Thomas S. Nielsen's blog

Spotify screenshot

What is spotify?

Spotify is an on-demand streaming music service. It allows streaming of millions of songs to your computer at a low monthly fee.

I’ve been using Spotify Premium for a couple of weeks now. It’s a great service, delivering on demand music to my Mac and iPhone at great quality for 99kr (£9,99) a month. This service is currently only available in Europe, but they are planing on expanding.

I recommend Spotify to everybody who listen to music often. If you want an invite to the free version of Spotify (ad-supported), just send me an email. I have several invites left.

Tech specs:

- PC/Mac streams at 320kbps ogg/vorbis (premium only, free is 160kbps)
- iPhone streams at 160kbps
- OS required: Mac OS X 10.4 or later, Windows XP, or Linux with Wine
- Buffer HDD space recommended

Notes

Some users are having problem with 320kbps streams. Here is the fix.

Spotify for iPhone requires a premium account.

Props to Spotify for using open source software and open standards, and for giving us usable sound quality and Wine support!

I want spotify to add Metallica and Pink floyd to their collection!

• Coctail iTunes LP a feature that bundles more stuff with albums (lyrics, cover art, pictures)
• Beatles songs on iTunes
• iPod touch upgraded to 3GS speed
• iPod touch and nano with camera
• Double the capacity on both touch and nano
• New updated iPod shuffle (possibly similar to the old one) or rebranding of the old one
  
• iTunes upgrade (iTunes 9) with social features, possibly blu-ray support (not that likely)
• iPod Classic upgraded to 160GB or discontinued
• Scratch resistant surface on iPod nano (don’t know? new surface, yes, but don’t know about the quality yet).
• iPhone OS 3.1
• Apple TV upgrade (less likely)

What I didn’t guess:

• FM Radio in new iPod Nano
• Genious Mixes feature (iTunes and iPods)
• Home sharing – share music and apps with other iTunes in your home
• Redesigned app store (I really saw this one comming though, just forgot to write it down)

This is the headline you will read all over the Internet later today. Apple is hosting an event about music (headlined “It’s only rock and roll, but we like it.”). They are clearly going to do some announcements regarding iPods, and there are of course many rumors to what they are.

Apple event invite

Rumors
These are the rumors I believe are most likely:

• Coctail, a feature that bundles more stuff with albums (lyrics, cover art, pictures)
• Beatles songs on iTunes
• iPod touch upgraded to 3GS speed
• iPod touch and nano with camera
• Double the capacity on both touch and nano
• New iPod shuffle (possibly similar to the old one) or rebranding of the old one
• iTunes upgrade (iTunes 9) with social features, possibly blu-ray support (not that likely)
• iPod Classic upgraded to 160GB or discontinued
• Scratch resistant surface on iPod nano
• iPhone OS 3.1
• Apple TV upgrade (less likely)

Background story
Once upon a time, I was an avid gamer. I played many of the biggest titles in the late 90’s and early 00’s. One of the games which I still remember is Max Payne. It was the first FPS that had it all: A great, exciting story, great music, convincing graphics and cool slow motion features.

I still believe that Max Payne is one of the best First Person Shooters of all time. And that is why I finally decided to buy and watch Max Payne on DVD. And I regret it. Really really much. I read reviews ranging from 1/6 to 5/6, and believed that maybe only those who played the game really understood the movie. I was wrong.

What’s wrong?
First, the movie plot is altered to the unrecognizable. I could recognize some of the scenes, but not many. Also, they mixed the story of Max Payne and Max Payne 2, and I didn’t even play the sequel! Thank you for the spoiler (I was seriously planing to play it some time, but I am not so sure anymore).

Already you probably understand why I didn’t like the movie. But there was more. The acting was alright, but the weird CGI effects? They could at least have given them the same look and feel as the game.

And the worst is yet to come: They didn’t use the game’s musical theme! Max Payne has one of, if not the, best musical theme of any computer game. It is right up there with Halo and the Battlefield series. And not just the main theme (below) either, but many of the background themes of the game.

Conclusion
If you haven’t watched this movie yet, don’t. If you have, my condolences.

Black Clouds & Silver Linings

A short song-by-song review:
A Nightmare To Remember is a heavy metal inspired song, but with some really cool riffs and breaks.

A Rite Of Passage is more like DT-pop, a song for newcomers to the band.

Wither is the album’s ballad, probably my favorite DT ballad so far.

The Shattered Fortress is the last song in the Twelve-step Suite, a collection of DT songs that deals with drummer Mike Portnoy’s fight with alcoholism. It contains many parts from the three other songs in the suite, and is probably even better for DT fans than newcomers as they should know the riffs and the story already.

They even repeat and tweak some of the lyrics from the previous song, without ruining this song’s unique feel.

The Best Of Times is a song Mike Portnoy wrote about his father, who died of cancer. The intro is mellow, but it soon picks up the pace and gives you some of the most catchy DT riffs ever. The song is about the good memories they had, and has a quite happy tune.

The Count Of Tuscany is based on a true story that guitarist John Petrucci experienced at Tuscany.

Summary
All in all this is yet another progressive masterpiece by Dream Theater. Only six songs you ask? Yes, but the playtime is still over 75 minutes. The songs vary in length from 5:25 (Wither) to 19:16 (The Count Of Tuscany).

This is not your average radio-music, this music is enjoyed best if you sit down and listen to it, maybe day dreaming and drinking your favorite drink (be it coke or whiskey).

I recommend the 3-CD Deluxe Edition, as it also includes a disk with 6 cover songs, and a disc with the whole album as instrumentals. Great if you want to listen to the instrumental genius of the band, or maybe try to learn some of the songs yourself.