There’s a lot of music online–more than most people have time to keep up with. That’s why you’ve got us. Every week, we’ll point you toward three excellent new downloads or videos from chart-topping stars, cult favorites and unknown geniuses.
1. Jay-Z and Kanye West’s Watch the Throne is currently the most anticipated hip-hop album of the new year, and they’ve just debuted the first song from it, “H*A*M.” The sneaky angle is that you can’t just visit the album’s Facebook page to hear it: you have to “like” the album to make the play button work. Although there’s probably a workaround if you poke around YouTube a little.
2. Radiohead, bless them, are continuing to come up with clever workarounds for the music business. Last January, they played a Haiti benefit show; some fans shot and edited a DVD of the 24-song concert, which Radiohead themselves have endorsed it via their blog. If you download it, they request that you make a donation to Oxfam America.
3. The late, great singer Alex Chilton (of Big Star and Box Tops fame) was arguably the single biggest influence on Scottish power-pop band Teenage Fanclub. As it turns out, they actually met up at some point, and recorded a killer version of Teenage Fanclub’s decidedly Chiltonesque “Alcoholiday” that’s recently turned up on YouTube.
BONUS COOL MUSIC THING: Listening Room has been making the rounds this week–a clever little piece of Web design that allows friends to listen to the same MP3 at the same time. It’s particularly useful if you find yourself in a chat with someone not in the same physical space that you want to play a song for.
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