Apple iTunes

Worst Song Ever, Revealed!

Vaux CSI Promo and Ride the Boogie

3OH!3 is the Place to Be

Today's Night & Day featured event: Bo Burnham kids around at the Comedy Works South

You might think he's just another Internet wonder, but teen comedian/musician Bo Burnham is determined to prove he's for real... and he's doing it in the flesh. The fresh-faced and openly gay performer, who first garnered mass attention (to the tune of two-million hits) for his YouTube video "My Who ... More >>

The Westword.com blog shortcut, February 13 issue

Having a nice day, all you triskaidekaphobics? Today in Backbeat Online: • Aviano Coffee debuts anything-goes open mike tomorrow. • Fort Collins set to debut all-local music fest in April. • Spoke-In-Wordz debuts new single on iTunes, Amazon. Today in Cafe Society: • 231 Milwaukee back o ... More >>

Ten bands we'd watch on TV

The breakout success of Flight of the Conchords got us thinking of other bands that would make for must-see TV. After all, no one makes money selling records these days, and a band's gotta make a living somehow, right? So we went into brainstorming mode (in this case, that means we drank a fifth of ... More >>

Jewell Tyme Music's Karma says 'Vote for the Hood'

The first release from Jewell Tyme Music in 2009 is from rapper Karma in the form of a mixtape called Barack O'Karma: Street Politics. It's mixed by DJ Tense of ManeLine and features appearances from the entire Jewell Tyme roster, including F.O.E., Haven, and 800 the Jewell. The project is slated to ... More >>

The Beatdown

Beatport.com turns the tables on the art of deejaying.

Young Coyotes new EPs on iTunes, Daytrotter session available next Tuesday

Remember this past November when we told you about the Young Coyotes' Daytrotter session? We've been patiently waiting since then to hear the blasted thing. Well, thankfully, it looks like the wait is almost over, as next Tuesday, March 10 week*, the session will be available for download. As it hap ... More >>

The economy sucks, so here are 570 free songs

It's finds like this that make me glad I am a pathetic, house-bound loser who spends all his time surfing the Internet. The good folks at Amazon.com got into the MP3-selling business a while back. Not only are there formats better than the ridiculous iTunes formats (for example, no DRM, universally ... More >>

The Westword.com blog shortcut, March 11 edition

Photo by Geoff McLeanThe men of MSTRKRFT. Oh, what a beautiful day. Today in Backbeat Online: • Q&A with Jesse F. Keeler and Alex "Al-P" Puodziukas of MSTRKRFT. • Q&A with Rasmus Stolberg of Efterklang. • Q&A with Dan Whitford of Cut Copy. • Free SXSW Denver Music download. • Flier of th ... More >>

Get your goth on with Pictureplane tonight

Tonight at Rhinoceropolis, Pictureplane is kicking off his Goth Tour in fine style -- goth style, that is. The notice I just got asks attendees to dress goth (the picture left is a detail from the flier, ostensibly included as a helpful hint if you've forgotten what goth looks like). Sounds like so ... More >>

Kidding Around

Tonight at Rhinoceropolis, Pictureplane is kicking off his Goth Tour in fine style -- goth style, that is. The notice I just got asks attendees to dress goth (the picture left is a detail from the flier, ostensibly included as a helpful hint if you've forgotten what goth looks like). Sounds like so ... More >>

Talking Shop

Tonight at Rhinoceropolis, Pictureplane is kicking off his Goth Tour in fine style -- goth style, that is. The notice I just got asks attendees to dress goth (the picture left is a detail from the flier, ostensibly included as a helpful hint if you've forgotten what goth looks like). Sounds like so ... More >>

Beatsource.com Sets the Pace

The hip-hop arm of Beatport.com is ready for the big takeover.

Chriscross

MC Chris's rap career gets a boost from Adult Swim -- or is it the other way around?

Tryst Lounge

Drown night

U2

How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (Interscope)

Tip Sheet: Arliss Nancy

Darren Mahuron​Speaking of Mile Hi-Fidelity, here's another show favorite. Those who tuned in more than once likely heard "Wrong or Right" by this band, which we spun quite a few times. If you're drawn to the raw, emotionally-charged song stylings of Lucero, then Fort Collins-based Arliss Nancy is ... More >>

The Westword.com blog shortcut, August 11 edition

A sign of the times.​All we need is "U." Today in Cafe Society: • The mystery of the missing letters on Bastien's marquee. • Golfin' for good (with good eats). • Civic Center Eats: Forte Farms. • 231 Milwaukee back on the market... again. • Tonight: The Denver Five dish it out at D ... More >>

First look video for Mr. Anonymous "Some Gal a Move"

