Music in the 21st Century

Hey bloggers! It's that time of week again, where I share with you my minimal knowledge of the vast world of music in the hopes we can all find new bands to share and discover. This week I'll mainly be discussing some cool podcasts and neat video blogs I like. Writing this post has really made me realize how fortunate we are to live in the 21st century, when music is widely available over a variety of media.

A blog I frequently check for music, The Culture of Me, is not exclusively a video blog, but they do frequently feature videos in addition to mp3s and concert updates. Every post is tagged with other posts you might enjoy, so it really gives you the option to more fully explore a topic you liked. Here is the video the site posted on October 5th for the first single off of Stellastarr*'s new CD. It's called, "Graffiti Eyes".



Another blog that does not focus exclusively on videos, but still posts them frequently, is I Pick My Nose. Like Culture of Me, the always offer mp3s if not videos, so it's definitely worth checking out. They focus mainly on music from the west coast of the US, but they post whatever is good and entertaining. For example, the video below was posted on August 26th, and is a cover by Lushlife of Jay-Z's "Dead Presidents".



Anyway, this week I've discovered two really cool podcasts, both available on iTunes. The first is called "All Songs Considered" and is offered by National Public Radio. The title is a play off of their radio program, "All Things Considered". Whereas on the radio program they discuss a wide variety of music, the podcast samples a wide variety of songs across genres. It's a really great way to be exposed to a wide variety of new music-- for free! My favorite of the ones I listened to was from June 1st, where they discussed songs lyrics and featured Wilco and Regina Spektor. NPR is a great resource for a lot of different and interesting information, so I recommend checking out the site if you're bored or want to feel less guilty about procrastinating.

The other neat podcast I found is called "Indie Feed". Indie Feed is an organization that hand-picks music for their podcasts so that people can discover new music more easily and objectively-- you don't have to rely on a 20 second preview or album art in a record store to make a decision about whether or not you like a band. Each podcast is a whole song, so you get to-- for free-- listen to a complete work of an artist or band before deciding if you want to seek them out and spend your money. It's another great resource for discovering new music, and I love it. For example, I've heard a lot of great things about Brother Ali, but I never wanted to go out and purchase his stuff without first listening to him. August 26th's Indie Feed: Hip Hop podcast cleared that problem up for me.
We're so lucky to live in an age where an abundance of technology makes music so available to us! I hope you all can use these resources to find more music that interests you.