Music Ally

Sony isn’t (yet) selling music downloads for its PlayStation 3 console, but it has just launched a streaming music videos service called VidZone.

It went live over the weekend, and promises a catalogue of thousands of videos, which can be watched individually or cued up into playlists. I’ve been having a play with the free service this morning: watch the video above to see how it all works.

General Motors is to team up with Microsoft Zune to soup up the Chevy Camaro with in car audio support for Zune Players.

The deal could be huge for Microsoft. In-car listening is one of the largest music consumption points in the US; and as new vehicles become increasingly wired (or wireless) the scope for integration with digital music services will grow. Zune now has secured support from one of the world’s biggest car makers, with 27 further models set to be launched with Zune compatibility across the US, Europe, Asia and Australia during the next year.

Still, neither GM nor Zune are setting the world alight at the moment. This week GM chief Fritz Henderson warned that the company could fall into bankruptcy; and while Microsoft is still very much solvent, its Zune player has been a flop. So what else can Microsoft do?

Clutch at straws seems to be one answer. Microsoft has created an advert featuring a navy blue-blazered “certified financial planner” comparing the USD $30,000 it costs to fill an iPod with the $14.99 it costs to fill a Zune using Zune Pass.

Microsoft is leaving it up to analysts such as ourselves to remind you that iTunes tracks are permanent ownership whereas the Zune Pass is a subscription.

Because we’re needing something to break up the Pirate Bay post-verdict blogging. It’s by Ukrainian band Los Colorados. We assume they too have kissed girls at some point.

SOUNDS LIKE BRANDING™ Stockholm from Heartbeats International on Vimeo.

Well, not just Bacardi. Heartbeats International held a seminar in Stockholm last week to promote its recent Sounds Like Branding report. On-stage were Heartbeats’ Jakob Lusensky and Sarah Tinsley from Bacardi, talking about how brands are using music. You can watch it in the video above.

After last week’s email spat between Kiss frontman Gene Simmons and music industry blogger Bob Lefsetz, a swiftly-arranged debate during the Canadian Music Week conference let the two go head-to-head on-stage. Warning: contains strong language from the start. Although sadly no pyro (except of the verbal kind).

They’re a band called The Mentalists – we’re not being rude about them. Anyway, this is genius.

Not just because of the technical ingenuity of playing a cover of MGMT’s ‘Kids’ using iPhone apps Ocarina, Retro Synth, miniSynth and DigiDrummer Lite. But because they’re a band, so this is pretty savvy viral marketing in its own right.

Marvellous stuff. We’re busy working on our remake of the entire Lily Allen album using just Bebot – Robot Synth and the intro music from Rolando…

Here it is:

It’s for a song called I Want That, and if we had to come up with a suitably clever-clever journalistic shorthand for it, we’d say it’s no-budget Muppets meets the Star Wars Cantina Band scene meets Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels. With woolly blood!

More of this sort of thing, please.

The headline says it all: in Japan, Sony has been commissioning some startling short videos from experimental local musicians to promote its Walkman devices.

One artist called Atsuhiro Ito is wielding a great big glowing lightstick (an Optron, apparently) which makes screechy techno (above), while Taeji Saeai uses a lightpen and cameras, projectors and software to turn his gestures into music.

Meanwhile, Fuyuki Yamakawa plays his skull with a bone conduction mic. They haven’t made us want to buy Walkmans, but they are rather marvellous. You can watch them all below the jump.

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It’s easy to bang on about virality and online buzz, as if that’s something you can manufacture on demand. The fact is, you need to start with something worth buzzing about. That’s why some of the most viral internet videos or memes didn’t have a strategy behind them – they were just really cool. And thus people passed them on.

So, Radiohead doing 15 Step at the Grammys, with a great big marching band, and Thom Yorke donning his dancing boots. I’ve been forwarded the link to this seven or eight times today already…

One of the best sessions at MidemNet this year was Mike Masnick’s 15-minute presentation on the various innovative projects being done by Nine Inch Nails mainman Trent Reznor.

I frankly struggled to keep up during our liveblog of the session, but now Mike has uploaded a video of the talk to YouTube (embedded above), and penned a few more thoughts on his Techdirt website too. If you have 15 minutes to spare, it’s well worth a watch.