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New CD Music Service From MySpace

April 9, 2008

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New CD Music Service From MySpace
By Tina Trevino

MySpace is launching a new service, MySpace Music, partnering with Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. With MySpace Music, you will be able to listen to music at your computer, as well as being able to purchase downloadable music for you MP3 players, etc.

MySpace is basically returning to its roots, the music business, to help regenerate membership and interest to their site. This new service will be integrated between MySpace Music, the current artist profile pages and the home user profile pages. Users will be able to create and trade music and playlists, along with being able to tune into untapped artists. This move will also help the recording companies, as they will be able to pull in on concert ticket sales, and music merchandise.

MySpace’s direct competitor would obviously be iTunes, which is the 2nd largest music seller. Currently, the price of the download’s has not been made available yet, but it has been said that they will be "competible." The digital downloads will be DRM-free, and users will also be able to download ringtones, SMS, and wallpapers. MySpace Music will making this a full circle utility not only the for MySpace user, but the artists as well.

The new music library with coincide with the already existing MySpace music affiliates including Secret Shows, MySpaceLIVE!, Transmissions, and The List.

The Los Angeles based team, will in the coming months, begin to bring new content while it integrates into the already popular MySpace network.

http://online-social-networking.info

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tina_Trevino

Be part of the WORLD FIRST ULTIMATE CD/ALBUM CONTEST GIVE AWAY TO HELP SAVE OUR AILING MUSIC INDUSTRY

April 9, 2008

HI there

We are on a major mission to save the music industry that includes our own skin!! We all know this business is pretty well on life support. So we are needing your help to build awareness for about the existence of our ailing industry people which are dependent on music CD buyers. This of course, includes the musician, labels, media and any one involved in the business.

Right now, we are looking for sponsors to help contribute to the WORLD’S FIRST ULTIMATE PRIZE PACK OF CDS, MERCH, and OTHER MUSIC RELATED STUFF. We just need a quantity of 3 of the same item. The more valuable, the better the contest. We will seek out 3 winners and provide their mailing addresses to send prizes to. Obviously, it does not cost much but Caustic Truths! is wanting to help build, expose, promote your product/item/band or whatever you got going on. It does not matter how big or small you are. We want to build the ultimate prize pack juicy enough for music lovers! We literally want to make it the BEST MUSIC OFFERING POSSIBLE. We don’t want to limit the type of prize or genre of music. All we ask is you provide something that will help build your awareness and that you exist! From there, you just need to promote the contest to your email/contact list which will expose every sponsor involved which will radically open new audiences for everyone. It is the cheapest form of advertising since it is FREE!! This is obviously outside the minimal expense of shipping a few items and the cost of your product! It is as organic, grass root level, gorilla based contest we could think of.

If interested, get in involved by emailing Richard the Caustic Truths webmaster. This is at feedback <AT> caustictruths.com.

Thanks for the help and support!!!

CD REVIEWS OF BRAINSTORM, DEATHCULT, DEATH ANGEL OVERKILL, ++

April 4, 2008

CD REVIEWS OF BRAINSTORM, DEATHCULT, DEATH ANGEL OVERKILL, ++

 

BRAINSTORM

DOWNBURST

METAL BLADE

!!!

This band has been at it for a while now. Listening to their latest, you can easily discern that they aren’t your typical power metal band. They add so much muscular sophistication into their tunes. They are catchy without being overtly simple. Riffs are very sharp, and the melodies are solid, especially when it comes to ballad-time (which are more like power-ballads rather than the love song typical power metal ballad). Brainstorm is recommendable because it can really stand out albeit minimally in this over-crowded power metal scene. Of notable mention is also the vocalist, who sounds powerful and determined. Too bad the material of his other band, Symphorce, isn’t as strong and as good.

