Well PMA is back on its regular schedule and with some cool swag just in time for Christmas! This is the first of FOUR great contests Pretty Much Amazing is holding this month. 

This week PMA is giving away 6 Mixtape Flash Drives.

What’s old is new again. The Mix Tape Flash Drive is, well, a flash drive that looks exactly like a mix tape! Featuring a retractable USB jack that easily connects to any computer and is compatible with both MAC and PC. Comes with two customizable labels. Holds 512MB of music!

Here is how you can enter!
1. Leave a comment with your name and email address in the given fields
2. Tell me who you’d give your mixtape to.

Simple enough right? Oh and I should tell you that six people will win 1 mixtape usb drive each.

Contest end Saturday, December 7th at 8PM PST

The Fray - You Found Me
Franz Ferdinand - Ulysses
Beyonce - Diva (New single?)
Chris Brown - Froze
Britney Spears - Womanizer (X Factor Live Remix) [thnx]
Little Boots - Meddle (Baron von Luxxury’s Technicolor Remix)
Hot Chip - Touch Too Much (Fake Blood Remix)

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Bryan Vaughan - papergardenrecords.com

Being a low-level blogger isn’t easy. I know it might seem like we just sit around and listen to music all day, occasionally sharing our opinions and complaining about Britney’s latest album, but it’s so much more than that. Sometimes we even complain about The Killers’ new album. I know, I know, don’t worry, I’m seeking medical attention as we speak. Alas, this is the life of the blogger who is slightly above the level of your Aunt Martha who managed to turn on her computer and figure out how to set up a blog where she talks about her unfulfilling sex life with your Uncle George (eww), but also far below the level of Pretty Much Amazing. How did I know I outranked your Aunt Martha? Well, it all started the day that the music industry decided to put me in charge (yes, I was surprised too).

Oh how vividly I remember the first email. There it sat in my ever-reliable gmail inbox, smiling back at me as I opened it with the excitement of a young Thom Yorke hearing Frankie Valli’s falsetto for the very first time. The email came from (insert vaguely-music-related name here) Promotion company, informing me that they would like to put me on their extremely exclusive mailing list to receive all of the hippest new music from indie artists that were so far underground that the company couldn’t even list their names without running the risk of them becoming mainstream immediately upon their mention. This was serious shit. Or so I thought.

As the weeks went by, somehow, other promotional and record companies got wind of my apparent unparalleled expertise and also began giving me everything on the down-low (as the kids are saying these days). Having never run a two-bit music blog in the past, receiving emails on a regular basis (besides, of course, the daily check-in from my mother; thanks mom, love ya!) was a new experience to me altogether. Their emails usually went a little something like –

“Hey Jeff! It’s your main man Herbert! Check out the latest EP from ‘Mustaches at the Dining Hall’. I think you’ll agree with ‘Will Do Anything for Traffic’ Music Blog who called this band the love child of Fall Out Boy and Kansas.”
So in the beginning I tried to be nice about it. “Thanks for the heads up Herbert– I’m not sure if Mustaches at the Dining Hall’s sound is really up our alley (cliches always save potentially awkward situations), but we wish them the best of luck!”

Eventually, as my inbox started to overflow, I figured out what made this so frustrating. Here’s the blogger’s secret: These bands, or at least a large majority of them, sucked severely. It wasn’t that they were too cool for me to understand, they just simply blew. Needless to say, I ran out of clichés.

“Hey. Herb. I appreciate your message, though I don’t understand why anyone would think that the love child of Fall Out Boy and Kansas wouldn’t be immediately put up for adoption. But, we wish them the best of luck!”

I cringed every time they mocked me with their catchy headers and offers of free streaming mp3s.
Then, finally, it happened.
I couldn’t handle it anymore.
I stopped reading them altogether.
I deleted the emails immediately.
It seemed so harmless, so easy to just ignore them. So I did, for at least 3 months I completely cut myself off from it all and just wrote about bands that had already made their name in some capacity.

