I'm listening to...

Obviously the title caught my eye when I saw A Fool in the Forest had a new post from the Carlsbad Music Festival entitled "Penelope." I clicked over to read what it was about, which was a live performance of a piece created by lyricist Ellen McLaughlin and composer Sarah Kirkland Snyder, the recording of which topped author George M. Wallace's best albums of 2010. In a bit of fortuitous timing, it turns out some of the performers of the piece are from the Calder Quartet, which I'm seeing on October 2nd.

Wallace has an excellent review of the recording here. I looked it up on MOG and found it. It's a disarming, entrancing album, and works extremely well as a companion piece to the other album which has ensnared my attention these past weeks, Laura Marling's "A Creature I Don't Know." I heartily recommend both of them.

Speaking of recommendations, I've also been listening WTC 9/11, the new Steve Reich composition performed by Kronos Quartet. Disturbing, thoughtful and respectful, its use of recorded voices and music reminds me of the interesting work Joe Frank did in the 80's with "Work in Progress." It's an entirely more appropriate artistic response than the piffle of Heart of a Soldier, currently underway at San Francisco Opera.

Kronos will perform the local premiere of the work as part of an all-Reich program on October 9th. Both the Calder and Kronos programs are presented by Cal Performances and take place on the UC Berkeley campus.

All three recordings can be listened to on MOG.

MOG vs Spotify, round two: MOG hits back with free service

Apparently in an effort to out-box Spotify, MOG is now offering a free version of its service supported by ads. There's a difference in that it uses game technology to encourage users to share what they're listening to with friends and check out new music, and by doing so the user "earns" more free music. It sounds a bit complicated- at least to me, since I'm not a gamer, but it's explained in depth on the MOG Blog.

The new, free service is only available online, and while I think it's a great way for those still playing the MOG vs Spotify challenge to decide which service they prefer, for ten bucks a month I say MOG is an incredible deal so just take the plunge. I'm constantly amazed by what I find available on it. Plus, the MOG Blog is a good place to find out about re-issues and new releases- there's no way I would have otherwise known that Kid Creole and the Coconuts have a new album out, almost every Pink Floyd album is about to be re-issued in deluxe packages, and Grace Jones' "Hurricane" is available in the US for the first time now as a double album.

One of the best aspects about subscribing to music online is that it really does make it incredibly easy to engage with music almost immediately. Last weekend Molly and I were discussing, well, pretty much everything under the sun, and she mentioned Jackson Browne was her favorite singer. Snob that I am, I met that proclamation with a bit of derision, only to find out the next day as I was reading Keith Richards' autobiography that he listened to "Running on Empty" constantly when it came out. So guess what- I'm revisiting an album that I haven't listened to in over 30 years, with older ears and you know what? Molly and Keith know a thing or two.

You can subscibe to MOG or get in on the free service by clicking that link over there on the right.

MOG vs Spotify

Spotify makes it official debut in the U.S. today (for awhile last year there was a way to bootleg it which was eventually shut down). The Swedish music service is immensely popular in Europe and I'm familiar with it from using the bootleged European version and via the Swede, at whose house we often have European Spotify playing the soundtrack to parties and get-togethers. When my bootleg access was shut down I came across MOG, and have been happily using it ever since- in fact this blog is a MOG affiliate (hence the ads), so I'm not unbiased about this (btw- you can sign up for your free 7 day, credit card free trial of MOG using the ad to the right).

MOG

Which is the better service? Putting my bias aside, I'm still opting for MOG, though Spotify has one distinct advantage- its free version (containing advertisements in a cheery British accent, at least in the Europe-based version, every two or three songs) is a better deal than MOG's free seven day trial (but MOG's trial is free from adverts and your credit card info). Spotify's free version has limits- 20 hours of playing time per month for the first six, then 10 hours after that, with a limit of 5 plays per track. I also read in the NY Times today that Spotify is supposed to load faster by utilizing a peer-to-peer network, but I haven't seen that one is really faster than the other. I do know that spotty wireless connections will cause MOG to pause while buffering, but any website has the same problem under those conditions.

Of paramount importance to me is that MOG is just a cleaner user experience. Its new player is streamlined and uncluttered, and smoother than Spotify's, which can become like Amazon when you're searching for something- too much of what you don't want, not enough of what you do. Who wants to wade through karaoke options when you really just want to hear "Who's Zooming Who?"

However with both companies offering subscription rates at $5 or $10 a month, either is a tremendous value and I can't see anyone not being willing to plunk down $5 a month to get all the music you want delivered to your computer- which hopefully you have hooked up to a real music delivery source.

Spotify

As far as catalogues go, both seem to be pretty equal (I'm basing this opinion on the European version of Spotify)- you won't find the Beatles, AC/DC and Ozzy-era Black Sabbath on either, but MOG has recently been beefing up its classical, opera and jazz catalogues to the point that what was once a huge gap for me is now a trivial issue- there are at least seven major recordings of complete Ring cycles (Bohm, Levine, Boulez, etc.); it looks like the entire Maria Callas catalogue from EMI classics is now available, along with most operas on RCA and EMI; the major works of Glass, Adams and Penderecki are there as well. You get the idea.

There are irksome quirks, no doubt due to these services being oriented toward the pop consumer. If you search on "Verdi" you'll bring up those crappy D'Oro recordings, but not see the Aida with Price or the Don Carlo with Domingo, both of which show up on a "Domingo" search. You can find Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre if you search for Esa-Pekka Salonen but it doesn't show up in a search by the composer. In other words, searching by specific performers or operas yields much better results than searching by composer. If anyone from MOG is reading this, I can be hired to help you out with this problem.