Douglas Ventura

DEATHCULT

CULT OF THE DRAGON

KARISMA RECORDS/DARK ESSENCE RECORDS

!!!! .5

What a solid debut. While this sounds -traditionally speaking-Norwegian, it isn’t another brick on the wall. Nor does it plagiarize the country’s monumental past dark glories. To those who think black metal easily traps itself into corners, that there’s isn’t artistic progression, and that everything simply sounds the same, I dare them to listen to Deathcult and prove me wrong. Raw, yet catchy. Ugly, yet refined. Did I say ugly? Not to mention horrific, Deathcult scores big in all areas, bringing a smile to Lucifer and those who never grow tired of the old ways of black metal. A bit of a thrashy feeling in some areas expands the band’s sound, rightfully adding barrels of variety to the spectre. Behold black metal’s continuing evolution…..

Douglas Ventura

STRIBORG

JOURNEY OF A MISANTHROPE DVD

DISPLEASED RECORDS

!!!!

Hard to believe there’s a Striborg DVD. In any case, if pure nihilistic black metal music could be accompanied by a visual nightmare, then this DVD is pretty much that pure essence. This “product” consists of slow-mo scenes of (presumably) Sin-Nanna, walking in a forest in black & white photography as a Striborg song plays on the background. This serves as minimalistic imagery for nihilistic savagery. Most of the shots revolve around forests, the night, nature, etc. Some of the night shots resemble those of The Blair Witch Project. There’s quite a lot of songs in here, and it could get a bit repetitive for those who aren’t used to this stuff.

Douglas Ventura

THREE

THE END IS BEGUN

METAL BLADE

! .5

What is being billed as a “progressive metal album” could be true only to a certain extent. Yes, without a doubt this is a complex, ambitious work. On the same line of thought, complexity mixed with irrelevance isn’t the best of mixtures, especially when Brit-pop-like vocals adorn the songs in such a way that they become hated. Musical hooks are so friendly and so “alternative” that they can easily pass off as an Oasis or any other lame Brit Pop band’s tune. Well, at least these guys do know how to play their instruments. They throw in odd structures, bizarre lines, and just ‘weird’ ideas. But I guess it all falls under the progressive tag. Metal this is not, the vocals are awful, a lot of the passages here are just accessible and there was really very little in this that kept me interested. It’s a bit out there, and it just isn’t something that I’m usually attracted to.

Douglas Ventura

DEATH ANGEL

KILLING SEASON

NUCLEAR BLAST

!!!!

Death Angel has always been a really cool thrash band. From the classic days of “Thrashers” to their triumphant comeback, these guys have maintained a youthful and energetic formula going on in their music. The good thing about this album is how it marries the old and new school eras of thrash metal. Songs like “Carnival Justice” and “The Noose” just hit you straight to the point, while the rest of the tracks are just, well, fun! But Death Angel isn’t just a standard band. They’ve always had this innovative angle to their music. While some songs here are your standard in-your-face metal anthems, when there’s room to breathe the band injects moody experimentations that never go out of their way to become pointlessly showy. Rather, it keeps the intent of the song glued in its totality. Great work from these guys!

Douglas Ventura

ELUVEITIE

SLANIA

NUCLEAR BLAST

!!

Folk metal seems to be on a rise these days, with various bands emerging and offering something fresh and different from the usual brand of extremity. This is Eluveitie’s second offering, and the band does have a special sound to them. For starters, the Celtic influence is so strong and employed in such a classy way that it almost makes you ignore the metal parts. Midway through the album I was more enchanted from listening to the traditional folk segments in the music that I was able to wisely overlook the melodic death metal-influenced music/vocals. Not being a fan of the Gothenburg scene makes it hard for me to fully enjoy and digest this album. I probably would have enjoyed this work more had it been an exclusive Celtic/Folk record. Seriously.

