This Week in Playlisting

In playlisting news this week the Guardian asks a bunch of musicians to name their favorite summer songs. Thus Spake Drake lists the first 10 videos played on MTV when the channel debuted 25 years ago. (with video links) Slate speaks about the growing compilation CD music market, which now accounts for 25% of records sales in Europe. Fullmanator has tackled two more television series playlists: Nip/Tuck, and CSI: Miami. YMU Playa creates a playlist of songs that profile the UK electronica label Ninja Tune. Stylus lists their top 10 favorite pronunciations found in song. AfterEllen lists the top 10 love song covers for lesbians. The Rugs Don’t Work creates a preemptive soundtrack playlist for the upcoming film The Last Kiss. And finally, Lucas Gonze has created a Yahoo Music Engine plugin that will display the Yahoo Radish directly in YME, so if you get stuck trying to decide what to hear, you’re only one click away!

In previous Yahoo! Music Blog playlisting columns we’ve talked about the themed playlist, the songwriter playlist, the mixtape playlist and the record label playlist. This week I’d like to talk about the “News Story Playlist”. That is, a list inspired by, and built around a specific news story. The bigger the story the more playlists you’ll find floating around. For example, hurricane Katrina, 9/11 and the war in Iraq have inspired thousands of playlists, but any news story is fair game. It’s only a matter of time until most news stories on the web will give you the option to listen to a “soundtrack” as you read. Like the bumper music on a show like NPR’s All Things Considered, you can tie the subject matter of the story to music. See examples below:

Chupacabra Caught in Texas!
Play It! COLEMAN, Texas — A Texas farmer may have found what some would call a “chupacabra,” a legendary animal known for sucking the blood out of goats. Reggie Lagow set a trap last week after a number of his chickens and turkeys were killed. What he found in his trap was a mix between a hairless dog, a rat and a kangaroo. [more]

Bird Flu Blues
Play It! (CNN) ABUJA, Nigeria — The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has been found in two more Nigerian states, the Agricultural Ministry said Thursday. The strain has been confirmed at two farms in Kano state and one in adjoining Plateau state, said Tope Ajakaiye, a ministry spokesman. Sixteen other countries have reported outbreaks of the H5N1 strain of avian flu in birds. Human cases of the deadly strain have been found in seven of those countries. [more]

Rap Star Proof Shot Dead in Detroit
Play It! (Detroit Free Press) — Outside Detroit’s hip-hop scene, rapper Proof was best known as Eminem’s close friend, but the 32-year-old artist who was shot to death Tuesday morning was a mega-talent in his own right, a lightning-tongued MC and improviser who won Source Magazine’s national rap battle in 1999. He was young, gifted and, like far too many African-American males, died long before his time. [more]

Gasoline Price Blues
Play It! WASHINGTON (CNN) — Pressured by looming midterm elections, sinking poll numbers and angry consumers, President Bush is expected to outline a four-point plan on Tuesday aimed at fighting rising gasoline prices. The speech, set for 10:05 a.m. ET in Washington, comes after Bush ordered a federal investigation into possible cheating or illegal manipulation in the gasoline markets. [more]

Producer Dallas Austin Arrested in Dubai
Play It! DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (CNN) — Grammy-winning hip-hop producer Dallas Austin faces drug possession charges in the United Arab Emirates that could land him a lengthy prison term, Middle Eastern legal sources said Tuesday. [more]

You will notice that the above playlists fall into two categories. The first are those directly connected to music. For example, the story about music producer Dallas Austin being arrested on drug charges in Dubai features a set of songs that he’s produced. As people read about his unfortunate predicament, they can actually hear his work. In this case the music adds real value to the news.

The same is true of the story that reports on the death of rap star Proof. Those not familiar with his music can simply click a button and listen while they read the story. The News can drive music discovery and sales and the music can add value for news publications and blogs.

