A week ago I posted the video for Radiohead’s House Of Cards. A few people asked me if there was a high quality version available. There wasn’t but there is now! The video can be downloaded as a zipped folder containing a Quicktime file.
Download it here: High Quality House Of Cards Video (right click, save as). The original low quality version is below if you haven’t seen it yet.
A collection of free Dubstep mixes from Skream, Skulldisco, Bunzer0, N-Type, Kode9 and many others. This aims to be a definitive list of all the places to get great Dubstep Mixes. If you know of any I haven’t listed (I’m sure there’s loads) add a comment or email me.
Governor Eliot Spitzer’s call girl Ashley Dupre (aka Kristen) is set to make thousands of dollars following her name being revealed on Thursday. Whilst Spitzer has resigned, saying “I go forward with the belief, as others have said, that as human beings our greatest glory consists not in never falling but in rising every time we fall.” Quite how he can rise from this is anyone’s guess.
As The Complete Sound noted Dupre has left her Myspace profile up and her song has been played 2640261 times. The song is available to buy at Amie Street although most people are probably just listening out of curiosity.
New York Magazine says that Ashley Dupre may be featured in Playboy or Penthouse. Diane Silberstein of Penthouse has said that they will offer her a fee of “six figures.” It seems like Dupre is the only winner is all of this, but will her fame last? America seems more than willing to accept people into pop culture who are only famous for their indiscretions (hello Paris!) so she may well be able to capitalize or her fame. I bet she will be a millionaire by this time next year.
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Once again I have another great mix for you to download. This one is by Kanye West to support the realease of the single ‘Can’t tell me nothing’. Features Kanye (obviously) along with Common, Ne-Yo, T-pain and the always excellent Talib Kwel. This is mixed by Plain Pat.
Tracklisting:
01. Kanye West - Friday Morning, May 25th, 2007 (Intro)
02. Kanye West - Stronger (Snippet)
03. CRS (Lupe Fiasco, Kanye West & Pharrell) - Us Placers
04. GLC - I Ain’t Even On Yet 05. Kanye West - Can’t Tell Me Nothing
06. Common feat. Kanye West - Southside (Snippet)
07. Common - The Game
08. Kanye West - Porno (Interlude)
09. 88 Keys feat. Kanye West & Malik Yusef - Stay Up (Snippet)
10. Talib Kweli feat. Kanye West - In The Mood
11. Bentley feat. Pimp C & Lil’ Wayne - C.O.L.O.U.R.S.
12. Kid Sister feat. Kanye West - Pro Nails
13. Kanye West - Young Folks
14. Kanye West - Interviews (Interlude)
15. Common - The People
16. Big Sean - Get’cha Some
17. Consequence - Don’t Forget Em
18. Sa-Ra - White! (On The Floor)
19. Ne-Yo feat. Kanye West - Because Of You (Remix)
20. T-Pain feat. Kanye West - Buy You A Drank (Remix)
21. Kanye West - Throw Some D’s (Interlude)
22. Kanye West - Throw Some D’s (Remix)
23. Tony Williams - Dreaming Of Your Love
24. Really Doe feat. Jennifer Hudson - Magnetic Power
25. PM - Hater Family
Size: 73.3mb
Download the mix from megaupload here.
Here is the video for ‘Can’t tell me nothing’.
Update: This is a .rar file. It needs to be extracted using WinRAR which you can get for free here.
Qtrax, a new service offering unlimited, free downloads from 25-30 million free tracks for download launched at midnight EST last night. Or rather it didn’t launch - the site still does not allow users to download the necessary software, more than six hours after its official launch time passed.
The service which benefits from P2P (peer-to-peer) downloading has reached a deal with the four largest music labels: Universal, Sony, Warner and EMI. The owners of the music will receive money each time one of their tracks is played.
The money to pay the labels will come from advertising revenue. Whist looking for, and downloading music users will be streamed adverts via the Qtrax software.
Upon further research it becomes clear that the service Qtraz offers may well be too good to be true. Most of us who download music from the internet will be aware of the problem of music which is crippled by DRM (Digital Rights Management) software. The software is often attached to legal downloads which prevents users from having as much freedom as if they had downloaded the files illegally. DRM can prevent a track from being copied or played more than a certain number of times and can limit the type of hardware on which the files can be played.
As an example consider this. I payed for and downloaded the third season of Ricky Gervais’ Podcast from Itunes, but due to the file type I am unable to listen to this on my (non-Ipod) mp3 player. If I had illegally downloaded these files I would be able to listen to them away from my computer but as it is I am restricted when it comes to listening to content I payed for!
