Blog Action Day 2010

Today is Blog Action Day, a day during which bloggers all around the world come together to write about a single important topic.  Even though I haven't been doing a whole lot of blogging lately (my reasons for which are summarized in a comment on a recent post on Feedback), I still wanted to participate in this day.  The topic for this year's Blog Action Day is water; this being a music blog, it made sense to have some music about water.

A few months ago, I came across a live version of Pearl Jam's "Amongst the Waves", which was originally released on last year's Backspacer.  That album has actually turned out to be one of my favourite Pearl Jam albums yet, and "Amongst the Waves" is one of my favourite songs on the album; the big, anthemic chorus is something that Pearl Jam really excels at, and I love the upbeat nature of this song.  While the song itself isn't actually about water, I'm going to say that it's close enough for my purposes right now.  I'll get back to more regular blogging someday soon, I'm sure; in the meantime, enjoy the song and feel free to check out some more of the Blog Action Day action - there are quite a few music blogs involved, if you're looking for a place to start.

You'll need to subscribe to Pearl Jam's mailing list to access the download.  If you're cool with that, the download link should arrive in your inbox shortly.  Happy listening!

URLs:

http://blogactionday.change.org

http://www.pearljam.com/widgets/atw/index.php

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/