​The mysterious Mr. Anonymous, one of the standout artists on Boulder-based label Black Bridge, has a new tune out called "Some Gal a Move," a shuffling, smile-inducing, head nodding slow jam with autotuned vocals and ridiculous lyrics. And to accompany this fine new song, he's dropped a fun a ... More >>

Introducing the complex, beautiful Brim Liski

Photo by Leah Maupin​Update 11/11/09: The full Brim Liski EP was released yesterday on Latenight Weeknight Records and is now available for download on iTunes for $5.99. We've just learned of a promising new group based here in Denver (with a connection to the Netherlands too, apparently). I ... More >>

Ke$ha rules the airwaves -- and makes us want to shoot ourselves in the face

"Just listened to a "song" from Ke$ha. Fucking shoot me in the face! That was the worst 3min of my life. I am going to kill puppies now." Best. Tweet. Ever. Hands down. Couldn't have said it any better, numberthree. Not only do you swing the sticks with the zest of Papa Zita, clearly you've also bee ... More >>

Hearsay bits: 3OH!3 tops the iTunes charts, Little Fyodor's cassette release

​Pop Tart Charts: 3OH!3 is atop the iTunes chart, thanks to their collaboration with Ke$ha. The pop tart's wittily titled "Blah Blah Blah (feat. 3OH!3)" might be "face-shooting pablum" (as we called her work the other day) but this "unholy, completely sexless union of Katy Perry and Lady Gaga" ... More >>

B.o.B. (sort of) wins the week

As expected, B.o.B.'s Adventures of Bobby Ray is the number one album in the country this week. Of course, it only needed to sell 84,000 copies to do it. As Billboard notes, this is the first three-week run of no albums breaking 100,000 since February of last year. Cue alarm bells, death of The I ... More >>

Five ways to stave off an iTunes store monopoly

​ With the disintegration of Lala coming May 31st, we've been left with one less choice for downloading. Lala was one of the best digital music distributors in town, offering full album streaming and low prices for downloading. After the website was gobbled up by Apple in December of last ... More >>

Check out "Julia," the first track from Naeem Oba's new album, Unorthodox

​ Naeem Oba should already be on your radar. But just in case he isn't, feel free to get up to speed on the Minneapolis-bred MC by reading the Q&A we posted with him and brikAbrak this past December. Dude is deep. Real deep. Right now, he's working on an album based on 1984, George Orwell's p ... More >>

The Denver Diatribe: Why I helped start Denver's best only iTunes friendly podcast

​Lately I've been spending a good chunk of my minimal free time working with Jared Jacang Maher, a former Westword writer now at Face The State and John Dicker, founder of the Geeks Who Drink quiz night empire, to launch the Denver Diatribe, a weekly half-hour podcast on culture, politics and ... More >>

Rihanna is a Singles Lady if there ever was one

​Last week in Poptimystic, we talked about Taylor Swift and her unparalleled ability to sell albums in the current music industry wasteland. But the album is not what it once was, and the ability to sell singles may actually be a better litmus test of an artist's influence. It remains the un ... More >>

Beatles on iTunes? Big deal. There's still a number of artists missing

​Last week, the Beatles finally caved into to the digital model, joining other once-holdouts like Pink Floyd and Metallica on iTunes. There are two reasons why artists are still withholding their music from iTunes: They want full-album/no-single purchases, and they want more money.

Happy Cakes launches iPhone app

​Happy Cakes, 3434 West 32nd Avenue, offers up a dizzying array of cupcake flavors, parsed out in daily specials that rotate all week long. If you want to find out whether maple bacon or Jack and Coke is on the list before you make the drive to Highland, the bakery has you covered: It just lau ... More >>

Nielsen study shows off how people are consuming music

​Nielsen just dropped some stats about music consumer behavior that will probably make record labels a bit more nervous. The study uses a bunch of futuristic sounding terms like "hyper-fragmentation" and "digital natives," but when it boils down to it, reveals what we already know: People are ... More >>

How the music industry will change in 2011

​In the past decade, the music industry has seen a lot of changes, but it has struggled to keep pace with technology, piracy and consumer demands. Already this year we've started to see a few more changes take shape, from crackdowns on piracy websites, a resurgence of interest in the currently ... More >>

A freezing-weather playlist, from Denver and beyond

​Fun fact you probably didn't know already: It's really fucking cold outside. How cold? Well, eleven degrees below zero at last check. This is hunker down with hot chocolate and delivery Chinese food weather. Work can wait until you don't need an ice pick and a Sherpa to navigate your neighbor ... More >>

Sony's new Qriocity streaming service launched yesterday, is it enough to kill iTunes?

