Song Spotlight: Moonalice - "Down The Road A Piece"

Well, that was fast.  The second song from Moonalice's second studio album, "Down The Road A Piece", has been released.  Once again, it can be downloaded directly from the band's website in MP3 and FLAC formats.  The title of the album now seems to be Online Only. Only For Free., at least according to the tags in the MP3 file.

 

The song itself is a very cool blues-based boogie tune that features some awesome solos from the piano and guitar.  I hope you've been enjoying this album as much as I have so far, and I'll be back whenever the next song is released.  Happy listening!

 

URL:

http://www.moonalice.com/music/ 

Song Spotlight: Moonalice - "It's 4:20 Somewhere"

Back in September, when the Smashing Pumpkins announced that their next album would be released for free over the Internet, one track at a time, they received quite a bit of press about it (as well as a big increase in the number of visitors to this blog searching for a "free Smashing Pumpkins album"), and deservedly so - it's definitely a different way of releasing music, and it's nice to see major artists trying things like this.  However, it appears that Moonalice have beaten them to the punch, having recently announced the release of their second album, Free, one song at a time over the Internet.  The first of those songs, "It's 4:20 Somewhere", was just released last weekend, and can be downloaded directly from their website in 128k MP3 and FLAC formats.

 

I first wrote about Moonalice back in June.  Since that time, I have continued to follow them on Twitter and Facebook and have just been fascinated by them; last week, they stated that they "got rid of our manager, publicist, and label in favor of Facebook, Twitter, and [their] website" as an experiment in social media.  I don't think too many major artists would be willing to do something like that, so I support their initiative in as many ways as I can.  Of course, it helps a lot that their music rocks, as all the social media experiments in the world wouldn't be able to help them otherwise.  "It's 4:20 Somewhere" is no exception - it's a great mid-tempo rocker with a laid back feel, excellent guitar playing, and gorgeous backing vocals.  It's a great way to kick off their latest experiment, and I can't wait to hear where they go from here.

 

I hope you enjoy this song; if you do, please stay tuned for more new songs from Moonalice.  I'll most likely be posting about each track as it is made available, although future posts will probably be shorter than this one.  Happy listening!

 

URLs:

http://www.moonalice.com/music/ (for the song, plus lots of other free music)

http://totallyfreemusic.blogspot.com/2009/06/artist-spotlight-moonalice.html

http://www.facebook.com/moonalice?ref=ts

http://twitter.com/Moonalice/

http://www.moonalice.com

Song Spotlight: Allison Crowe - "Going Home Tonight"

Allison Crowe is currently working on a new album called Spiral.  A pre-release version of one of the album's songs, "Going Home Tonight", has been made available via the music blog Muruch.  This is one of the best songs I have ever heard from Allison, which is really saying a lot, as I have been a huge fan of hers for a couple of years now.  A simple, repeating piano figure provides a gentle backdrop for Allison's vocals, which are as amazingly powerful and beautiful as ever.  What's really new in this song is the string section, which soars alongside the vocals and gives the song an epic feel that one might expect to hear on a movie soundtrack.

 

When this song was posted on Allison's Facebook page, I asked when the album will be coming out, and the response was "likely to be late '09 or very early 2010."  If "Going Home Tonight" is in any way indicative of the direction Allison is taking for Spiral, then I think we are all in for a really big treat.  I'll be posting about it as soon as I am able to.  In the meantime, happy listening!

 

URLs:

http://www.muruch.com/2009/11/allison-crowe-new-mp3.html

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Allison-Crowe/23720081675?ref=nf

Song Spotlight: Paul McCartney - "Let Me Roll It" (plus a video for "Highway")

Paul McCartney is giving away a pair of free songs from his upcoming live CD/DVD set, Good Evening from New York City.  "Let Me Roll It" is a high quality (320 kbps) MP3, and "Highway" is a .m4v video file.  I've never posted about a free video giveaway here before, but if Music Musings can do it, then so can I!  In this case, though, the audio and video files actually come in a single zip file, so there's really no way to get one without the other.

 

I must say, it's very cool to see more and more artists embracing the idea of giving away a track or two in order to promote releases.  A release like this would normally go pretty much unnoticed by me, as despite being a pretty big Beatles fan, I am not very familiar with the post-Beatles output of any of the members.  But I find free music awfully hard to resist, and now Sir Paul has a potential sale while I browse the album's site and wait for my download to complete.  Even if I don't end up buying the album, at least Paul McCartney's music has made it onto my computer, and who knows, maybe I will end up checking out some more of his music as a result of this.

 

I don't think I have ever knowingly heard "Let Me Roll It" before, but it has quite a familiar sound to it, so it's likely that I have heard it at some point and just didn't take note of it; in any case, it's a very cool song with a great bluesy feel.  "Highway" sounds less familiar, but my 2-year-old son and I really enjoyed watching the video together - it's a very upbeat and catchy song.

 

The 39.4 MB zip file is available from the Good Evening from New York City website in a little widget near the bottom of the page that says GET A FREE VIDEO + MP3.  An email address is required; the download link will be sent to the address you entered.  Happy listening!

 

URL:

http://www.paulmccartney.com/goodeveningnewyorkcity/