songs

Amazon exec slams some in music sector

An executive who helped oversee Amazon's music division the past three years is jumping to the company's Kindle unit, but he has a parting message for some in the music sector.

"A few of you have been a total pain in the ass," Scott Ambrose Reilly wrote in a farewell e-mail he sent to colleagues and business associates on Friday, a copy of which was obtained by CNET. "(You) should think about trying to make this business a better place once in awhile. Maybe listen to Elvis' 'If I Can Dream' on your way into … Read more

Standalone Pandora

PandoraMan is a tiny app that lets you run the streaming-music service Pandora outside of--and without even opening--your Web browser.

Using Apple's WebKit engine, PandoraMan runs as a standalone app, and the interface is just a subset of the Flash-based Pandora window that you normally see when you go to the Pandora site: you see your stations, your current music stream, and playback controls, and you are automatically logged in after you first open the app. You can switch and make changes to stations, but if you click on any of the other drop-down features (for example, to search … Read more

Johnny Cash song iTunes' 10 billionth download

Yes, things really do happen that way. Only this time, somebody is going to like it very much.

Louie Sulcer of Woodstock, Ga., just won Apple's iTunes Countdown to 10 Billion Songs contest with the purchase of Johnny Cash's "Guess Things Happen That Way." This also means the song is the 10 billionth song downloaded from Apple's Store using iTunes.

With his purchase, Salcer got the best deal ever for an online music purchase, a gift certificate for music worth $10,000.

Apple announced the contest and started the countdown earlier this month as the … Read more

Lyric lover

ALSong is an innovative music player that lets users view lyrics to thousands of songs as they play. Although the program's design could be better, its unique features still make it worthwhile.

ALSong's interface is fairly intuitive (it's set up much as any media player is), but we didn't love that several of its features open in different modules. The media player opens in one window, the playlist in another, the lyrics viewer in yet another--things get cluttered pretty quickly. We were also irritated by the small text used throughout the program; anyone whose vision isn'… Read more

Apple counts down to 10 billionth song download

Apple on Thursday began its "Countdown to 10 Billion Songs."

Apple is getting close enough to having 10 billion songs downloaded since opening in 2003, that it is beginning a countdown on iTunes. Official rules are available from Apple's Web site.

The winner of the countdown--the person that downloads the 10 billionth song--will win a $10,000 gift card. You can download any song from iTunes and be eligible for the prize, the company said.

Apple also posted a list of the most downloaded iTunes songs of all time. The top song right now is the Black … Read more

iTunes: Songs skip before they complete

Users are still experiencing issues with songs in iTunes skipping to the next song before they have finished. Starting back in iTunes 8 and continuing, this issue appears to be a bug directly related to iTunes.… Read more

The 404 Podcast 483: Where we play a never-ending game of devil's advocate

Today's episode of CNET's The 404 Podcast starts off on a personal note, with Jeff detailing last night's tour of Justin's tiny Manhattan apartment. I'll concede that the space is indeed very small relative to the cripplingly expensive rent, but like any self-respecting human, I'll pay almost anything stay out of New Jersey.

Although, if I ever get tired of New York, I can always make like Rob Cavazos, aka the Wilderness Man, and embark on a 10-day camping trip to the most remote phone box in the world. It's a 10-day experiment put on by Skype and The Viral Factory to raise awareness of Skype's cheaper international calls to landlines and mobile phones. Cavazos speaks English, Spanish, and French, and is inviting everyone to call the payphone using Skype for a quick chat. Check out the Phone Box Experiment Web site for more details.

Back in January, we made a spelling error trying to use the idiom, "Good juju, bad juju." As it turns out, the expired CrunchPad is now resurrected as the "JooJoo," but CNET's Rafe Needleman doesn't think consumers are willing to pay $499 for a device that does less than a Netbook. Check out Rafe's hands-on with the JooJoo and let us know YOUR opinion in the comments below.

Big thanks to Austin for the Nook motivation poster you see up there. And, as promised, we've got more 404 theme song remixes today, including more 8-bit awesomeness and two piano covers of Jonathan Coulton's "Mother Effers" track! Very cool stuff here, and please keep them coming! This has been the most. successful. unofficial. contest...ever!

EPISODE 483 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

SongVoo controls iPhone music with simple gestures

If you listen to music on your iPhone or iPod Touch while you're driving, you probably don't exercise much control over your playlist--skipping and pausing songs without looking down at the screen is almost impossible. Fortunately, there are apps for that.

SongVoo, which released version 1.1 last week, is my latest discovery in this realm. It's similar to PlaySafe in that it places a skin on top of your iPhone's music player, superimposing the artist, song, and album name in large letters, and lets you control music playback with simple hand gestures that don't … Read more

Unleash your inner 'American Idol' with iSing

Forget Randy, Simon, and whoever's filling Paula's shoes this week. If you've got mad vocal skillz, dawg, or you want to see what it's like to sit in the judge's chair, grab iSing--the "worldwide talent contest" for iPhone and iPod Touch.

When you run the app, you'll see a list of song entries from other iSing users. Tap any thumbnail to stream a clip, then vote on it by tapping the thumbs-up or thumbs-down button.

Entries with the most positive votes bubble to the top of the "charts," earning … Read more