8 Songs in 8 Hours

Ben Folds, OK Go’s Damian Kulash, Dresden Dolls’ Amanda Palmer and author Neil Gaiman plan to write and record eight songs in eight hours at Berklee College of Music on Monday.

The group of artists will release the album during Rethink Music, a music conference which takes place in Boston next week.

The collaboration will be broadcast live from the recording studio, and the album will be released through Bandcamp — with all proceeds from the first week going to Berklee City Music.

The project is to “show how record companies are becoming superfluous to building buzz and distributing music” the artists said in a statement.

Check out the rethink music website here for the live broadcast

Zuckerberg meets Obama

Nothing more to say than watch this video...

Watch live streaming video from facebookguests at livestream.com

Tesco goes Digital

Tesco have today announced they have acquired an 80% stake in Video On Demand pioneer Blinkbox from Eden Ventures and Nordic Venture Partners as the retailer ominously prepares for “the next stage in the internet-driven revolution in home entertainment”.

It is thought that the retailing giant, who already has a huge market share of the home Entertainment video market, will over-time look to re-brand the service which could end up offering a low cost film rental and streaming service that will put the pressure firmly on LoveFilm and others already operating in this space.

Nothing in life is free... Especially free music

Spotify have announced major changes to their free music offering which seem conflict with their mantra to make music on-demand available to all.

The changes are clearly an attempt by the Scandinavian music service to upscale the majority of its European users to their premium, paid-for model, potentially paving the way for the company to strike deals in the US with the so-far resistant label chiefs that could see the music provider really take off in the lucrative American market.

It seems the company has been obsessed over the last couple of years with cracking the US market, potentially to the detriment to the service it provides to a growing audience elsewhere in the world.

For me, these changes (which I've listed below) are a real backwards step for Spotify, meaning large numbers of devoted users and music lovers will simply switch service opening up new opportunities for a free streaming service to jump in. I understand the financial need to crack the states and importance of jumping into bed with the record labels but I think they should concentrate on offering the best service possible to users.

For me they need to grow their free user base in the rest of the world and work harder on incentivizing these users to pay for the service. The company has dipped its toe in an attempt to make the service more socially integrated but could have huge gains here and ultimately this could be the answer to its monetizing issues.

Only time will tell as to whether these new changes have a huge impact on the services audience, but I for one, will be on the look out for the next great free music service.

Here’s how the changes will work:

• New Spotify users will be able to enjoy our unrivalled free service as it is today for the first 6 months.
• As of May 1st, any user who signed up to the free service on or before November 1st 2010 will be able to play each track for free up to a total of 5 times. Users who signed up after the beginning of November will see these changes applied 6 months after the time they set up their Spotify account.
• Additionally, total listening time for free users will be limited to 10 hours per month after the first 6 months. That’s equivalent to around 200 tracks or 20 albums.

TV on the Radio ... Film?

Brooklyn's finest TV on the Radio have today premiered an album length film via Youtube. In an extraordinary blurring of the lines the film features every track on Nine Types of Light, which they also released as a record today, confused you should be.

“Nine Types of Light is as much an album as it is a movie" the band stated in an interview though they did go on to explain that “The movie is meant to be a visual re-imagining of the record, and includes a music video for every song on the album".

I would recommend checking out the film irrespective of whether you are a fan of their music or not. If you like what you hear you can also buy the album here