indilean

So yesterday thesixtyone (one of my favorite music sites) relaunched with a completely new design. I’ve waited a day to try out the new features and given some honest attention and thought to the layout before writing anything down, and here’s my impression. Is it awesome? Yes, in some ways. It brings vibrant visuals and innovative layout features along with a splash of screensaver. When I leveled and heard the Mario “one up” music I have to admit I was pretty stoked. Do I prefer it? Well… I’m not really sure yet, it sometimes feels frustrating and almost stifling when I want to have a high level perspective or navigate to new areas. I’m pretty visual so there are moments where I feel the complete focus on the band/song that are playing limits the possibility of navigating and finding new stuff. I think in many ways it will just take some time to figure out. One thing I definitely miss is being able to skip around in songs… like to listen to lyrics! I’ve been using thesixtyone since the time when you could reskin the interface using fluorescent colors so I’m sure I’ll make it now but the change is definitely massive.

The great news here is that you can actually go back to the old design by using the URL http://old.thesixtyone.com/ though it doesn’t seem to support logging in. I actually found a new song I liked while navigating with the old interface and then used search in the new layout to try to play it and it didn’t work? Is this a bug?? Maybe the new design doesn’t allow certain things or has blocked search+play in response to people trying to game the system by hearting new songs as soon as they come out. Possibly there was some concern with the ability to seek out and repeat songs on thesixtyone where other sites like Lala only let you play a song once or twice before it limits your listening to only part of the song. I don’t know, this is all really just speculation and thesixtyone has been able to do a lot and have a much less limiting system than some other sites because they are opt in and feature many label free indie musicians. You may have also noticed they are including a lyrics section on the site now for each song and that’s great to see!

My favorite part about the old design was that I could visually figure out where I was and actively enjoy and seek out songs I liked more easily. That said, the founders have always been pursuing this “video game” approach and I think the focus of the new system on existing songs, hiding some of the navigational elements, will enhance their ability to guide listeners and refine the ranking system. The playlist approach makes sense too though I kind of liked having a long list of favorites that was more like an overlord playlist or collection. The new version is cool looking because it’s more like a jukebox but that’s just it, there is a lot of focus on the one song that is playing and it’s harder to explore in some ways. Many of the features are still in the system if you dig deep but I feel like you have to know what they are in order to use them properly, again, this change of environment does make it more of a game and does give more control to the underlying music democracy system.

On a side note rant, I’ve been waiting for the sixtyone to put out a mobile app so I could enjoy it in more locations and share it more easily, maybe it could be implemented in an on/off sort of way so that people who prefer browsing or using a list interface could use the web layout and then switch to the jukebox style when they are just vegging out (which used to be a screensaver/slideshow type feature before the change). I’m guessing the new layout takes more bandwidth, let’s hope they put out a mobile version at some point and that it has its own awesome innovative interface. In any case, James and Sam continue to rock my world with the site and I’m stoked with what they’ve done. Below I’ve put up a couple shots from the old sixtyone and the new for one of my favorite bands, Go Periscope so you can see how it has changed.

TheSixtyone Old Design:

TheSixtyone New Design:

As more and more indie lyrics have been added to indilean I’ve run into a couple songs that have backwards messages in them. This is called Backmasking or “backwards masking” and in order to properly decipher the lyrics I need to play the music backwards. It took a while to figure this out but it’s not actually that hard, just below is a video outlining the five easy steps and below that is the code you will need and a few songs with backwards messages.

How to play a song backwards on a Mac using iTunes:

1. Use Finder to navigate to Home/Library/iTunes/ and create a new folder called “Scripts” if one isn’t already there
2. Copy the code just below
3. Use Spotlight Search to find the Script Editor program and launch it
4. Paste in the code you copied earlier and save it as “Play Backwards” in the Home/Library/iTunes/Scripts folder that we created in step one
5. Now, open the song you want to play backwards in iTunes, get to the part of the song you want to hear and use the script icon at the top to access the Play Backwards command and it will automatically launch Quicktime and begin from where you were

Code to paste into Script Editor:

In mid 2009 a friend shared the video below, produced by Inspired Bicycles, starring Danny MacAskill. The footage is unreal and the music fits so well, the whole thing is just epic. This was my first encounter with Band of Horses and their music got me hooked.

