Amazon has been selling Mp3s for several years now, at competitive rates compared to iTunes. Up until now, when you purchased an Mp3, downloading the file to your computer was the only delivery option. Now, when you purchase music from Amazon, the songs are automatically added to your Cloud Player. What’s nice is that you can listen to your music on any computer (via the browser) or on your mobile device. In other words, you can stream your music on your cell phone, such as the Android, using The Cloud Player mobile application.

So is the Cloud Player limited to Mp3s you purchase through Amazon? No. Amazon gives you 5gb of space to upload files for free (the Cloud Player and Cloud Drive share the same account, thus uploading Mp3s takes away from the total space you have available). If you purchase an Mp3 album, Amazon will give you 20gb of space for the next 12 months. If you need more than 20gb, you can upgrade your storage space, priced at $1 per 1gb per year. So a 50gb account is $50/year. Unlike Amazon’s S3 service, you are not charged for bandwidth usage.

Ultimately, the purpose of the Cloud Player is to persuade you to purchase music. At this point there are no floating ads or banners, but Amazon does give you an incentive to purchase music through them. When you buy an Mp3, the file size of the Mp3 you purchase does not count against your storage. So if you buy an Mp3 album on Amazon, the Mp3s are added to your Cloud Player (you can download them at any time), but Amazon doesn’t count the purchased Mp3s as taking up storage space. Why is that? Because Amazon is simply giving you access to files that already exist on their servers.

How does the Cloud Player fit in line with the access versus ownership debate? The answer is it fits nicely in the center. You are given space to store files you already own (similar to Mp3.com’s locker in the late `90s), but you are also given access to these files on any device.

I must admit, the Amazon Cloud Player took me by surprise.

Related Posts:

• September 11, 2010 — Implications of Arcade Fire’s Interact Short Film: The Wilderness Downtown
• April 30, 2010 — Apple Turns the Lights off Lala
• December 5, 2009 — Five reasons why Apple wants Lala
• June 2, 2009 — The Beatles: Rock Band will land on 09.09.09
• May 29, 2009 — Google Wave: how will it affect music?
• August 6, 2008 — Amie Street: not the typical digital store
• July 31, 2008 — Using The Last(.fm) Music Map

Sleeping Bag

Sleeping Bag encompasses a raw and edgy sound that harkens back Starflyer‘s Silver album in the early `90s, with a power pop sound that takes me back to Weezer‘s Blue album. During Sleeping Bag’s live set, Dave Segedy is backed by David Woodruff (Kentucky Nightmare, The Delicious) and Lewis Rogers (Busman’s Holiday), both seasoned local artists.

Dave Segedy is commonly seen backing regional bands on drums, and has been since his run with Arrah and the Ferns. He’s currently performing in two bands, Native Young and Prayer Breakfast. Sleeping Bag has been a new experience for him as this is the first time he has stepped from behind the drum kit. Outside of music, Dave Segedy is an art student at Indiana University.

“Unaccustomed to melodic instruments, he relied on pop instinct, simply writing and recording what he wanted to listen to. He focused on efficiency and the interaction of the songs.”

In November of 2010, Sleeping Bag released a split EP with Vollmar. Segedy tracked the songs with Mike Dixon, who also backed him up on pedal steel.

Sleeping Bag will be releasing a seven song EP called Adams Demos in early 2011. The EP was tracked by Mike Adams (Husband & Wife) and will be released on Mike’s label, Crossroads of America Records. The EP will be released on cassette tape (and digitally), so dust off your players! So far, we know that the tracklist for Adams Demos will be:
Ur Rume
EST
Knife Fight
Rental
Scone Zone
No Drums
Desker

You can find Sleeping Bag performing:
Jan. 28 @ The Bishop
Feb. 26 @ The Video Saloon with Say Hi
Mar. 10 @ The Bishop with Arrah & The Ferns

Related Posts:

• March 5, 2010 — Landlocked Music and Russian Recording: It Happened Here
• October 16, 2010 — Husband and Wife: Proud Flesh, and a Mike Adams solo album
• September 26, 2010 — Bro. Stephen releases EP and embarks on tour
• September 14, 2010 — J. Tillman: Singing Ax
• January 22, 2010 — Husband&Wife: Don’t Stop zero inch
• November 3, 2009 — Frank Schweikhardt: Life But No More
• February 5, 2009 — Husband and Wife: Dark Dark Woods

Neil Young – Harvest
My emotions swell when I hear Neil Young singing about packing it in and buying a pickup to take it down to Los Angeles, to find a place to call his own. That “lonely boy out on the weekend, trying to make it pay,” is such a relevant lyric for today’s economically struggling youth. I find the stripped-down nature of Harvest to be such a refreshing album to pull up. It’s one that makes me tear up as the slide guitar weeps with Neil. 39 years later, Harvest is at the top of my list of astonishing albums. “It keeps me searching for a heart of gold. I’m getting old.”

Neil Young – Out On The Weekend

Miles Davis Quintet – Workin’, Cookin’, Relaxin’, Steamin’
During a two day recording session, the Miles Davis Quintet recorded twenty-four songs that would be broken down into four albums:Workin’, Cookin’, Relaxin’, Steamin’. The albums were slowly released over several years, but taken as a whole they add up to 2.5 hours of some of the best recordings in jazz. Miles Davis Quintet was comprised of unknown artists, who would each become heavy hitters in jazz: John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones.

Their rendition of My Funny Valentine is astonishing (it has since appeared on 1,300 albums). Their take on the classic song It Never Entered My Mind is one of the most melancholic and stirring recordings I’ve heard. I find these four albums to be relevant because it reflects the abundance of music and creativity we’re seeing today. They’re inspiring for artists that wish to record frequently. Since more and more artists have recording studios in their basements, they’re capable of tracking more often, and release numerous albums each year. I find these albums to be relevant because of the increased opportunities to record.