Then, just the other day, I decided that I’d give the old Herbster one more chance. I read his latest email, listened to the promotional tracks, even watched the music video. And when it was all over, I liked the band. A lot. This was extremely disconcerting.

Had I spent the last 3 months deleting the next Muse because they were sandwiched between the next Nickelback and the next Plain White T’s??

I panicked. I opened up my inbox and sat there, staring at the screen, waiting for a new promotional email as anxiously as Axl Rose waiting for someone to give him his dignity back.

About 13 seconds later I remembered why I didn’t have to panic. An email arrived. “Hey Jeff! I think you’ll really love ‘My Kingdergarden Crush” they… blah blah blah ok just give me the goods”. I clicked on the link. I listened. I listened some more. I let it simmer.
Shit.
It sucked. I scoffed. Maybe next time, tis the life.

The Good and the Not So Good Under-Heard Bands That I Accidentally Clicked On Instead Of Deleting (Though I Would Be An IndiePimp If I Blogged About Any Of Them)

Good

Not So Good

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I really do heart turkey and the sleepy euphoria it brings. 

So, Happy Thanksgiving from Pretty Much Amazing, everyone! I hope you enjoy your turkey and pie. I will. 

These songs aren’t very Thanksgiving-y but it’s what I’ve been listening to all day, so it’s even better than random songs with “Thank You” or “November” in the title:

Pretty Much Amazing Celebrates Thanksgiving Too!

Catch the MP3s after the jump

She & Him - Sentimental Heart
Kings of Leon - Manhattan
Robyn - Be Mine
Kanye West - Welcome To Heartbreak
Kings of Leon - Closer
The Killers - Joy Ride
Cut Copy - Lights and Music
Kevin Rudolf - Coffee & Donuts

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Looking back at 2008’s major releases, it is safe to say that British rockers Coldplay had one of the biggest albums of the year with “Viva La Vida.” The album has the most paid download sales of all time, and it generally received favorable reviews. They had one of the most memorable iPod commercials in recent memory that got everyone back aboard the Coldplay bandwagon once again. Coldplay were never strangers to success, but with “Viva La Vida” it became cool to like Coldplay once again. Well, as long as you haven’t seen the 40 Year Old Virgin!

After the great success of their 4th studio album “Viva La Vida” they decided to release an EP entitled “Prospekt’s March.” The release comes directly off the success of Viva La Vida, with the band hoping to carry the momentum just a little bit further.

The EP is a combination of leftovers from the “Viva La Vida” recording sessions, and remixes of other tracks. First off is “Life in Technicolor II” a sequel in sorts of Viva La Vida’s atmospheric album opener. Chris Martin and company added lyrics and a big Coldplay chorus to give another spin to the already pleasurable song. It isn’t anything spectacular, but at least now our curiosity of what the song would song like with lyrics is over. There is a simple but pleasant piano piece called “Postcards from Far Away” that didn’t seem to have any point but to fill up the track listing and provide some leeway into the EP’s best track: “Glass of Water.” It is a song that would fill up any arena with its powerful soaring guitars. “Rainy Day” features beautiful string arrangements that would make Vampire Weekend proud, along with sliding guitars and other world-influences that provide an engaging listen.

“Prospekts March/Poppyfields” and “Now My Feet Won’t Touch the Ground” are both ballads with acoustic guitars that could have been beautiful songs but they have no real build up. While listening you can’t help but think that the tracks are missing something extra. This is a familiar trend throughout the second half of the EP. Things like the “Lovers in Japan (Osaka Sun Mix)” did nothing for me. I honestly did not notice a significant difference from the original version that made it worth my time.

However, the Lost remix featuring Jay-Z is a breath of fresh air. “Lost” is one of “Viva La Vida’s” shining moments, it would be hard to mess a track this good up. Jay-Z gives it an extra boost with some hip-hop flavor that combines the best of both worlds. It is amazing to see a rapper like Jay-Z collaborate with a band like Coldplay so effortlessly.