Updated 07/18/12: Additionally, there aren't ways to combine your existing library into MOG and you can't listen to anything offline without an IPhone, though a reader says you can do both on Spotify. Still, for most users these aren't big deals. However, since I just got my Spotify invitation today I'll check it out and compare the American version to MOG. Both services let you buy the music- Spotify from ITunes, MOG from Amazon (which is usually cheaper)- and you can create playlists (a shuffle for these is a missing feature in the beta player but it's in the original).

MOG has three other things going for it that will keep me in the fold: first, it has great customer service that has responded to any question I've asked with a real answer within 24 hours; second, the company is based in Berkeley and I'm going to root for the local team whenever possible. There also some social media capabilities like following other users, which I'm less involved with and may be stronger on Spotify (but you can follow this blog on MOG), which seems to have better integration with Facebook at the moment. Both are superior to Pandora, Last and the others, and being able to play an entire album in one click or make a playlist and then let it roll is a far better experience than calling up one track at a time on something like MySpace (I'm talking to you, FF). Also important, but dependent on so many factors dependent on the listener's environment and equipment, MOG has better sound quality than Spotify. The other day I was listening to the first Code Blue album and the force and quality was fantastic. I've also been listening to a lot of the remastered Stones albums lately and MOG has a depth of sound which Spotify doesn't equal.

Unless you're an audiophile (which means you aren't even actually considering listening to any recording originating from a stream in the first place) or feel the need to support artists (and major labels) by giving them your cash on principle (which means you're still living in the 70's), this is now the way to listen to music. So click that link to the right and hear what you've been missing. But be prepared- once you start searching for music you haven't heard in ages (Rubber City Rebels, anyone?) and finding all of it, as well as giving all that new stuff you've been reading about a try (Bon Iver just made me depressed), you'll suddenly wonder where all those hours went.

It's Only Rock and Roll (But I Like It)

Last week saw the release of The Rolling Stones Singles Box Set (1971-2006), a mammoth collection of 173 cuts featuring every single released from 1971's Sticky Fingers through 2006's underappreciated A Bigger Bang. While that includes a lot of filler, or tracks only the most die-hard collector would be interested in (8 versions of "Out of Control?  5 mixes of "Anybody Seen My Baby"?), there's gold in the set that makes it fun to take a spin through, since it also includes the B-sides like 1963's cover of Chuck Berry's "Come On." It also features a ton of rarities that haven't shown up previously on any of the what must now number in the hundreds of previous compilations: "Cook Cook Blues," the 12" mixes of "Miss You," and "Mixed Emotions," a cover of Muddy Waters' "I Just Want to Make Love to You," and live versions of "All Down the Line," "Like A Rolling Stone," and "Ruby Tuesday" along with everything else you would expect from the release's title. 80 of the tracks aren't on any "official release"- a dubious claim since there are so many alternate mixes of songs from the late 80's through the 00's, but still- there's a ton of stuff I've never heard before or haven't heard in decades that are going to take up a few afternoons of listening.

At almost $120 retail on Amazon, I can't see putting any more money in the Mick and Keef's pockets, but the entire set is available on MOG. Why am I pimping MOG so much lately? Because I think it's a fantastic deal for music lovers. For either $4.99 or $9.99 a month (depending on how many devices to which you want it delivered) you can access more than 10 million tracks and complete albums with no commercials and no limits.. That's just an incredible deal in my opinion and it's not pirating any music because it's the labels who are providing it to MOG.

I signed up as an affiliate to promote it, hence the ads now on this site, for which I get some revenue for anyone who signs up for it through A Beast. So do yourself and Marcher a favor and sign up for your free two-week trial via that advert link box beneath "A Beast Recommends MOG." Just make sure you have a few hours to kill, because there's more music on it than you can ever possibly listen to- old and brand new. One more thing- MOG's local, based in Berkeley, and they're really responsive to the customer. I sent them an email last week asking why there was no Ozzy-era Black Sabbath on the site and someone wrote back to me within an hour with an answer. It's pretty weak as far as the classical selection is concerned, but for all other genres of music it runs pretty deep. If you can hear it on Spotify, Pandora, My Space, All Music, Rhapsody, Last, etc. (I've tried them all and found something lacking with each one), you can let it rock on MOG without commercials and without having to constantly keep clicking your mouse. Who says you can't always get what you want?

“Hot Sauce Committee Part Two"

The new Beastie Boys album Hot Sauce Committee Part Two, their first in years, came out today. Jon Pareles had some nice things to say about it in the NYTs this morning, essentially writing that one of hip-hop's greatest acts have gone back to their License to Ill era roots, though this time around with live instruments instead of samples which "make the songs sound droll rather than defensive."

I'm in the mood for some droll, Beastie-sounding, nostalgia-inducing music today। The cruelest month is over, long-overdue changes are afoot and the sky is blue. So I'll be checking it out on MOG. Don't forget- you can click on a link to the right and get the best music value there is- seriously.

UPDATE: this album kicks ass.

What I've been listening to on MOG this week...

The O'Jays- Back Stabbers
The Best of Angelique Kidjo
Richard Thompson- Shoot Out the Lights
Neil Diamond- Home Before Dark
Be Bop Deluxe- Modern Music
Emmylou Harris- Hard Bargain
Rickie Lee Jones- The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard

MOG is a subscription service streaming millions of songs to multiple devices. For $9.99/mo., subscribers can listen to unlimited music streamed to their computers, smartphones and TVs. Listed #1 in TIME's 50 Best Websites 2010, they provide subscribers with listening options, including on-demand playing from an expanding catalog of 10 million commercially released songs, personalized radio with no restrictions, playlist building, mobile downloads and web-mobile syncing. It's just $4.99 a month if you just want to have it on your computer. You can sign up for it through the MOG link in the right-side column of the blog.