andPOP - Pop Culture With Substance

If you are having a party, you’ll want to play music that will set the right tone. DJAY is a very capable Macintosh audio software solution that will provide both beginners and veterans the tools needed to mix the music just the way it sounds in a night club. – at a very reasonable price. Recently released version 3 of Algorithm’s DJAY provides a solid software system that can appeal to beginners and experts. Simple enough to use right out of the box, with a little time and a bit of talent, you’ll be mixing the digital music from your Mac just like the pros.

Upon launching DJAY with the usual click of your mouse, you will be presented with three basic panels: The largest panel on the left will be a familiar to most – the good old ‘DUAL TURNTABLE’ metaphor. To the right of this fully active  ‘DUAL TURNTABLE’ design, there will be a couple of re-sizeable panels that represent your iTunes PLAYLISTS and CONTENTS, providing access to your complete Macintosh audio collection. As expected, these playlists can be promptly sorted or viewed as Albums, Artists, Composers, Genres, or Playlists. Assuming the average Macintosh user is as familiar with iTunes, as one is with standard Mac OS software, getting up and running with DJAY for Mac will be pretty easy for most and you will be spinnin’ in no time at all. READ MORE »

Rapper Eminem’s music publisher, Eight Mile Style LLC, settled a lawsuit with Apple for copyright violation. The publisher was going after the iTunes company regarding the unauthorized sale of 93 tracks on the music downloading site, Perez Hilton reports.

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If you haven’t heard of “Band of Skulls,” you will very soon. These UK rockers had the first ever global iTunes “Single of the Week” back in April for their debut song “I Know What I am,” and they just keep taking the rock world by storm.

The trio were voted Best Live Band at Toronto’s NXNE festival in June and are fresh off Lollapalooza. Twi-hards may already know “Band of Skulls” has been confirmed to be included alongside Radiohead and Muse in the upcoming “New Moon” Soundtrack, out in November.

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Philip Schiller, Apple Vice President, announced on Tuesday (January 6) at the Macworld Conference & Expo, that prices for iTunes songs have changed, as well as a new MacBook Pro.

Apple’s Vice President revealed that iTunes will offer songs at three different prices: 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29.

Schiller also announced changes in the MacBook Pro that will include its weight (6.6 pounds), size (17 inches) and thickness (less than 1 inch).

The notebook will now be able to last up to 8 hours on a single charge. “This is the best display we’ve ever shipped in a notebook,” said Schiller.

The new MacBook Pro will cost approximately $2,800 and should be arriving in stores by late January.

Since 1997, Steve Jobs has given the keynote address, but this year Schiller filled in for the company’s CEO.

Thousands of fans are showing David Cook – the newly crowned “American Idol” winner – their love by giving him four out of five spots on iTunes’ list of Top Songs.

Although Coldplay’s latest single, “Viva la Vida,” is hogging the No. 3 spot, Cook’s victory song “The Time of My Life” sits on top in the No. 1 spot. Other songs that Cook sang on the show, “Dream Big”, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” and “The World I Know” round up another four spots.

The 25-year-old instant star says he hopes to make an original album that will “make the hair on your neck stand up.”

“I think it’s going to be a mixture of my writing and hopefully writing with other people. I just want to come out of the gate with a solid record,” he told reporters in a conference call Friday.

Cook plans to start on his debut album after the three-month “American Idol Live Tour” wraps up in the end of the summer.

Jack White definitely knows how to keep things interesting.

His band, The Raconteurs, are releasing their second album next week, entitled “Consolers of the Lonely.” Haven’t heard of it? Well, that’s because the band is changing the way albums are released.

Instead of releasing the album to press and promoting it beforehand, the band is releasing it to everyone in all mediums at the same time.

“The Raconteurs are happy to announce that in one week’s time their second album, entitled Consolers Of The Lonely, will be available EVERYWHERE Tuesday, March 25th,” their press release reads. “‘Album’ meaning: full length vinyl, CD and digital formats; and ‘everywhere’ meaning: local mom and pop Indie retailers, corporate superstores, supermarkets, iTunes, Amazon, the band’s own website and any other location that could get the record up and going this quickly (some places couldn’t move this fast, so they will join in as soon as they can).

The timeline for the album is amazing. It was “mastered and completed in the first week of March. It was then taken immediately to a vinyl pressing plant. Then to a CD pressing plant. Then preparations to sell it digitally began. March 25th became the soonest date to have it available in EVERY FORMAT AT ONCE.”

The band prefers that fans download the album together, not just as individual tracks.

The recording industry is continuing its fight with iTunes, the top selling online downloading site.

Canwest News Service reports that the recording industry is realizing the agreement they made with Apple in 2001 to fix the price at 99 cents was not the best one for the record industries. iTunes is the number one site in the U.S. for legal downloading and has sold 4 billion songs since its launch.

“We are tied to this 99-cent model and it has been a bit of a collar around our neck,” Graham Henderson, president of the Canadian Recording Industry Association, said.

Record labels want the ability to adjust their prices on the site, instead of being tied into an agreement that was reached nearly seven years ago.

Henderson said one of the changes that should be reflected is that the prices for music by new artists should not be the same as more established, successful performers.

iTunes is currently the second highest music selling location, beat by Walmart – though experts expect iTunes to surpass Walmart by the end of the year.

Gaming giant Sega’s infamous blue mascot, Sonic the Hedgehog, made his Apple-platform debut last week on iTunes. The original adventure that helped maintain the Sega Genesis’ popularity, thereby providing a competitive alternative to the Super Nintendo gaming console, is now available for download from iTunes for $4.99.

Remarkably, unlike games previously launched for the iPod – be they the standard, casual games or even arcade classics, such as Pac-Man – this new edition of Sonic the Hedgehog is not emulation. “It’s a new piece of code and it pushes the hardware,” says Sega of America President Simon Jeffery in an interview with IGN.com.

Nonetheless, despite Apple’s enthusiasm to tap into a gaming market full of potential, it might be awhile before gamers get used to their new hand-held controller. The single-thumb approach necessitated by the iPod’s portable size may present a drawback to gaming fans accustomed to the two-handed controller. However, casual gamers and old-schoolers alike will eventually get used to the new game-controller reality.

Perhaps on your next subway ride you’ll glimpse at someone clutching their iPod in two hands, using one thumb to jump while the other moves, all to the vibrant sounds of ‘beep-boop’. You’ll know that Sonic was here.

The world’s largest music label, Universal Music Group, said it would sell digital music without copy protection, following a move by EMI Group earlier this year.

Some of the artists signed to Universal include 50 Cent, Eminem and Fallout Boy.

Users will be able to purchase this music through Google, Wal-Mart and Amazon’s music stores, but the songs won’t be available through iTunes, the largest digital music store. However, songs embedded with digital rights management will continue to be available on iTunes.

The experiment will run from August to January and will allow Universal to complete research by analyzing sales data.