Douglas Ventura

THRASHING LIKE A MANIAC

16 RIPPING CUTS OF NEW SCHOOL THRASH

EARACHE

!!!! .5

The band Bonded by Blood starts things off here and they naturally sound like you know who. Not bad at all! Next is Evile, who play some really imposing thrash, the old-school way. Municipal Waste follows and I still don’t get them. You might dig them if you’re into M.O.D./S.O.D. and crap like that. Dekapitator is next and as usual, they do what their name implies. Fueled by Fire contribute with a really mean, metallic track full of inventive bass lines, glorious solos, and everything great you’d expect from a great old-school thrash tune. Crucifier (wrongly billed as “Decadence” in here) offers one of the best tracks in the compilation. I was headbanging all the way. Same goes to Warbringer and their song “Total War”. It starts off with a menacing double bass/drum fill combo followed by a fine brief solo transforming itself into a traditional fast old thrash tune. The band SSS follows, and they offer a decent thrash tune with punk influences. It works well. Gama Bomb is next in line and they sure know what true ‘80s classic thrash metal should exemplify. Love those falsettos! Merciless Death follows and it’s already a known fact that they rule at what they do. You can’t get any more old school than them. Deadfall is next and their sound is simply beautiful. True thrash will never die! Lazarus follows (not to be confused with the progressive band) and damn it if their track “Last Breath” didn’t give me a neck ache. Their brand of thrash is simply magnificent! Next is Toxic Holocaust and the song “War is Hell”, a rather known track by now and effective-as is the rest of this fine band’s material. Then we have Mutant (this one, not to be confused with the black metal band) and it is yet another band that knows the classic roots of thrash. Great tune, nice continuity, supreme vokills! Violator might as well pretend it’s 1985 and there wouldn’t be nothing wrong with that! Thank you! To end things off, we have the silly named Send More Paramedics, who play a crossover of thrash/punk/hardcore metal, and at two minutes and half it seemed like it was hard to catch on all those influences. Nevertheless, the song worked just fine and most important, it carried the old spirit. Overall, the title of this record is very misleading as there’s nothing “new school” about it. 99.0% of this album breathes old Slayer, Exodus, old Destruction, old Dark Angel, etc and I applaud the bands for having the guts to stick to what they believe in without trying to appeal to the new school of fans. Since Municipal Waste was the sole loser here, I really can recommend this album. There really is a lot of passion and value in this compilation. All poseurs can refer to Voivod’s second song off Rrrrrrrrroooooooooaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrr.

OVERKILL

LIVE AT WACKEN OPEN AIR 2007

BODOG MUSIC

!!!!!

This release doesn’t really need many words. To put it in simple terms, this is Overkill putting a superb performance in front of a German audience and having a lot of fun doing so. With a set consisting of both newer and older classics, the band’s show is awe inspiring, sounding energetic and enthusiastic, and with a lot of charisma (as expected, naturally, from Bobby “Blitz”). It is great to see a few of the band’s classic songs in here, such as their anthem “In Union We Stand”, the always crowd-pleaser “Elimination”, the neck-breaking “Wrecking Crew”, and of course, their trademark song “Fuck You”. This concert couldn’t have come better!

Douglas Ventura

TOXIK

DYNAMO OPEN AIR 1988

DISPLEASED RECORDS

!!!!

Here we have a bootleg with ‘good quality’, of two shows from Toxik from 1988. One is their actual performance from Dynamo, and the other one is a pre-party performance at the Dynamo Club. Surprisingly, both shows have an okay sound, though they are shot from a one-angle camera view. If you’re not familiar with this band, Toxik plays speed/thrash metal, somewhat on the technical side, very headbanging, and quite exciting. I wouldn’t recommend this to a curious fan. Instead, check out their latest re-releases from Metal Mind Productions to get a clearer picture of this band’s brilliant sound.

Douglas Ventura

Fall Of A Music CD Empire

April 2, 2008

Fall Of A Music CD Empire
By Ishmael El

With a title like, "Fall Of A Music Empire," it sounds like a made for television movie. Who saw the fall coming? For years, if an artist wanted to play on the big stage, they had to sign on the dotted line. If you look at the history of everyone from Louis Armstrong to Kayne West, they all had bad deals. That’s a standard practice. Are some reasons justified? Of course they are, and that’s where the biggest argument comes from. Before we get into that, let’s think about the situation of New York City (R.I.P. to their music scene). That’s a whole other story, be we will revisit it very soon. The whole point with New York is in how their established acts in Hip Hop are scanning around 50 thousand records sold. And I’d really look at pre-orders and returns and those numbers might be even lower.

