There are few things in this world that I love more than music… and that’s why I truly enjoy the site Pandora. Pandora is a musical and scientific marvel; it is an extremely intuitive and free automated music recommendation and Internet radio service created by the Music Genome Project. If you’re tired of the same ol’ stale FM radio dial then Pandora is the place for you. This amazing service will introduce you to hundreds of musical acts you’ll love even though you have no clue who they are.

The Music Genome Project uses 400 distinct attributes and 2,000 focus traits to scientifically and mathematically break songs down… so it recommends similar sounds and tempos to you on the next play. You simply enter a song or artist into the Pandora player and it creates a channel for that artist or song. From there it automatically starts playing a song which you can give thumbs up or thumbs down… and it works its magic from there.

Pandora recently released along with the launch of the new iPhone 3G a mobile application that allows you to stream music directly to your phone. This service is also free and is currently compatible with the Sprint and AT&T mobile networks… although you can use it with just about any cell phone with a data plan if you know where to look. I haven’t had a chance to try it out on my phone as of yet but from what I’ve read the Pandora iPhone application is great.

Nothing in life is free, so what’s the catch? Thankfully there really isn’t a catch. The service is free but does have ads that rotate every time you vote for a song. The player also links directly to Amazon and iTunes profiles where you can purchase the track being played, but other than that it is free. You don’t even have to create a profile, but if you do you can share your stations with your friends and vice versa.

Pandora has made my daily music listening habits extremely easy. I no longer have to carry around a ton of songs on my iPhone, or a thumb or portable drive full of tunes. I can simply log onto Pandora, hit play and have fresh music the entire work day… you can’t beat that. I’ve tried similar services like Last.fm in the past but they don’t hold a stick with the excellent recommendation services that Pandora offers.

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails just can’t be stopped. When you think he’s done everything an artist can do promote digital distribution and give a giant middle finger to the record labels he blows your mind again. Nine Inch Nails Lights in the Sky Tour Sampler was released yesterday via digital download from www.nin.com. It has been a busy time for Nine Inch Nails, in the past three months Trent and company have accomplished the following:

• Released a 4 disk 36 track instrumental album. 9 tracks were released completely free via BitTorrent. He also offered a digital download of the entire set for only $5.00. A download and physical CD for $10.00, a special edition including a picture book for $75.00 and a signed limited edition for $300.
• Released the single Discipline to radio stations just hours after it was mastered.
• Released the single Discipline along with Echoplex directly to fans for a free download.
• Released a new 10 track album "The Slip" for absolutely free in MP3 and high quality formats. This one was "on him."
• Purchased a large amount of tickets from each of his tour stops to release a pre-sale to keep the best tickets out of the hands of scalpers and in the hands of true fans.
• Releases a free 5 track sampler album of all acts opening for Nine Inch Nails on tour this summer… dubbed "Lights in the Sky." Trent also released a download of more HD 1080p Wallpapers with the release, see below for a preview.

It’s a great time to be a fan of Nine Inch Nails… for nearly a decade Trent would come out with new material every 4-5 years and now without being under the lock and key of a record label it looks like we may have new material 4-5 times a year. Below is a preview of the wallpapers that you can download here.

Getting to the point… the Deluxe Edition came with an Blu-ray disc loaded with extra’s, including a slideshow of images that play to the music; a different image for each track. These images are also embedded into the MP3 files from the digital download but the ones on the Blu-ray disk are like the ones in the printed book, in their full 1920×1080p glory. At an average size of about 1.25Mb each in the JPEG format the images are massive in size and could easily eat up bandwidth. So, I’m sharing three of my favorites below and will be sending you off-site to download the entire 38 packed in a RAR file via SendSpace. These make amazing wallpapers for any widescreen monitor and can easily be cropped down for a standard 4:3 monitor if you’re still stuck in 2001.

If you look closely you may see a few of those images incorporated in this site’s header area… hey, they are released under the Creative Commons License after all! Thanks again Trent and company. Click the images below for the full size, just remember to give them a moment to load.

UPDATE: The SendSpace link is down so I’ve uploaded a dedicated copy of the file HERE (right click, save target as).

Trent has taken it upon himself and officially thrown a cog into the greed machine that is the recording industry of America and all while showing the boys of Radiohead just how it should be done. Luckily for his rabid fans Reznor is still planning to release Halo 27 in July in a physical audio CD, until then everyone can enjoy the free 43 minutes of digital destruction over and over again. Well played Mr. Reznor, well played.

From Digg.

From Digg.

