As our connection to the web gets increasingly fast, coupled with faster processors, the possibility to stream video and audio becomes easier. In the early days of the web (yes, we’re arguably still in the early days) it was crucial to keep your website’s page size down. You would do this by compressing photos and images into smaller files so people with dialup wouldn’t grow impatient when they visited your website. Now, page size isn’t such an issue, and websites are growing in size. Along with this, video and audio quality is streaming at higher qualities around the web.

Because of this, the concept of moving your music collection to the cloud is a reality, and a growing number of people are beginning to realize this. Lala’s unique visitors in October 2008, according to Compete, was 173,457. In October, 2009, this number increased to 546,075 unique visitors. It’s our speculation that the November statistics will reveal an even more dramatic jump in unique visitors.

More people are visiting Pandora and Last.fm to stream music. Last.fm’s October, 2008, unique visitors numbered 1,832,899, compared to 3,158,218 in October, 2009. How has Pandora fared? Pandora had 2,362,735 unique visitors in October, 2008, and 4,780,684 a year later.

Compete’s site rankings also show that music accessing service sites are gaining ground. Lala was ranked #10,073 in October, 2008, and rose to #3,562 in 12 months. Pandora jumped from #563 to #275, and Last.fm climbed from #752 to #465.

As Google continues to promote Lala through music related searches, we’ll most likely see a steep rise in the number of Lala users. None of this would have been possible ten years ago, let alone five years ago. But because of technological advances, streaming our music collections over the web is beginning to grow on a massive scale.

Note: We would also compare Spotify, but since users stream music from their application, looking at their website statistics wouldn’t reveal their growing popularity. Also, as a reader pointed out, these statistics reflect the US, since Lala and Pandora are only available in the US, as well as Google’s music search results.

Though it’s a little dated, for more info about speed and traffic stats, visit this site.

Shout Out Louds posted a video for Walls from their upcoming album, Work. The video is mostly footage of this Swedish band recording the song in Seattle with Phil Ek (Band of Horses, The Shins, Fleet Foxes). The mp3 for Walls has also been released, so download and share! Work is set to be released via Merge Records on February 23rd, 2010.

Shout Out Louds – Walls

Shout Out Louds – Walls on Vimeo

There are times as a music blogger when I wish I could flip a switch and bring everyone’s attention to a band that I think the music blogging world should be aware of. Peter Wolf Crier sparks this emotion in me.

You may remember reading about a Minneapolis band called The Wars of 1812 that I wrote about two years ago. Since our initial post about The Wars of 1812, the band recorded an album with Justin and Nate Vernon of Bon Iver, breaking up not long after.

Peter Pisano of The Wars of 1812 began writing and recording an album with Brian Moen of The Shouting Matches (a band that Justin Vernon is in). The result of Peter’s work with Brian is a band called Peter Wolf Crier.

Peter Wolf Crier’s debut album, Inter-Be, is an album I immediately felt connected to. Vocals seem to be fed through guitar amps to give it an edge to these folksy songs. The guitars have a slight fuzzy sound as they lay a backdrop with dark images. It has a raw feel, yet not at the expense of quality.

Working with Jeremey Catterton, a theater director, Peter Wolf Crier performed the album for three weeks in a rented house in St. Paul. Together they put together a “movement based abstract work,” moving the performance to different rooms of the house every night. (3-Minute Egg)

If you read Puddlegum and other music blogs, you probably share an obsession with music. You want to know about artists before other people, and you want to be familiar with all the influential artists that shape today’s music. Am I right?

As much as I’m listening to current music, I’m in a constant back peddling motion, looking over my shoulder, searching for an artist in the past that I either overlooked or wasn’t aware of. I find many artists from the past to be relevant today, both musically, artistically, and lyrically. I might linger on an artist for several months, soaking in their albums from their debut to their last, gaining a deeper perspective on not only the artist but on culture. The artist’s “essential collections” discs don’t suffice; I need to hear the songs in the context of their album. Yes, I feel like I’m cheating when I pick up an “essentials” disc.

Because of this, the “year” column in a music player, such as iTunes, is very important to me. I’ll create smart lists of a specific year, so I can listen to music from that twelve month span (scanning the headline of that year also brings insight).

One thing that bothers me though, is that we only catalogue the year the album was released, instead of the year the song was recorded. In a perfect world, we would keep track of both years, because the song may have been tracked a year or two before it was released.