So today while exploring new music I came across a song by Kid Cudi called The Prayer which had a familiar beat. Turns out the background music is sampled from The Funeral, that same song by Band of Horses being used in the BMX video. I just wanted to call it out in case anyone else is trying to figure out where that song is from and who it is by.

Great lyrics and structure in both songs, I’ve listed a few lines from each below to help match it up. I really like the way Kid Cudi’s lyrics take in actual lines from prayer and twist them around to fit his song. You can listen to Kid Cudi’s version here and watch the original song, The Funeral, from Band of Horses on their MySpace here.

Kid Cudi – The Prayer:
if I die before I wake
I pray to Lord my soul to take
but please don’t cry
just know that I have made these songs for you

and if I die before I wake
I pray to Lord my soul to take
cuz I’m ready for the funeral

Band of Horses – The Funeral:
I’m coming up only to hold you under
I’m coming up only to show you wrong
and to know you is hard and we wonder
to know you all wrong, we were

really too late to call, so we wait for
morning to wake you; it’s all we got
to know me as hardly golden
is to know me all wrong, they were

at every occasion I’ll be ready for a funeral
at every occasion once more is called a funeral
every occasion I’m ready for the funeral
at every occasion one brilliant day funeral

Today marks the posting of indilean’s 100th song, coming in from Josh of Hella Better Dancer, the song is called Stay the Same and it rocks! Over the past few months indilean has grown to include 31 verified indie artists and bands, each sharing at least one of their songs so fans can enjoy the lyrics and comment on song meaning. New artists since our last update include the following:

• Dollchimes
• The Rescues
• Fol Chen
• The Hot Toddies
• Magic Wands
• Eliza The Arrow
• Forget Cassettes
• Darling Parade
• Dizzy Balloon
• Joel Plaskett
• Sinch
• The Kickdrums
• beta.beta
• Sauni’s Big Jump
• I Fight Dragons
• Circa Survive
• Plushgun
• Angie Arsenault

If you or someone you know is in a band and wants to share online in a way that will provide positive exposure, links back and a chance to let fans comment, visit the contribute page today. Remember that all posting must be done by the original artist or with their express written permission to keep it all legit.

Continuing in the spirit of sharing great music that doesn’t have any lyrics, I’ve got some killer songs with this update. TheSixtyone has been satisfying my every music need recently (outside of La Blogotheque which is spectacular, check out this performance by Sigur Ros) and several friends have gotten hooked on “Good Luck at the Gunfight” which I shared in this electronica picks post, claiming that it makes great driving music. I agree actually… My favorite driving songs from them right now are Kimberly and Malibu, listen here. I’m also sending a shout out for a shirt they sent me with the picture below, my experience with gunfights has been marginal at best.

So back to the music at hand, Ronald Jenkees has been killing it again with his new song Guitar Sound. As a guitar player myself, the song is moving and more of a story than most of what I usually hear or play. It sort of meanders and builds and then changes almost completely towards the end. This song is an adventure and anyone who hasn’t seen or heard of Ronald needs to check out this YouTube video of Stay Crunchy right now and then go out and buy their kids keyboards.

Pick number two this time around comes from ugress and it’s called Regression 22. This translike song almost reminds me of an upbeet remix of some of the songs from Pure Moods, a CD compilation from the mid 90′s or another song by Ray Lynch from his album Deep Breakfast called Celestial Soda Pop that I loved as a kid. While I’m straying from the point I also want to highly recommend a CD set called A Childhood Remembered and the The Cello’s Song by David Arkenstone and Kostia and Dragon’s Daughter by David Lanz and Paul Speer.

Other great nonlyrical songs recently include Paper Bag by Panic Girl and Helvetica by Arms and Sleepers.

This could really go on forever so I’m going to stop here. Keep your eye out for the next Nonlyrical Music Picks post if you’re into this kind of stuff.