If you listen to many Southern region artists have been around for some years, of if a new artist knows the story, you know what they say? They say that when New York artists would come to their city, they’d tell the locals that their sound didn’t fit into what Hip Hop was. Go do the research if you need to know the names of who did what, allegedly. I’m making a parallel point here, so I won’t go into the back and forth accusations of the art. My point is in how the fall occurred and it wasn’t seen from afar. Last we remembered, certain street artists were selling Gold status (500 thousand units), and that was with a bad track listing sequence. Not anymore. Artists have given up even trying to sell outside of the Tri-State region. The silent truth is that that won’t change unless New York became New York again. The thrill is gone.

The major record labels were all powerful. And if they didn’t say you could pass "GO" you could not pass. But slightly before that, artists were moving units on their own terms independently, or on independent labels and they were able to say whatever they wanted to say. You know what tells you the empire of major labels fell hard? The majority of the music is not selling via the labels right now. Just a few weeks ago the story came out that iTunes became the second largest retailer of music, next to Wal-Mart. Everybody knows that chains like Wal-Mart only sell music to get you in the store to buy other things. That’s why their CDs are cheaper. If you grab some gum and some cheese wiz on the way out, they made those few dollars back.

Let me back up: The empire hasn’t fallen yet. But the practices have changed drastically. Look how many folks got pink slips last year. People got pink slips at New York major record labels right before Christmas? Can you imagine that conversation with Uncle Mike at the dinner table? He’s like, "Sooo, how’s my niece doing at that big New York record label? Have you met Beyonce? I tell the folks back home about you." The ex-exec is like, "Uh, I got laid off." Whoa? The empire will be back just like that movie showed it. But right now, the troops are being hit. I think with Rome, and Greece, the fall of the empire wasn’t seen. That’s why I call the problems with the record labels ‘the fall.’

http://www.streetscientific.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ishmael_El

Where Can I Get iPod Downloads?

April 2, 2008

Where Can I Get iPod Downloads?
By Sid Martin

Looking for iPodDownloads? - Welcome !!! You are not alone.

There are millions of people out there who have bought the latest iPod and are wondering where to get iPodDownloads and fill it up with all the latest music, videos, songs, movies.

Hundreds of sites over the internet offer either pay per download or unlimited downloads. Pay per downloads are exactly what it sounds - you pay for each download, whether it is a movie, song, video or whatever - you pay for every single one of them. So you see this one can become quite an expensive proposition.

Unlimited iPodDownloads - Yes - thats the one we want. Again there are many sites which offer unlimited iPodDownloads. You just make one time payment to receive access to millions of files which you can download. In other words you get access to unlimited iPodDownloads for a membership fee.

Most of these providers offer a time bound membership which is usually one year or two years. It means that you become a member of these download sites for that time period and after that if you continue to want to download again then you will need to become a member again. That’s precisely why it is probably better to go for the lifetime membership. Very often the price difference between the time bound membership and lifetime membership is not much.

Moreover - a vast majority of these download sites do offer a limited time free trial service as well. So you can try out their services for a limited time for free. If you are not satisfied then you can ask for a refund. Can’t go wrong with that - Can you?

Here is the icing on the case - Most of these unlimited download providers offer not only music or songs for your iPod, but also videos, movies, TV-shows games and much more. So once you are a member you can truly fill up your iPod with these downloads.

But I hear you saying - How do you make sure that you choose a provider which not only provides you with unlimited downloads but also gives you quality support service. Well - there are many review websites out there who provide reviews of such providers. These review sites are just that - review sites and offer you their opinion on what they think each provider is rated as.

So what are you waiting for - Go on and get some downloads for your iPod!!!

Visit http://www.digitalpleasure.info to discover best unlimited download sites. You can download unlimited songs for iPod, iPhone or Zune. Click here to start downloading

You will discover how much you love your iPod.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sid_Martin

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