Miles Davis Quintet – It Never Entered My Mind

Bob Dylan – The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan
When Bob Dylan recorded The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan in 1963, it was his second album with Columbia Records. While his debut album only sold 5,000 copies, and Columbia considered dropping Dylan, he was still an unknown artist in 1963. Under pressure to record a successful album, the twenty-two year old was writing his own songs and was developing into one of the most influential singer-songwriters of all time. With this album Dylan began to venture into writing ‘protest music,’ and toured with Joan Baez to support the civil rights movement. His appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival catapulted his career, crowning him as ‘the voice of his generation.’ The songs in The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan are still relevant as they address issues such as nuclear warfare, racial discrimination, and corrupt politics… issues that still plague us 47 years later.

Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan opens with Blowin’ In The Wind, a song that asks questions that few were willing to voice in `63. Dylan asks, “How many years must some people exist before they’re allowed to be free,” and, “How many ears must one man have before he can hear people cry?” When Dylan wrote the these songs, the protest movement had not yet taken root, but in 1964 25,000 people marched on Washington DC in protest of the Vietnam War. He would sing this song on the stage when Martin Luther King would deliver his famous, “I have a dream” speech. Dylan’s message was a catalyst in the anti-war and civil rights movements, but he would walk away from three years later. I find all of this to be relevant today as protests take root across Europe, and people are becoming vocal in the United States. Just as in today’s society where the US government has kept us in perpetual war, Dylan wrote, “You that never done nothing’ but build to destroy. You play with my world like it’s your little toy.” These songs are just as relevant today as they were when they were penned.

Bob Dylan – Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right

Van Morrison – Moondance
Van Morrison is one of my favorite artists, and Moondance is one of his masterpiece albums. It is a timeless album that has become very personal to me. The songs are reflective and hopeful, and have caught me in moments of retrospect. Van Morrison reflects on his childhood in the opening track, And It Stoned Me, and his relationship with his wife in others. The depth of Into the Mystic has kept me mesmerized in late nights.

Brand New Day is a song of hope after being deeply disappointed:

“I’ve been lost and double crossed, with my hands behind my back. I was longtime hurt and thrown in the dirt, shoved out on the railroad track. I’ve been used, abused and so confused, and I had nowhere to run. But I stood and looked and my eyes got hooked on that beautiful morning sun.”

Van Morrison – Into the Mystic

What were some classic albums you listened to in 2010?

Related Posts:

• November 4, 2008 — Puddlegum is back
• September 24, 2010 — Bob Dylan to release The Original Mono Records and The Witmark Demos
• March 31, 2010 — An Unintended Vacation
• January 28, 2010 — Steve Jobs’ Ballad of a Thin Man
• March 30, 2009 — Bob Dylan: Beyond Here Lies Nothin’
• August 21, 2008 — Bob Dylan: in person

Soft Landing – Baptism

Due to the band’s side project, a lot of people are wondering about Beirut‘s next album. We were curious and contacted Beirut’s record label, Ba Da Bing, asking them if Beirut was recording. This was their response:

“Indeed, the band is recording. Basically, Zach [Condon] is going back and forth between doing recording sessions in a studio with the whole band, then taking the materials back home and editing them as well as working on vocals. He wants to take the rest of the year to make sure it’s all up to snuff, so there will definitely be a Beirut record next year, but not sure when yet!”

Beirut began as Zach Condon’s project. His story has taken a legendary status, of a teenage kid from Santa Fe, New Mexico escaping to Europe. During his travels he hears a Balkan Gypsy band perform in a bar and falls in love. He spends his time learning about Balkan folk music and returns to the United States. He then records with Jeremy Barnes (Neutral Milk Hotel, A Hawk and a Hacksaw), the two of them performing numerous instruments. The debut album, Gulag Orkestar, blows up around the world and Zach Condon, only twenty years old at this time, finds himself touring the world.

The new Beirut album will be their fourth full-length, following the double-disc March of the Zapotec. Condon now has a dedicated band of musicians, which include Paul Collins, Perrin Cloutier, and Mike Lawless… of Soft Landing.

Related Posts:

• November 8, 2008 — Alaska in Winter releases Holiday
• May 29, 2009 — Singing through the wire…
• May 27, 2009 — A Hawk And A Hacksaw: Housle (Prague, CZ)
• November 13, 2008 — Zach Condon of Beirut to release dual EP

I was first introduced to The Innocence Mission around 1997. But this point they had already been a band for 12 years, with three full-lengths that had been released on A&M Records. The more I listened to them, the more personal they became to me, echoing deep inside. They became that band that I would listen to when I was in mood for deep introspection. And it was a mix of their songs that I chose to have playing in the hospital room when my first child was born.

I have always felt like I was stepping back in time fifty years when I listened to The Innocence Mission. It wasn’t because their sound was reminiscent of the `40s or `50s. Instead, it was the ethos of the songwriting that made me envision old photographs. It was as if their songs harkened back to a simpler time, as Karen Peris reflected on friendships and conversations.

The Innocence Mission’s music still strikes me that way, thirteen years later. As I’m listening to My Room In The Trees, I’m whisked away to a time of simplicity. Black and white photographs still fill my mind when Karen reflects on a conversation she once had, and her husband, Don Peris, noodles his melodies on guitar.

Still, after forming 25 years ago, The Innocence Mission is writing incredible songs that have a timeless quality. My Room In The Trees carries on their commitment to writing personal and beautiful songs. If you’re new to the band, this is a perfect album to be get to know them.

The Innocence Mission – God Is Love

Related Posts:

• November 17, 2008 — The Innocence Mission to release Street Map EP
• May 22, 2009 — I never wrote a letter to my home…