Tag: music

Lucky Soul

/ John Weathers / Leave a comment

I was recently reading some online music reviews when I stumbled across a review for Lucky Soul’s debut album The Great Unwanted in a sidebar for a review of another band. Without hearing any of their music, I took a chance and purchased the album from Amazon.com based entirely on the strength of the review, the classiness of the album cover, and the description of their sound.

I was extremely pleased with the results of my gamble.

This album is really quite charming, and I found myself listening to Lucky Soul’s smooth neo-50s-meets-indie-pop sound in constant rotation for several days after purchasing it. The musicians keep things interesting and very catchy from one solid song to the next while singer Ali Howards delivers a nice range of vocals that hit everything from sexy and fun to sharp and poignant.

Highly recommended! Especially if you like the Life-era sound of The Cardigans.

Saving Pandora

/ John Weathers / 1 Comment

Today I received an email from Pandora.com concerning a recent decision by the Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, DC to almost triple the licensing fees for Internet radio sites like Pandora. According to the email, “the new royalty rates are irrationally high, more than four times what satellite radio pays and broadcast radio doesn’t pay these at all”(emphasis added). The email then points out how these sharp increases in fees will effectively strangle Internet radio companies because it artificially inflates the cost of doing business to levels far above what such businesses can expect to afford.

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