Information Overload

Android Market Music

Skynet now sells music, offering 13 million tracks from major and indie labels. Unfortunately—AFAIK—songs can only be played back via the Music app on Android devices, or Google Music (which is out of beta despite still showing the label in several places). There doesn't seem to be a way to easily move music purchased from Android Market into iTunes, or off of Google. At least there's Google Music for iOS albeit it's a web app limited to a 25 MB local cache.

iTunes Match

iTunes Match is out—and currently overloaded. Apple's $24.99 a year service scans songs in one's iTunes Music Library, matches their unique acoustic signatures to songs in the iTunes Store catalog of 20 million, and then makes them available for syncing to Apple devices associated with an Apple ID. Songs that aren't in the iTunes Store are uploaded to iCloud at their original bitrate, or resampled to 256K AAC.

This iTunes user couldn't burn $25 fast enough for Steve Jobs' ghost. iTunes Match largely eliminates the need to re-rip CD's that were saved as 128K MP3's (circa a decade ago) because songs are matched to iTunes' 256K AAC master copy. Being able to stream songs, and store them on any OS X or iOS device without the need for an iTunes "server" is wunderbar! Now all Apple needs is a subscription plan like Spotify, or more like Zune Music Pass. If Apple were into subsidies like Amazon then they could bundle a music pass into the $24.99 price of iTunes Match, and sell a lot more hardware.

Smashing Pumpkins: The Other Side of the Kaleidyscope Tour 2011

Checked out Smashing Pumpkins in concert last night at The Fox Theater. Ears were bleeding after the second opening act, but all was well again once Bill Corgan and his reconstituted Pumpkins took the stage. The new band largely exists to support Corgan, as none of them could match his stage presence like James Iha or D'Arcy did (having last seen them in Berkeley on their final tour).

Spotify

Spotify decided to launch in the U.S. on a French national holiday instead of Independence Day, but it's finally here nonetheless. Methinks the Pandora One subscription will be a victim. Spotify is missing iCloud's ability to match songs that one already owns and make them available online, but it does have native Mac and iOS apps. Lack of the latter for Zune Pass is why this Xbox gamer doesn't subscribe to the Borg's service.

iTunes Festival London 2011

Apple kicked off iTunes Festival London 2011 last night, a 31-day concert series at The Roadhouse featuring more than 60 artists, including: Paul Simon, Linkin Park, Adele, Bruno Mars, My Chemical Romance, Foo Fighters, Jimmy Eat World, Duran Duran, Coldplay, Lang Lang, and Moby. Music lovers can catch the live performances for free on iTunes, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or AirPlay to Apple TV.

Rihanna Loud Tour

RiRi came on stage right before riots broke out due to the lack of air conditioning and entertainment after Cee Lo J. Cole left what felt like an eternity before the main act of Rihanna's Loud Tour in Oakland. (The only way to get a drink with ice at Oracle Arena was to order cranberry juice with a splash of vodka for $10.50.) Her solid two-hour performance largely made up for the initial mistake of taking BART over a bit too early.

Best Buy Music Cloud

Not content to be cloudless, Best Buy launched their own Music Cloud service, which marks the triumphant return of their cloud music subsidiary, Napster. Best Buy Music Cloud could compete against Amazon Cloud Player, Skynet Music Beta, or even Apple iCloud—but first it needs to actually work... The Mac app is crashtastic, and the iPhone app is "currently available" but "not available on Apple devices." What the—?

Google Music Beta

Skynet's Music Beta is a somewhat better experience than Amazon Cloud Player if only for the sole reason that it doesn't seem to suffer from such a noticeable loss of audio fidelity. Google's Music Manager quietly copies MP4's from the iTunes Library so they can be streamed back—but not downloaded—via the web or an Android app. One wonders how much file de-duping (if any) Skynet is doing behind the scenes...

Amazon Cloud Drive Player MP3 Installer

Amazon was overrun by little monsters on Monday when they offered their mother monster's latest album for only 99¢ to promote their newish consumer cloud services. The dynamic between Cloud Drive, Cloud Player, and MP3 Installer are cumbersome. However, the real disappointment is that the audio fidelity (anecdotally listening to Lady Gaga) of streaming from Cloud Player sounds worse than the downloaded MP3, which in turn is noticeably crappy compared to an iTunes MP4.

The Crystal Method DJ Set @ Ruby Skye

Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland, The Crystal Method, rocked Ruby Skye in San Francisco last night doing their best to energize a crowd that skewed in the direction of dudes, particularly as the night wore on. Scott tried to get more girls on stage, but security quickly nixed that idea—another reminder that it's not a club in Las Vegas.