Sony's hoping to pique your qriocity (sorry) with it's new streaming music service this week, by offering a free thirty day trial, tons of different streaming options and a library of over six million songs from the four major record label and most everyone they distribute. We spent the day with t ... More >>

Mountain Dew signs the Cool Kids to "the best deal in the world"

​The Cool Kids have been stuck in label hell for over a year now trying to get their debut full-length released. Their relationship with previous label, Chicago's Chocolate Industries, went bad, and none of the majors interested in the album could figure out an offer that worked for everyone. ... More >>

Björk's new album, Biophilia, slated for simultaneous iPad app release

​Björk has a relationship with technology that rivals that of Joe Satriani with his guitar -- the two cannot exist without each other. It has always seemed like Björk has been waiting for technology to catch up with her, and when Apple launched its iPad, she finally had a place to experiment ... More >>

How does Apple's iCloud compare to other cloud services? No streaming option, for starters.

​Yesterday, Apple described and semi-launched its newest service, iCloud, an online storage locker that will automatically sync all of your Apple devices together with music, apps and books purchased through the iTunes store. What does that mean, exactly? Well, we break it down and compare its ... More >>

Will cloud storage help indie labels?

​We've already taken a look at the big three cloud services from Apple, Amazon and Google, but what does any of this mean to local bands and labels? With talk of Apple paying $100 million to the major labels for the rights to store content in the cloud and the launch of its paid service immine ... More >>

Spotify finally launches in the U.S. What is it?

​It might not have been on purpose, but Spotify's constant delays in coming stateside have somehow managed to create an organic buzz for the streaming music service unlike anything that could have been done intentionally.

Music App Roundup: Play by AOL, Pixies Official, Spotify, VinylLove and Björk: Biophilia

​The music app business has been booming enough recently that we decided it was time we start sifting through it all on a regular basis. It's a strange digital world when everyone out there can create a mobile application for whatever purpose they desire, but that also means there are a lot of ... More >>

7-Eleven teams up with Mall Jamz and Thump Records to sell music alongside taquitos

​You probably don't generally equate going CD shopping with 7-Eleven, but with record stores disappearing everyday, a direct-seller called Mall Jamz is trying to change the way we think of buying music by selling it at the same place where we buy Slurpees. Some 7-Eleven stores across the metro ... More >>

Tommy Metz re-masters and remixes Tommy Metz

​The internet age just got a little weirder. One of Denver's most prolific musicians, Tommy Metz (AKA Iuengliss) decided his 2010 album, Blossom Frontier, wasn't up to snuff, so he pulled it, remixed it, re-mastered it and redid the artwork. He even renamed it to Frontier, which we're pretty s ... More >>

Music App Roundup: Bandito, Groove Coaster, My Wedding Music, Voloco, Rdio

​As smartphones have opened the door to amazing mobile applications, the sheer amount of them being released makes it difficult to keep up with the best of them. So to help filter though all of it, we take a look at the best and tally them up here. This round, we've got an amazing rhythm game, ... More >>

Apple Store Rewind 2011 includes the Best Of... iPhone app

​It's time to dust off the Westword glitter cannon, because the Best Of... iPhone app has earned some rather prestigious year-end acclaim.

Places' pristine brand of pop is prime for radio

​Happy humpday! Here's some piping hot, pristine, radio-ready pop for you hot off the presses and straight out of the Mile High City. The band is called Places, and the tune is titled "Fire" from the group's brand new album, No More Wasted Days. We've been enamored with this act for a few year ... More >>

Scorpions, slams, and faceplants: Female snowboarders go hard

​The ice ceiling in snowboarding has lead to inequalities for female competitors on the Winter Dew Tour and other professional events. It has also led to a near dearth of women's parts in this season's crop of snowboarding films. That point is something Peepshow is aiming to address with its n ... More >>

Big Gigantic climbing iTunes charts despite free download

Whoa! If you check the electronic iTunes Top 10 chart right now, you'll notice that Big Gigantic's latest album has jumped to the second spot on the chart. While that in itself is noteworthy, what makes it more so is that the outfit made Nocturnal available for free download on its website earlier t ... More >>

Boulder's Big Gigantic has taken some big steps in the past year

Whoa! If you check the electronic iTunes Top 10 chart right now, you'll notice that Big Gigantic's latest album has jumped to the second spot on the chart. While that in itself is noteworthy, what makes it more so is that the outfit made Nocturnal available for free download on its website earlier t ... More >>

Veterans pair with songwriters to create a full-length album about the military experience

Courtesy of LifeQuest TransitionsA scene from last year's inaugural songwriting camp.​When military nonprofit LifeQuest Transitions wanted to raise awareness for the issues of moving from active duty to civilian life, it chose what founder CW Conner somewhat cheesily refers to as "the universa ... More >>