The reason Viva La Vida was a special Coldplay album is because they added something new to their sound. The acoustic tracks were nothing different for the band, and quite frankly they were a let down. It was too safe. That seems to be the problem that people find with Coldplay. They have huge ambitions and are clearly great musicians with a fantastic sense of melody. Yet they stick to a similar formula even when their style changes.

In today’s music world it is pretty hard to have a successful selling album. It is no surprise that they are trying to keep their popularity running with another release. The EP is not a complete letdown with a few keepers here and there making the release worth a purchase if you are a diehard fan. The rest of the tracks are not bad by any means, but it is clear as to why they were left out of the album and instead are seen on this EP.

Recommended tracks: “Glass of Water” and “Lost! (Jay-Z Remix)”

 PMASCORE: 6 1/2 Bulbs!

–

Will Oliver is a guest-blogger here at Pretty Much Amazing. Catch his daily entries at his blog, We All Want Someone To Shout For.

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Blender Magazine recently released their top 33 albums of 2008.  Although it’s by no means close to what my top 33 albums would be, I gotta give them credit for coming up with a pretty eclectic mix.  I mean, they cover it all from Erykah Badu, to Katy Perry to Girl Talk.  It is the latter’s presence on the list that gives us some comfort knowing they didn’t just focus on albums released on major labels.  And the presence of artists like Bon Iver and Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks confirms that they didn’t just focus on mainstream artists.  Even old folks like Randy Newman and Al Green made the cut!  But let’s take a deeper look at the magazine’s choices:    

GOOD: Girl Talk is #2! And really, who doesn’t enjoy that album? Even though I liked Feed the Animals way more than I did Carter 3, I gotta hand it to Lil Weezy for making such a major comeback and being #1 album of the year.  I still remember when he was a little twerp running around with the Cash Money Millionaires back in the ’90s.

Although Lykke Li is my Swedish pop star of choice, it was cool to see Robyn beat Katy Perry and Mariah Carey at #6.  I don’t want to hate, but Mariah needs to give up already.  Daydream was a great album, but that was a long time ago.        

BAD: This list just might be a little too eclectic.  The variety makes you wonder if Blender sat down and grouped 2008 releases into different genres and categories, and then tried to pick at least one from each.  I’m definitely puzzled at Fall Out Boy’s appearance on the top 10.  I mean, people still like them?  Not only that but they beat Bon Iver and My Morning Jacket.  And what is with the Roots actually making it as #24? Don’t get me wrong, I love them, but Rising Down was pretty disappointing and there are definitely better hip hop albums released this year (i.e. Atmosphere, Murs, Common Market).      

OMGWTF: Mettalica is back!? Just kidding. I’m not sure if they deserve to be the 4^th best album of 2008, though. What’s really shocking is they didn’t completely suck! That and they beat Hot Chip’s Made in the Dark! Even more shocking is that country music actually made the list. Way to go Hayes Carll & Taylor Swift for filling the last two spots on the list.   I’m betting it’s Taylor’s good looks that got her on the list in the first place.   

How does Ponytail make it on here as #18, or even Usher as #26, but MGMT is nowhere to be found?! I mean, C’MON!! I thought everyone loved MGMT.  And Coldplay didn’t even make top 20. Instead they got #22 behind Erykah Badu, Wale and Katy Perry.

Blender’s Top 33 Albums of 2008

33 Hayes Carll - Trouble In Mind

32 Taylor Swift - Fearless

31 Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!

