Arizona low desert, I share the local tendency to yearn for cooler weather, yet once it finally arrives, music emblematic of warmer climes (Afro-Latino, Caribbean-Tropical) quickly returns to the listening rotation. Spurred by hearing the stunning “Guajira Sicodélica” by Los Destellos (included on this collection), the recent tilt away from the sun has brought about an extended exploration into Peruvian Cumbia Beat (aka chicha). The effervescent folk melodies interwoven through the constantly shifting syncopated rhythms leads to a sound that is at once dashing, dexterous, and hypnotic. The vast majority of this music is instrumental and guitar-centric, prompting many in Northern Hemisphere to instantly note the prominent Southern California surf, Spaghetti Western, and British Invasion influences. Equally important are the unbridled percussive patterns lent from Columbian cumbia and Afro-Cuban rhythms that make these sounds crack, whack, and gallop along with the dashing folk melodies imbued with Peru’s Coastal, Amazonian, and Andean influences. To top things off, these ground shaking groups incorporated the entire spectrum of emerging guitar effects of the innovative era. Some standouts like the merengue-tinged “Cabalgando Con Ella” by Los Mirlos and the coiling “Captura De Lobos” from Los Orientales De Paramonga employ the watery guitar effect like some sort of tropical Vinnie Bell, while the songs which try to approximate the overdone Santana sound are not as absorbing. Down the line, Los Átomos De Paramonga’s “El Trencito” is an example of the melodic ‘60s pop sensibility running through these songs that perform double-duty as floor-filling dance music. An unexpected and twangy cover of the Beatles’ “I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party” (simply translated as “Aquí en la Fiesta”) shows up near the end in full-on dusty Bakersfield/Buckaroos regalia. Overall, these appealing and adventurous Peruvian sounds reach new sonic plateaus suspended somewhere between the lush rainforests, the steep-edges of the Andes, and the vast Pacific Ocean. –Ted, Downtown