A short time ago Amazon.com launched their DRM free MP3 Store offering over 4.5 million tracks from every major record label, and now after just six short months they are securely seated in the #2 position in digital music sales hot on the heals of iTunes. This undoubtedly makes Steve Jobs blood boil, which obviously makes me smile since everyone knows Steve Jobs is a complete asshole. The fact is iTunes as an experience sucks… because you don’t get what you pay for, the right to use your files like YOU want.

Every since I bought my first generation iPod 5 years ago I’ve hated iTunes with all of my being. It always amazed me how much people took the sub par files from that service and were more than willing to fork over the $.99 a song even though they truthfully didn’t own the rights to those songs. The only time I’ve ever used iTunes to buy music is when I had gift cards and/or free songs from promotions. I’ve downloaded countless albums illegally (even after buying the physical album) just so I can have the files in DRM free digital format.

I used the Amazon MP3 Store for the first time about five months ago, and I’ll be honest… I’ve purchased more music since then I have in the past 5 years, combined. I’ve been one of those people that has hated CDs as physical media since 1998, every since I fired up a warez site and purchased my Acer 2x CD/RW drive the purchased CD was a dead format to me. I always wanted to burn the songs I want from the artists I want in the order I want. I own well over 500 CDs yet the only CDs you’ll find in my car have CDR written all over them.

It looks like the music industry may finally be waking up to the call that Americans, hell people in general want the right to do whatever the hell they want with the music they buy. If you give us easy to use, high quality MP3 download service people WILL buy the songs they want if for no other reason then saving them the hassle of trying to find a high quality copy through the various illegal channels. However, the labels may be about five years too late to save their fate.

In the end iTunes, Steve Jobs and the record labels can kiss my natural black white ass. Oh, by the way… make sure you go buy Nine Inch Nails Ghosts I-IV from the store, 36 songs with high quality album art for only $5 bucks. You can’t beat that with a stick.

From Yahoo News.

You know, I could blab on and on about Underworld all day and tell you how Dubnobasswithmyheadman blew me away as early as 1994 with singles like Dark and Long, Dirty Epic and Cowgirl. Or how Beaucoup Fish kept me going back to #’s every week just so I could hear Push Upstairs, Shudder/King of Snake and Moaner on the loud speakers… and I almost forgot to mention that Second Toughest In The Infants helped me ring in the new millennium with Juanita: Kiteless, Pearls Girl and Air Towel. Oh, and then there is the musical orgasm that is Underworld Live: Everything, Everything… a CD and DVD cornucopia of fun.

Underworld has been on a bit of a hiatus since 2002 when they released A Hundred Days Off and their singles collection Underworld 1992-2002… and most recently the movie soundtrack to Breaking and Entering, but now they are getting back to work. Underworld is hard at work on a new album and will be touring this summer across the globe; including some shows in the good ol’ USofA… catch them when you can. Check out the entire video collection from their live DVD below courtesy of YouTube, I’ve placed them in their original track listing… buy this DVD already! If Moaner doesn’t get your blood pumping, nothing will.

Underworld Live: Everything! Everything!
1. Juanita/Kiteless
2. Cups
3. Push Upstairs
4. Pearls Girl
5. Jumbo
6. Shudder/King of Snake, Part 2
7. Born Slippy Nuxx
8. Rez / Cowgirl
9. Moaner

Currently listening to: Filo and Peri - Anthem

Underworld has been blowing away dance parties and venues around the globe with mega-hits like Rez, Born Slippy, Cowgirl, King of Snake and Moaner for nearly three decades now. They shot to mainstream success in the US riding on the coat tails of Born Slippy which was in the final scene of the cult hit movie Trainspotting. Do yourself a favor, stop reading this right now and head on over to Amazon and pick up the best dance music DVD ever, or if you are a cheap bastard at least watch the video from Moaner at YouTube.

I just purchased my plane tickets today to fly to NYC on September 13th and back on September 16th… those are Continental Airlines flights 821 and 1433 for those of you crazy cats who like to track flights on FlightAware, or if you want to join in on the fun. I’ll be tagging along on this joy-ride with Tray, Emily and her friend Nicole… so the more the merrier, but hurry because prices keep climbing! I am also still searching for a good hotel on “the island” so if you know of any please let me know, I’m looking in the $150-$200 a night range…

Underworld will be playing at Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield with the groundbreaking James Holden opening for them… Underworld at an outside venue, simply beautiful. If you’ve never heard of James Holden you’re really missing out too, do yourself a favor and pick up his latest album At the Controls, it is amazing to say the least. I’ve been wanting to see Underworld live for well over a decade and I’ve been a fan of James Holden for at least the last 4 years, sadly since they are both huge in Europe they don’t come across the pond much.

I’m so stoked about this show I’m totally acting like a 12 year old girl waiting for Hillary Duff to come to town… it is going to be a long three months.

Currently listening to: Maxim Radio - Sirius 108