Tracks downloaded from Qtrax contain DRM software allowing Qtrax to keep tabs on how many times the file is played. The Record labels are payed per-play rather than per-download.
The tracks will not be compatible with Ipods, which will seriously limit the amount of people willing and able to use the service. Ipod integration is due to be launched in March all being well.
A Reuters article of the launch notes “[Qtrax] will also feature music videos, artist documentaries, interviews, album reviews and biographies among other features.” All-in-all this seems like an interesting service but I’m not sure if the DRM will put me off from using it. Hopefully once the launch is successful we will be able to tell if this will become a viable alternative to traditional P2P services.
News.com.au is reporting that three of the big four record labels Qtrax claimed had authorized the use of their music have denied making any deal with the company. This is a major blow for Qtrax and may explain why the site has yet to launch. The site says
Nobody seems content mastering just one medium these day. It has become the norm for actresses to sing, rappers to act and artist tho direct. Most of the time when actors and actresses start making music it turns out to be sub par rubbish which wouldn’t get released if they weren’t famous. Anybody remember keanu reeves’ band dogstar? These three upcoming albums by actresses (one is more of a mix-tape than an actual album) sound like they are going to be worth downloading and maybe even paying for!
Deschanel stared in Almost Famous, Elf and The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. She is going to release an album, called Volume One, as ‘She And Him’ alongside singer/ songwriter M. Ward in March. They met on the set of the forthcoming film The Go Getter. The album will be released on Ward’s record label Merge
Here is a clip of the pair at LA’s Disney Concert Hall:
Mp3: M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel - When I get To The Border Zshare download link
Stream: The Go Getter Myspace page.
Update: recently released track listing:
01 Sentimental Heart
02 Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?
03 This Is Not a Test
04 Change Is Hard
05 I Thought I Saw Your Face Today
06 Take It Back
07 I Was Made for You
08 You Really Got a Hold on Me (Miracles cover)
09 Black Hole
10 Got Me
11 I Should Have Known Better (Beatles cover)
Johansson is due to release an album of Tom Waits covers on May 20th. How on earth she is going to pull this off is anybodies guess, Tom Waits sings about two octaves lower than your average singer and sounds like he drinks whisky for breakfast (in a good way). The album will either be called Scarlett Sings Tom Waits or Anywhere I lay my head depending on who you believe and will be released by Atco (Rhino) records. I haven’t managed to find any clips of Scarlett’s Tom Waits impression and I’m still not convinced this is actually gonna happen.
The album is produced by David Sitek of TV On The Radio and features members of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. No track listing details yet. Its also worth mentioning that Scarlett sang with The Jesus And Mary Chain at Coachella so she clearly has great taste in music. Here a very shakey video of the Coachella performance:
This one is kind of a cheat as its already released and its a compilation but its an excuse to see a photo of Natalie Portman, so stop complaining. Last October Portman curated an album which was released on itunes with all the profits going to FINCA (Foundation for International Community Assistance)
Tracklisting:
1. Be Good (Tokyo Police Club)
2. My Night With the Prostitute From Marseille (Beirut) [exclusive]
3. Plaid Lined Jacket (Tom Brosseau)
4. Tudo Bem Malandro (Curumin)
5. Australia (The Shins - Bjorn Yttling Mix) [exclusive]
6. Ain’t No Reason (Brett Dennen)
7. Turnaroundturnmeon (Sean Hayes)
8. Oh Yes, Another Mother (Thee More Shallows)
9. The Beast (Angus & Julia Stone)
10. Paddy’s Gone (Antony & The Johnsons)
11. Idle Ties (Vetiver)
12. Broken (Norah Jones)
13. There’s Always Something Happening (Devendra Banhart) [exclusive]
14. What Is a Soul? (M. Ward) [exclusive]
15. Forgiveness Figg (Bethany Hotel Blues) (Wooden Wand)
16. How We Landed (Rogue Wave) [exclusive]
A gift from me to you! Or more accurately from Justice to you. Click the link below to download this great mix from the creators of one of the best albums of 2007 (reviews)
The story goes thus: crazy Parisian electro duo Justice where asked by Fabric to create a mix to be released as part of their ongoing Fabriclive series. They did this but the mix was rejected (god knows why) so they leaked it onto the interwebs as an xmas gift to their fans. As you can see by the tracklisting its not really a christmas mix as such, so don’t be put off by thoughts of hastily added sleigh bell sound effects.
