XM-Sirius Merger

Hello World,
I am working on a paper regarding the upcoming merger between XM and Sirius satellite radio companies. Can anyone help me out by recommending any articles? Are you a writer or journalist who has an opinion on it? Please let me know by writing in the comments section of Digg.com or on my blog. Thanks again!

Check It Out-Pandora Internet Radio Service

Hey World,

I have been looking at the Pandora Internet Radio Service http://www.pandora.com/ since yesterday, and I have to say, I have found my new obsession. I had first found out about it in a New York Times article about Internet music services that are competition to satellite radio as well as terrestrial radio, and the article mentioned Pandora. In short, my experience with the service so far hasn't been too bad, despite what the name "Pandora" suggests.

All you have to do is set up your account, which isn't very difficult as it is with signing up for other things on the 'net. Actually, that part was quick and simple. Then, all you have to do is enter and artist's name, and then you are given a selection of songs from that artist as well as similar artists. You can rate each song: If you like it, click on the thumbs up like it symbol, and if you don't, you can click on the thumbs down. When you dislike a song, the music player plays the next song on the queue for that artist's radio station. You can even enter a song title in the search to look for covers of that song or similar artists to the one who sang the song.

Pandora is part of the Music Genome Project. According to it's founder Tim Westergren, the project was started in 2000 was when musicians and music technologists listened to over 10-thousand artists and looked at each artist's musical qualities. As a result, the project has come up with hundreds of musical genres or "genes" into a Musical Genome, like the Human Genome. The Music Genome is how Pandora can find similar artists or songs. And Westergren says that the music ranges from the well-known to the obscure, and Pandora is constantly on the look-out for talent, even unknown, underground talent, which is cool because it isn't biased towards mainstream artists.

So far, Pandora has been pretty good. I have not only enjoyed listening to my favorite artists, but I have also learned about new songs from those artists. On top of that, I have learned about new artists altogether, which has been great too.

But, as with everything in life, with the good comes the bad. One negative about Pandora is that when you enter an artist or song, that artist/song may either not be on your queue, or you have to look at song after song and artist after artist until you finally what you want. Another problem is there is a limit to the number of songs you can listen to per hour because of some legality. So if, for example, you listen to a Marvin Gaye Station, and you go through your queue not liking the songs very much, then next thing you know, you can't listen to any more music until an hour has passed.

The limit of songs issue is minor because you can occupy yourself with finding more albums and songs until the hour is over, and then you can go back to that particular station and listen to more random songs, and like a radio station, you never know what you are going to get. But there are issues with the search engine, too. Pandora acts like it has such a great variety of songs, but if you are looking for foreign artists, forget it. I tried to type in some French artists, and the search engine didn't know who I was talking about. As for foreign artists, British and Canadian artists are as foreign as it gets when it comes to Pandora recognizing them. I put Shakira and Damian Marley in the search and I got stuff, so there is also luck for Latin American and reggae artists, but anything too obscure, forget it. I also have beef with the like it/don't like it. A lot of the artists that I listened to were either just okay in my book or I just didn't feel like listening to that kind of song, so I didn't want to say I didn't like the song, so most of the time I just click the fast forward button for the station to go on to the next song in the queue. I think Pandora should have a button where a song is just OK, and the symbol for it could be a hand moving like when someone says something is okay or so-so.

Besides those little snafus, I really like Pandora. It's a great way to give Internet users a say in what they like and dislike. Pandora is democracy at it's finest.

Album Recommendation-"Back to Black" by Amy Winehouse

Hey World,
I was just listening to an awesome new album called Back to Black by Amy Winehouse. She one of those hipster British singers, kind of in the same tribe as Lily Allen, but not quite. I daresay, she's even better. I love "Rehab" and " You Know I'm No Good." I also really love "Love is a Losing Game" and "He Can Only Hold Her." To Describe her music, it's basically like if she was one of crazy gun-wielding Phil Spector's artists. Amy totally would have fit in to that whole 1960s, wall of sound, girl group thing of the Ronettes, the Supremes, and the rest of those broads.

You might be asking how I first heard of Winehouse. It all started on a gossip website called PerezHilton.com. Perez reported on a reported rivalry between Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse because apparently, Amy won the Brit Award that Lily wanted and then Lily was supposedly crying and acting all bratty or whatever. Anywho, the point is that I knew at the time who Lily was, but I didn't know who Amy was. At least not yet, anyway. Around the same time, Best Buy started showing commercials promotiong her album and showing snippets of the videos for "Rehab" and "You Know I'm No Good." I was curious about her. Amy and Lily Allen may both be British singers, but the similarities end there. Amy looks like one of those rocker chicks, full of tatoos and piercings. Lily, on the other hand, has a unique style, but she looks more normal than Amy. Despite her jaded, I've done some things attitude, Lily looks like virgin compared to Amy. Amy looks like she has lived nine lives, and the great thing is, her music sounds like it too.

Her voice is rich and soulful, whereas Allen's is a bit more mainstream.

Amy is definitely someone whose reputation precedes her, which isn't a compliment. She is apparently a hard partier, drinker, and drug user. It's kind of cool how she doesn't give a damn about how much she parties, but I just hope she's not one of those Jimi Hendrix/Janis/Jim Morrison-died before their prime types, because if she is not careful, she'll end up just like that, and yes, Amy is worthy enough to be compared to those people.

The sound arrangements on "Rehab" are superb, especially the drums and the working of the horns. The lyrics are funny and they are obviously words that Amy has said over and over: " You try to make me go to rehab, but I say no, no, no." The lyrics of "Love is a Losing Game" are more basic, but the arrangements and Amy's singing makes me want to just cry. Not to sound trite, but you feel the pain in her voice in that song. It's like you're going through it with her. In "You Know I'm No Good," again, the title looks like it came right out of Amy's mouth, and when you look at her stereotypical rebel look, you could imagine her saying those words.

I could listen to almost every song on the album, although I don't quite get the remix of "You Know I'm No Good." featuring Ghostface Killa. I think that she just added him just to give the song an edge because he is a rapper, but his part doesn't contribute anything different to the song. Amy should have made a real remix of the song by changing the beat and melody completely, like Lily Allen did with the remix of "Smile" at the end of her Alright, Still album.

To clarify, my praise of Winehouse is by no means a bashing of Lily Allen at all. I really like Lily's songs. It's just that I don't want the 2 artists to be lumped together because they are female, British, and about the same age. They are really different when you think about it, and variety, as we all know, or at least should know, is the spice of life.

More Later!