There’s another reason why the year column isn’t always accurate. The album may have been remastered or re-released as part of a collection, bearing the year the album hit the shelves rather than the year it was originally released. This bothers me enough that I’ll do a little research to find out when it was actually released.

Admitting all of this, I understand that the average people isn’t as obsessed with music as we are. We would probably find that the average person rarely looks at the year column, unless they were debating about whether a given song hit the radio during their junior or senior year in high school.

Two weeks ago Twitter revealed Twitter Lists. You can now create a list of people on Twitter and then share the list with the world. By following a list you are able to follow the status updates of those on the list without having to follow them individually. This is great way to track 140 character blips, and thus aid in the distribution of information and media.

I thought I would highlight eleven music blog lists that follow over 50 bloggers and writers, and I highly encourage you to follow them (and retweet):

• http://twitter.com/ShawnMSmith/musicblog
• http://twitter.com/hopw/music-blogs
• http://twitter.com/TartyTart/musicfreaks
• http://twitter.com/screwlabels/musicblogs
• http://twitter.com/jinners/blogga
• http://twitter.com/elbows/blogs
• http://twitter.com/musicisart/music-blogs
• http://twitter.com/knoxroad/musicblogs
• http://twitter.com/AdamExport/music-blogs
• http://twitter.com/Ockumsrazor1/media

For the love of Twitter

When the creators of Twitter unleashed their status-driven network, I’m curious if they had any suspicion that it would break into the top ten websites on the internet. It has been interesting to watch the site develop, and the hundreds of third party applications and websites that have spawned from this businesses that still has not unveiled a business plan.

Check out any major news site and you’re bound to see Twitter mentioned in the day’s top stories. So why would a social networking site that centers around status updates develop into such a massive website and attract more than 20,000,000 unique visits each month?

The answer is 140.

140 characters is all you need to pass on a headline and a shortened link, or your reaction to the headline. It’s all you need to squeeze in a song title, a comment about the song, plus a shortened link. It’s all you need to sneak photos or images out of a political hotbed (think Iran).

140 is vox pop.

Twitter has become ‘vox pop,’ or the voice of the people. Journalists love to quote the man on the street, and Twitter has become the man on the street… the reaction of the common person. Journalists increasingly quote tweets as ‘vox pop,’ or citing the reaction on Twitter as they write about an event.

If you’re curious what people are talking about at a given moment, take a look at Trendsmap. It ties in trending Twitter topics with a Google Map. As I’m writing this article on a late Saturday night, North America is tweeting about sports. But when you look at the regions, you’ll find that the Midwest is talking about OSU going to the Rose Bowl, the East and West Coast talking about boxing, and Canadians talking about hockey.

140 is about quick distribution.

Twitter is great about distributing news stories, reactions to sports, response to things happening at a given moment (such as an earthquake). When someone influential tweets something, dozens of his followers retweet it, and the message spreads. You see this happen as people pass on a sensational news story… and the response in Twitter sometimes cycles back into the major news story coverage. You also find Twitter reacting to shows on television, turning it into a community experience.

140 and music

How could Twitter be used as a music distributor? Besides tweeting about artists you’re listening to, watching perform, or enjoying, Twitter can be a great way to share music. Whether you’re tweeting a song from Lala, or sharing a link to drop.io, if a person with enough Twitter influence retweets your music, you can maximize on Twitter as a quick distributor. It can also be a great way to distribute information about an artist. Set up your blog with ping.fm and you can automatically tweet your posts and keep track of the shortened ping.fm statistics to see how many your link is spreading virally on Twitter.

One thing to keep in mind when approaching Twitter as a quick distributor is to understand that everything on Twitter has a short life. Your hope should be that blogs pick up on the blip and write about it. Yet Twitter is ideal for initial exposure.

Wolf People signed to Secretly Canadian this week, and we’ve been teased with a track from their upcoming album in 2010. We’ll make room for one more wolf band.

Neon Indian is the solo work of Alan Palomo, and this is the opening track from the recently released Psychic Chasms. I played this song on my radio show, and I must warn you: it will stick in your head.

Western Digital was kind enough to give us a pre-release of Sleep Whale’s full length debut, Houseboat. Cotton Curls will give you a great glimpse at this anticipated released.

DM Stith is releasing his final disc of the BMB trilogy. I Heart Wig is the closing track, featuring label mates I Heart Lung.