Track Listing:
01 Sparks – Tryouts For The Human Race – Virgin
02 Rondo Veneziano – La Serenissima - Universal
03 Goblin – Tenebrae - Cinevox
04 Daft Punk – Ouverture - Virgin
05 Surkin – Next Of Kin – Institubes
06 SymbolOne – Love Juice - SymbolOne
07 Korgis – Everybodys Gotta Learn Sometimes – Angel Air
08 Midnight Juggernauts – Ending Of An Era – Mindight Juggernauts
09 The Paradise Ft Romauld – In Love With You – Vulture
10 Justice – TTHHEE PPAARRTTYY (Acapella) – Ed Banger
11 Chic – Everybody Dance – Atlantic
12 Frankie Valli – Who Loves You – Warners
13 Das Pop – Underground – Das Pop
14 Julien Clerc – Quand Je Joue – EMI
15 Daniel Balavoine – Vivre Ou Survivre – Barclay
16 Richard Sanderson – Reality - Barclay
17 Zoot Woman – Grey Day – Wall Of Sound
18 Fucking Champs – Thor Is Like Immortal – Drag City
19 The Rave – Mother – The Rave
20 Fancy – You Never Know - Fancy
21 Frank Stallone – Far From Over - Universal
22 Sheila – Misery – Warners
23 Todd Rundgren – International Feel - Warners
Zshare link (If this stops working a quick google search should find you another link!)
If you haven’t heard Justice yet here’s a taster:
Pixenate allows you to edit your photos online. Its useful when you don’t have access to photo editing software. I use it when I’m at work so that I don’t have to wait until i get home (where I use Photoshop). It’s quick and easy and doesn’t have lots of ‘advanced features’ which you need to register to use like a lot of other online photo editors. It is simple to use, simply upload your image from your computer, edit it using the menu (see below) which is quite straight-forward. Once you have, for instance, cropped your image and corrected the density, you just download the image back to your computer.
Fat Fingers is a site which helps you to find ebay bargains. Many actions go almost unnoticed because the seller has mistyped the name of the item they are selling. When you type what you are looking for into Fat Fingers it performs a search on ebay for lots of possible misspellings, allowing you to find items others may not have! Less competition = lowers prices.
Kwout Allows you to grab a screen shot of any website to display on your blog, just like I have here. See the quote of Kwout below! You type in the address of the site you wish to quote, choose an area to show and Kwout outputs the code you need. This is much more straight forward than cutting down a screenshot then hosting it yourself.
This site is perhaps more interesting than useful. It allows you to pick a colour (see menu below) then displays images from Flickr which feature predominantly that colour. The images are creative commons licensed so this site is helpful if you are looking for an image to use which will match a particular colour scheme. It is also an interesing way to browse images as you never really know what you are going to find.
Flickr Color Selectr via kwout
Skreemr searches blogs for free to download or stream mp3s. Simply type in the artist you are looking for and Skreemr presents you with a list of tracks to choose from. There is also an advanced search function but that never seems to work! The site gives you information about the files including the bitrate, this saves you from downloading an mp3 then discovering it is of a poor audio quality. This site is quicker and simpler than searching through sites like Last Fm for streaming tracks because of its simple design and lack of other features.
Pretty straight forward this one: like google image search but for album (and DVD) artwork. Better than google image search as it takes you directly to the image.
Vector Magic lets you upload an image from your computer then turn it into a vector. A vector graphic can be re-sized without any loss of quality. As an example, if you blow up a jpeg you can see the pixels and the image becomes distorted but this isn’t a problem with a vector. This tool is also useful to add a cartoon style effect to your images or avatars.
Disorganized? forever writing lists then misplacing them? You need Remember The Milk! (do I sound like an infomercial yet?!) It lets you set reminders and create to-do-lists which you can access from anywhere (again this tool is useful for those of us who work at a computer). You can also use RTM offline and it will update when you reconnect.
Dynamic Drive has hundreds of free DHTML scripts to liven-up your website! They describe DHTML as ‘an advanced form of JavaScript.’ In practice this means you can add floating menus, thumbnail viewers and other such widgets to your site. You can even make it look like it’s snowing on your site, which is useful if you are trying to create the worlds most annoying webpage.
A mine of information on Mortgages, car insurance store cards and stoozing (earning interest on money borrowed on interest free credit card deals). This site is worth visiting before making any kind of important financial decision to find out the truth behind all the jargon banks and large companies try to bewilder us with. Also worth a mention is the forum as some of the people who post actually work for the companies being discussed which means you can find out the best offers you might not be offered (if that makes any sense).
