I recently downloaded and installed Songbird .6. Songbird is the open source music player that is based on Mozilla code. With each release Songbird gets better and better. With this release comes support for larger media libraries, smoother scrolling, improved memory management, faster search, and a bunch of new add-ons. I have a feeling that Songbird will eventually replace Winamp for me. Since AOL took over Winamp it seems to on a steady downhill spiral. The plugins for Winamp are pretty crappy and if you use a skin that isn’t one of the defaults, most of the time the plugins (if they require their own pane) look out of place. This is not so for Songbird. The add-ons are just like the add-ons in Firefox and seamlessly integrate into the program. I have a feeling that there will be a huge community to support Songbird, just as their is with Firefox, that will create great add-ons and themes, or feathers. It’s not going to replace Winamp just yet on my system. While the memory management is better, it still takes up quite a bit of process power. The search often freezes the application as well. The guys behind Songbird are on the right track though. I can’t wait until I’m able to use it full time without any problems.
I love letting other people see what tracks I listen to and I love being able to find artists similar to what’s on my playlist, that is why I love last.fm. Even though I don’t use my MacBook for listening to music much, when I do I still like to scrobble, or submit, the tracks. My problem has always been finding a good Mac client to do this. I used to use Menuet, but every time I right click the icon in the menu bar it crashes. So, I’m saying goodbye to that. I downloaded and installed the official client from last.fm and that was deleted almost instantaneously. The client gives you the option to place an icon in the menu bar but doesn’t give you the option of hiding it on the dock when it’s open. I don’t want it on my dock. At all. Deleted. So, right now I’m trying iScrobbler. We’ll see how I like this one when I’m actually able to listen to music. Does anyone have a suggestion for a last.fm app? Do you use something you think is better? If so, let me know.
Wednesday seems like a good day to post an old school hip hop track. Too many people forget hip hop’s roots and it’s time to educate them. Good music, useful information, what can you lose? This may even become a weekly feature, we shall see. I know I plan on doing at least a few more.
The first Way Back Wednesday is dedicated to the song “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. This song was released in 1982 and is one of the first hip hop songs to deal with the social ills of the urban poor. When you listen, a picture is drawn before you of the projects in New York city under Reagan Era policies that made the poor get poorer. You listen and realize what life is like in a poverty-stricken, hopeless community.
Rolling Stone ranked “The Message” #51 in its List of Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time (the highest ranking hip-hop song on the list). It was also voted #3 on the 100 Greatest Rap Songs, after I Used to Love H.E.R. and Rapper’s Delight. In 2002, it was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry, the first Hip Hop recording ever to receive this honor. The beat has been used in many songs since it’s released and the lyrics have been referenced in many other hip hop songs. It is nothing short of a classic.
You know, it’s funny what a young man recollects. ‘Cause I don’t remember being born. I don’t recall what I got for my first Christmas and I don’t know when I went on my first outdoor picnic. Oh wait, that was Forrest Gump, not me. It really is funny what you do remember though. The past couple nights I’ve fallen asleep listening to music. Then I remembered something that for some reason always in the back of my mind. When I was really young I remember being at my Grandma and Grandpa Schepker’s house. They had cable and we didn’t. I remember watching MTV. Now, I couldn’t have been any older than 9 at the time. I was probably younger. I remember watching a black and white music video there. What stuck out in my mind about it was how the video was shot. Not only was it in black and white, but there were a lot of unfocused close-ups and what I would now call “lazy” camera work. This was intentional. In fact, it reminds me a lot of the same style of camera work that made the tv show NYPD Blue famous. Those things, and not who was on the video, made an impression on me. Years later, after seeing that video again, I realized that it was a video for a song called “Brenda’s Got a Baby” by Tupac Shakur. Those who know me know I’m a huge Tupac fan. It’s funny how I was connected with him that young, years before I became a fan of his music and it’s funny that I would still remember seeing a single video over fifteen years ago. It was a good video though.