The other type is a bit more fun. Any story that is not directly related to music can have associations based on the subject matter. For example, the list “Gasoline Price Blues” kicks off with “A Gallon of Gas” by the Kinks, which has the opening lyric:

“I’ve been waiting for years to buy a brand new Cadillac
But now that I’ve got one I want to send it right back
I can’t afford the gas to fill my luxury limousine
But even if I had the dough no one’s got no gasoline”

This song is the perfect accompaniment to a story about the rising price of gas and the frustration of the American people. You can finds songs for any subject under the sun with a little poking around in YMU. If you get the inkling, share your own news story playlist over at the YMU Playlisters group.

Finally, I leave you with some other playlist ideas from the Radish.

Beatles Covers: Acoustic

Play At this point, everyone on the planet knows about the resistance to making the Beatles catalogue available for online distribution. It’s only a matter of time until you can download and stream the music of the Beatles. A good analogy would be if the Beatles refused to make their music available on CD when that medium was introduced in 1982. Sure they could have continued to sell cassette tapes and LPs, but as the demand for the CD became dominant, the Beatles would have to give the people what they wanted or lose ground to pirates. The refusal to join the Internet music revolution, I would argue, has hurt Beatles’ catalogue sales. Sure, a band as iconic and important as the Beatles doesn’t need the Internet to spread the word, the music speaks for itself, but as new generations turn to the web completely for music discovery will they still discover the Beatles in the same numbers as previous generations? Maybe, but maybe not. And if they do discover them, will they acquire the MP3s by buying the complete Beatles library on CD and ripping them, or will they continue to turn to P2P, AllofMP3.com, public libraries and friends?
By continuing to hold out for the best possible money-making model, the copyright owners are losing revenue every single day. Will increased profit per download or stream make up the difference? Who knows, but in the meantime there are literally thousands of Beatles cover songs available online reaping the benefits. This playlist contains 50 classic Beatles tracks, all of them arranged with an acoustic backbone. Listen to other Beatles-related playlists here.

The Best of 1981

Play 1981 was a year of transition in the world of music and in my life. It’s the year my family moved from Scranton, PA to Cape Cod, MA. It was tough leaving my friends at the time, but it was the best thing my parents could have done for my future. Where would you rather live? We moved when I was in the eighth grade and it was an exciting time for a young 13-year-old boy. Crazy technology was exploding all around us; cable television, the Walkman, video games and a new channel called MTV, which opened the world of music to many an impressionable young person. Music and American radio were seeing the pinnacle of arena rock. Bands like The Rolling Stones, The Police, The Kinks, Queen, The Who, Rush and The Cars released important albums in 1981 that would become classic rock staples for decades to come. In addition, college radio and MTV were helping to launch the careers of bands that were an “alternative” to the popular rock of the day. U2, R.E.M., The Cure, The Psychedelic Furs, Adam & The Ants, The Tom Tom Club, Romeo Void and others released albums in 1981 that would see serious airplay on the fledgling MTV network. Heavy metal was become more popular and American punk was coming into it’s own. Funk and R&B were still hot, and rap was in it’s infancy. Disco on the other hand, was on it’s way out. This playlist includes over 6 hours of the most critically acclaimed popular music of 1981. The playlist lacks country, blues and jazz for the sake of continuity.

The “Woe Is Me” Classic Rock Playlist

Play I saw Willie Nelson and John Fogerty in concert last night at the Verizon Amphitheatre in Charlotte, NC. It was a bit depressing to see Willie having to share the bill with Fogerty, and to make matters worse, the venue was only about half-full. Willie Nelson is a living American legend and at 73 years old, the chance to see him in concert won’t be an option for too much longer. Both shows were great and we had good seats, but my depression over the poor attendance was highlighted by the Fogerty song “Lodi“, which speaks about the tough life of a struggling musician. When I think of depressing music the blues come to mind first, followed by the Smiths and Morrissey, they take the “woe is me” genre to a whole new level. But “Lodi” had me pondering self-pity songs in the world of classic rock. When you think of classic rock, the first thing that comes to mind is P-A-R-T-Y, self-pity is one of the last things most correlate with the genre. This put the bug in me to collect the best of depressing classic rock songs. The resulting playlist contains over 3 hours of dispiriting AOR-friendly rock that gives Morrissey a run for his money. If you want to wallow in your own self-pity click play and rock on.

Robert Burke
Yahoo Radish