Barenaked Ladies

I didn't think that I would be able to really talk about my FAVORITE BAND on this site without just ranting and not offering any music. Thank goodness for Amazon proving me wrong!! Almost everyone knows BNL for their singles "One Week", "Pinch Me", or "If I Had A Million Dollars" but not many people seem to know them beyond that. BNL just released their newest album "All In Good Time" as a four man band (now that the lead singer is gone due to disagreements and drug charges 2 years ago.) Fans of BNL can find this album to be completely polarizing - meaning that they either love the new direction or scream for the old stuff. I personally really like it even though it is very different and has a strong indie vibe running through the album. Amazon is offering one of the better tracks for free here and I highly recommend you check it out. At one point I could have offered a BNL podcast off iTunes and a full recording of their first concert as a 4 man group but both have been removed... Oh well, enjoy the music vid to the newest single "You Run Away" that is easily the best song of the album.

UPDATE: The song has been removed by Amazon. I will always be on the lookout for more free music from BNL (even though I now have every studio album!!!!) and will update you as soon as there is something worth posting. Sorry...

Getting the Most out of Itunes

Almost everyone uses iTunes as their go-to source for music and almost everyone knows about the free weekly singles (If you didn't know, then why? Home page of iTunes at the bottom... Two singles and a music video available every week.) But what a lot of people don't know is that there are other legal ways to get free music from iTunes.

Start with facebook. "Wait, Facebook?" you might be asking, "What madness be this?" iTunes has a facebook page with special promotional packages of free music. They always seem to have from 1-3 packs of 15-25 song downloads available through the iTunes store. They offer all kinds of genres and themes from holidays to seasonal to genre specific. As of the time of this posting, they have a "Soul" Pack and an Indie Sampler. I would skip the soul pack unless you're really into that kind of music and strongly consider listening to the Indie Pack. Even if you don't have a facebook, I would consider making one to get in on these deals. They seem to switch each pack out after about a month...

The other (somewhat sneakier) option is podcasts. Podcasts are always free and some offer music clips or full songs or albums. Searching for specific bands (the bigger, the better) will often pull up something useful whether it be an interview, a band specific podcast, or as a featured artist or guest appearance. I've found a couple gems in doing these searches that I will share later. There is an extra trick that you can pull when using these podcasts but it falls into the realm of "questionable." Most podcasts can be converted into regular mp3s through some simple editing. A program like Garageband (standard on macs) makes it really easy to drop, trim, remove video (if there), and export to iTunes in the quality level and file type that you desire. Note that some podcasts apparently have protection against conversion. Have fun and enjoy!