30 Young Jeezy - The Recession

29 Raphael Saadiq - The Way I See It

28 Stephen Malkmus And The Jicks - Real Emotional Trash

27 Mariah Carey - E=MC²

26 Usher - Here I Stand

25 Santogold - Santogold

24 The Roots - Rising Down

23 The Cool Kids - The Bake Sale

22 Coldplay - Viva La Vida

21 Erykah Badu - New Amerykah: Pt. One (4th World War)

20 Wale - The Mixtape About Nothing

19 Katy Perry - One Of The Boys

18 Ponytail - Ice Cream Spiritual

17 Conor Oberst - Conor Oberst

16 Be Your Own Pet - Get Awkward

15 Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago

14 Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue

13 Al Green - Lay It Down

12 My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges

11 Death Cab For Cutie - Narrow Stairs

10 Fall Out Boy - Folie A Deux

09 Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

08 Randy Newman - Harps and Angels

07 of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping

06 Robyn - Robyn

05 Hot Chip - Made In The Dark

04 Metallica - Death Magnetic

03 TV On The Radio - Dear Science

02 Girl Talk - Feed The Animals

01 Lil’ Wayne - Tha Carter III

BONUS: Blender’s Top Songs of 2008
1. Lil Wayne - A Milli
2. M.I.A. - Paper Planes
3. Flo Rida - Low
4. Estella & Kanye West - American Boy
5. Coldplay - Viva La Vida
6. T.I. & Jay-Z feat. Kanye West & Lil Wayne - Swagga Like Us

What are your top picks for 2008? Don’t forget to e-mail Luis with suggestions!

–
Half Note is a guest-blogger here at Pretty Much Amazing. You can read her other musical musings at her blog, the Daily Eargasm.

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Straight outta Common’s upcoming Universal Mind Control is this Kanye West collab, “Punch Drunk Love.” While “Punch Drunk Love” sounds like a fun cruising track — the absolute best part of it is that we have our old stuck up, confident Kanye back for about 4 minutes — even if its just a looped chorus hook. 

But really, all this thrown up on a sick Neptunes beat? It’s hot. 

Download “Punch Drunk Love” after the jump!

Common ft. Kanye West - Punch Drunk Love

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I sort of wish a vocoderfied Justin Timberlake (see: Can’t Believe It Official Remix) jumped on this track also. 

Download the “Forever Remix” below!

Chris Brown, Lil Wayne, Lupe Fiasco - Forever Remix

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Let’s get the facts out of the way at the beginning. The Hype Machine is a 4-year old music blog aggregator that links to mp3 blogs around the interwebs. Tracks are available for preview on hypem.com, available for purchase on partner sites like amazon and e-music, and available for free just a hyperlink away. And - depending on who you talk to - The Hype Machine is either saving the music industry or killing music.

From here on out, it’s pretty much a gray area. Is Hypem simply a website-based Napster connecting peers for the purpose of capital-‘s’ Stealing files? Or is it the web 2.0 equivalent of your cool friend’s older brother who listens to that Sublime album with the dirty words and lets you burn copies of his CDs so you can listen to them on your discman on the bus to 8th grade? Can it be both? Wouldn’t that be awesome?

There are a thousand different questions revolving around the legality of HypeM, but I’ll leave those for the lawyer-types. (Although if you want to bend your brain a bit, consider some light reading on the BetaMax principle and some much heavier documents from the MGM v. Grokster P2P case). I’m more fascinated by the effects of Hypem on music and its increasingly more amorphous industry. If music is the lake and The Hype Machine is the rock, what are the ripples? If Hype Machine is the butterfly, where are the tornadoes? If Hype Machine is [insert action here] what is [insert equal and opposite reaction here]?