Wolf People – October Fires
Neon Indian – Deadbeat Summer
Sleep Whale – Cotton Curls
DM Stith – I Heart Wig (featuring I Heart Lung)

Myspace is broken
Think about it, in order to customize the look and feel of a Myspace page, you have to break the CSS. What you have are millions of Myspace pages with horrible backgrounds and floating text that is difficult to read, filled with comments from fake friends. In order for Myspace to continue to improve they would have to break a high majority of Myspace pages (that ironically have broken Myspace code). While they might change the back-end of Myspace and try to imitate Twitter and Facebook features, the front-end of Myspace cannot grow with the web.

Your audience has moved on
Statistically speaking, the Myspace crowd is drifting to other social networking sites (see chart). If the crowd you’re looking to attract no longer uses Myspace then relying completely on one website could be a mistake. The best thing you can do is pay attention to the trending networking sites and create a page. Most of them allow you to import from an RSS feed, so if you have a blog you’ll be able to update all of your sites from your blog. It might require copy/pasting info several times, but it’s worth it if more people are reached.

I can’t find your email address
As I’m researching a band, I may want to contact you. But since Myspace doesn’t ask for it, a lot of bands neglect to post their email address. Maybe it’s fear of spam, I’m not sure, but one of the first things you want people to find (besides your music) is a way to get in touch. If someone in the music industry wanted to get ahold of you, they would have to open a Myspace account just to say hello.

Yourband.com [usually] looks more professional
Talk to your closest geek friend and ask them to set up a simple site for your band. You’ll need to buy a domain name and rent server space, but it’s worth it. Since the website is your tool to communicate with your listeners, you can set up a Wordpress blog, pick out a free theme, and add your touch. At the very least, you can point people to various places on the internet where they can find you, but make sure you offer an email address!

The perception of Myspace is very poor
An important part of developing a fan-base is branding. When you solely rely on Myspace, you have instantly branded yourself with the perceptions that people have of Myspace… which are dirty old men posing as young girls. Ask people on the street what they think of Myspace and you’re bound to hear people respond with, “Myspace is gross.” Unless you want to brand your band as being “dirty” and “gross,” then using Myspace as your sole website is a bad idea.

Conclusion?
I’m not suggesting that you should delete your Myspace page. But please, think of it as one of many supplements to your main website. It’s one of many ways to connect with fans, but it shouldn’t be your only avenue.

As I have been sifting through stacks of local artists in Bloomington, I was taken aback when I heard E.P. Hall’s new album. Opening with the caw of a crow, Mommy Crow is a compelling twelve track that deserves the attention of listeners who enjoy thoughtful music. E.P. Hall is predominately the work of Elise Percy and Andy Goheen of Sticky and the Bees (Andy books shows at The Bishop). An acoustic album, Mommy Crow rests on Elise’s vocals that ruminate on each word and cut through to the soul.

Having released her first demo EP in 2006, Elise Percy admits that her studies for a P.H. D in sciences at Indiana University have slowed her down from her musical journey… until now. As her bio points out, her “preoccupation with philosophy and psychological science,” is evident from, “symbols, word games, and a tangible emotional intensity.”

Mommy Crow is a pensive folk album that mixes in strings, story book narratives, and various sounds such as the wind. The acoustic guitar carries the listener through the album, as though one were walking along, leafing through the pages of Mommy Crow.

Mommy Crow is being released in the UK and Europe via IFF-Transponder on November 24th, and E.P. Hall is having a CD release party three days earlier at The Bishop. She will then embark on a lengthy tour immediately after the release party, staying on the road well into the spring months while touring the US and Canada. In March, E.P. Hall will tour Europe with Drekka (BlueSanct), returning to the US in April, 2010.

E.P. Hall – The Emperor’s Note (mp3)

E.P. Hall’s website (also on Myspace)
Pre-order Mommy Crow at IFF Transponder

(Originally posted on Sound in Bloom.)

(more…)

Since I haven’t had a lot of time to blog quality posts lately, I thought I’d at least tie you over with some new music (cleared for posting, of course). While I have been working on things in the background, I feel bad that you’ve been staring at my blog anxiously waiting for more music.

I’ll call this the Late Autumn Mix…

The Bravery – Spectator
Golden Shoulders – Mountain
El Perro Del Mar – Change of Heart
The Swimmers – Shelter

Note: I’ll most likely follow up with more info on a few of these artists.
P.S. – Let me know if you dig random lists of mp3s.

Grizzly Bear has a new video for Ready, Able from their latest album Veckatimest. The video is set in a stop-motion with claymation creatures, directed by Allison Schulnik. It’s always interesting when directors mix types of animation together, and Allison does it well!

YouTube - Grizzly Bear – Ready, Able