» Muxtape

Grooveshark // Streamable Playlists

bryant — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 18:00:12 +0000

Since Muxtape went defunct last year only to be resurrected in a much more limited capacity, I haven’t been able to find an adequate platform to make streamable playlists (I’ve dabbled a little with some, but to not much success). That is, until now! To better beef-up my analysis of Reddit’s Top Albums of 2009, many people suggested creating a playlist of each band’s hit songs using a website called Grooveshark. Thank god for redditors, because this turned out to be one of the biggest discoveries of the year!

The premise is simple: you search for the song you want to add into your playlist, drag-and-drop it into a folder, and then share the URL of your mix with others! If you can’t find that song you’re looking for on their site, you can add to their massive library by uploading the track (if you happen to have a copy of the audio file). Yep, it’s THAT easy — and did I mention it’s all free?

To show an example, here are ten of my favorite songs which came out of 2009 that I whipped up in less than five minutes on grooveshark:

PT Music // 10 Favorite Songs of ’09

HEALTH // New Tracks (+Remix)

bryant — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 20:16:01 +0000

Seems like HEALTH has recovered fully from their SXSW adventure and have put out a new track via the awesome music site muxtape. Shedding the experimental quite a bit, “Die Slow” is more of a dance-able track than anything from You Will Love Each Other. Personally, I’m loving it — it seems like a bit of the HEALTH // Disco remix album has worn off on the original band.

Also, the Pictureplane remix is just as stellar. Cloaking the song in repetitive loops and infectious bongo drums, it’s a nice twist on the original. If you got a muxtape account (don’t worry you can sign up for free with an e-mail), you can stream the two tracks here. Enjoy!

The Return of Muxtape…

bryant — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 20:24:21 +0000

…sort-of. If you head over to the now infamous site, the same interface is there, the logo is there, the lack of banner ads are there — it’s just the content that isn’t quite there yet. For those who don’t know, Muxtape was an amazing mixtape producing site. Users could upload their own mp3s or get some authorized songs from the Muxtape library and — after a few clicks and some internet magic — could produce a mixtape sans cassette that you could share with friends and, if you wanted, the world. It was a great way to find songs that correspond to certain moods as well as discovering the abundance of unknown talent that’s out there.

However, it was inevitable that it would not last; the fall coming just as swiftly as the rise. As expected, with the soaring popularity on a daily basis (nearly 100K registered users in the first month!), record companies and the bureaucratic thugs at the RIAA were not happy and almost immediately sent their “cease and desist” letters when they got wind of the site.

Well, as the abridged story goes, Muxtape went offline but was actively working with the record labels to somehow promote content in a legal way and serve as an alternative to the cluttered and mostly unseemly myspace. Now in its infancy version 2.0, Muxtape is trying hard to attract well-known bands to join the cause. Boasting a present line-up of Girl Talk, of Montreal, and Amanda Palmer, and a call to duty for other bands to join the cause in the coming weeks, Muxtape is looking up. Until then, I’ll stick with Opentape (unfortunately). For my latest opentape mixtape of, ironically, remixed tracks check it out below:

Part-Time Music’s Opentape Mix