Since gray areas don’t really sell, let’s break it down to the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Or, assuming the Ugly is the legal mumbo-jumbo, let’s break it down to the Good and the Bad. And since no one really wants to read a boring article praising the Hype Machine, let’s just skip to the Bad (and maybe throw some Good in from time to time). Without further ado, here are the Deadliest Sins of the Hype Machine:

1. The Hype Machine kills singles

Jonathan Galkin, label manager for indie outfit DFA Records, put in his $.02 worth in an article on guardian.co.uk, saying in no uncertain terms, “MP3 blogs have greatly decreased the sale of our singles”. He went on to detail – “They didn’t exist when we released [the Rapture's] House of Jealous Lovers and we sold 20,000 copies quickly. Now there are thousands of blogs and we sell, on average, 2,000 to 5,000 copies of a 12-inch single. I think that is a true reflection of hearing something and rushing out to buy the real deal version versus hearing something and just searching on Hype Machine for a quick lo-fi fix.”

To be fair, House of Jealous Lovers dropped in 2002, a very different music economy than the one we’re greeted with today. With PirateBay bringing torrents to the masses, music search engines popping up, and thousands of file-transfer services, there are more influences at play than a single blog aggregator. But Hypem is an undoubtedly simple solution for a quick fix single.

But who cares about singles? They’re really just promotional samples for an entire LP. Music is about so much more than just the hits. It’s about the anticipation, waiting for the latest from your favorite artists to come out on a Tuesday. It’s about unwrapping the CD that you bought with your hard-earned cash, peeling that annoying sticky label off and finally getting a glimpse of the glittering plastic disc. It’s about turning on your stereo, putting in the album, and listening to every new song, beginning to end, over and over. Even that really shitty noise-part after Handshake Drugs, because presumably Jeff Tweedy knows more about music than I do.

Wait, what’s that you say? No one buys CDs anymore? Hardly anyone downloads full albums now? Oh, well then…

2. The Hype Machine kills albums.

It’s tough not to agree with this one. Most fans, critics, and music-makers will agree that the heyday of the album, the record, the fully functional LP is gone for good.  Take, for example, the contrast between my Dad and me.  Pops owned a couple hundred records in college that he would play over and over, that little dangly part of the turntable scratching and popping through the grooves until the cylinders warped. Two hundred some is a fair number of records, the result of years of collecting. Those albums were the soundtrack to his youth - from album art to tunes those 200 records represented a good deal of his life. He could probably name all of them off the top of his head.

Today, my soundtrack varies from week to week. I burn through albums, discarding them often after less than a full listen, marked as not worth the time or effort.  The average listener these days has probably 5,000+ songs in their iTunes library, and I would venture to say that a minority of those songs are even in the context of full albums. Hell, lots of people these days couldn’t tell you what album their favorite tunes come from. Can anyone name the Soulja Boy LP? Is there a Soulja Boy LP?

The Hype Machine makes it easy to find certain songs and hard to find others. But in a cream rising to the top kind of way. Essentially, the listeners choose the singles. Make an album full of hits, and they’ll probably hit the big time. Make an album full of duds, however, and it’s unlikely that any bloggers will feel the need to share your worthless tracks with their friends and readers. But the experience of listening to Kid A cover to cover, the fluidity of hearing one track lead into another, the realization of a concept album like The Streets’ A Grand Don’t Come For Free, is likely reserved for the devout.  The album, as we knew it, is dead.

3. The Hype Machine accelerates the speed of music.

No, not like when people play vinyl records faster than they’re supposed to go, Alvin and the Chipmunks style, or when they fast forward a cassette tape so Barry White sounds like Britney Spears. I mean that the cycle of music is sped up. That a year between albums is a long time, and two is an eternity. The good old days when bands would record and release an album, tour during the following year, recover for the next year, and start over in the third are gone. With rare exceptions, bands that follow that pattern are forgotten in the downtime, overtaken by the prolific Fallout Boys and monthly Bishop Allens of the scene. In today’s music, there’s no time to rest on your laurels. Jay-Z retired in 2003 and released a brand new album in 2006.

Hypem’s Popular page, which lists the 50 most played tracks currently on the Hype Machine, comes with this notice: “Once a song is older than 3 days, it is removed from this list to keep things fresh & current.” Perhaps there is no greater indication of the speed of the blogosphere than that. If it’s 3 days old, it might as well be rotten. In a time where if people aren’t talking about your music you might as well not exist, it’s best to stay fresher than fresh. Is Hypem directly responsible for Lil Wayne’s 8 mixtapes in 4 years? No. But it shoulders at least some of the blame.

4. The Hype Machine kills music writing.

As a music writer, this is perhaps the most grievous of sins. By creating a distribution model in which fans search directly for songs, Hypem has essentially eliminated the need for written music content. Three clicks from Hypem lands a track on your desktop, and in a flash you’re off to the next blog, not bothering to see if the person who posted that Lady Sovereign track loves it or hates it.

I would venture to say that upwards of 60% of all visitors to a given music blog spend under 5 minutes on the page. Why spend more when there are so many different songs to find! And in 3 days these will all be rotten! Oh the humanity! Unless a blog catches your eye enough times to get added to an RSS feed or to your bookmarks bar, it’s unlikely you’ll ever read the words that accompany that zshare link – an unfortunate side effect of the Hype Machine.  

Most hyperbolic and finally…

5. The Hype Machine kills the enjoyment of music.

Hypem, and all the baggage it brings with it, turns the enjoyment of music into a chore. If you’re not up on the latest hit, you’re behind the times. It’s harder to sit back and listen to an album three times back to back, because right in front of you is a list of 10 other artists that have released new tracks since you got these. There’s no time to digest an artist that you don’t like on first taste, so bands that might grow on you – say The National or Cold War Kids – are immediately forgotten and lost in the sea of new cuts. I constantly re-discover artists months later by just shuffling through my iTunes library. If I had paid $12 for the record would I have tried my hardest to love each and every track? You’re damn right I would have.

But let’s not be overly negative with the killing of all good things and whatnot. As with all gray areas, there are pros to the Hype Machine’s cons. Probably stronger ones, for that matter.  All the music from the leading blogs for $Free-99, for instance. Hypem is an opportunity for bands like Tapes N’ Tapes, Menomena, and Passion Pit and to find immediate success with fans with very little notice or build-up. Hypem, for better of for worse, grants the chance for remixes and mashups to find their way into the mainstream.

The Hype Machine is a fixture. It’s the central hub of online music blogging, and it’s (hopefully) here to stay. Because for all its ills, The Hype Machine keeps people talking about music. It retains that anticipation of the newest track. It’s an e-harmony matchmaker setting up music readers and music blogs for romantic connections that will lasts for weeks, maybe even months. It might hurt profits for big artists, but it allows small artists to share their music. It might diminish the concept of an entire album, but it gives rise to mixtapes and covers EPs. It may speed things up, but it also speeds up the process of releasing music and generating buzz. And although Hypem might have allowed you to skip the prose about why Sufjan is the perfect soundtrack to some rando’s Tuesday, it also might have led you here. Which, I suppose, is the whole point.

Testing the Hype Machine Method: Hypem’s Top 5 MP3s Right Now
Hot Chip - Ready For The Floor (Shake A Fist Diplo Mix)
A-Trak Feat. Lupe Fiasco - Me & My Sneakers
Kevin Rudolf & Nas - Nyc
Daft Punk - One More Time (Laidback Luke ‘Be More Time’ Edit)
Coldplay - Life In Technicolor II

-
Chris Barth is a guest-blogger here at Pretty Much Amazing, you can read his daily entries at his blog, The Stu Reid Experiment.

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Awesome capture.

Yeesh, I’m sick today. That sucks. Alas, life must go on.

I’ve been neglecting my feed reader for some time now, so I did some catching up this morning. I found these tracks and I kinda liked them.

Sia - Buttons (CSS Remix)
Lady GaGa - Pokerface (Space Cowboy Remix)
The Killers - Human (Ocelot Remix - Alternative Live Edit)
Kanye West - Street Lights (Max Justus Remix)
Coldplay - Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before (Smiths Cover)

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