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View Full Version : Online Music Stores: Show Us The Singles!


Jason Dunn
03-24-2004, 09:00 AM
Quick rant time: one thing I really dislike about Puretracks (http://www.puretracks.com), and I imagine most other online music stores have the same problem, is that it doesn't tell me which of the tracks is the current single. If you hear a song on the radio, or see a video on TV, and you only caught the name of the band and not the track name, how are you supposed to know which song you want? It would be great to have a standard field with all new albums that would indicate the name of the current single.

In happier news, my life is complete: Guns N' Roses has released a greatest hits album in digital format. This sure beats the recording I took off the casette tape I have... :lol:

Philip Colmer
03-24-2004, 10:23 AM
Sorry, Jason, but that is just too low-tech a solution - you need automatic music identification :D

Gracenote (aka CDDB) have created two technologies that provide such a service. They are both broadly the same (called MusicID) but one is tailored specifically for the mobile phone market. The idea here is that you ring a special number, play a segment of the music over the phone and it identifies the track for you. Way cool :!:

Having done a quick Google search, it would appear that CDH Productions (http://www.cdhnow.com) do a product called Media Wizard (http://www.cdhnow.com/mw.asp) which, amongst other things, includes Gracenote's MusicID functionality. If I've understood the system properly, you should just be able to play something over the computer's audio system and Media Wizard will use CDDB to tell you what the track is!

As I say, this was the result of a quick search. There may be other similar systems out there.

--Philip

Jason Dunn
03-24-2004, 04:57 PM
I'm familiar with the service that lets' you use a cell phone to identify a song, but it's a carrier-provided service, and to the best of my knowledge, no carriers here provide it as an option, so that's not feasable.

Regarding identifying it on the computer, well, that's a bit silly because almost every audio file is tagged with some sort of metadata that shows up in WMP9 when you're listening to the track.

Thanks for the tips though! :wink:

Philip Colmer
03-24-2004, 05:12 PM
Regarding identifying it on the computer, well, that's a bit silly because almost every audio file is tagged with some sort of metadata that shows up in WMP9 when you're listening to the track.
Potentially, though, if I understand the technology correctly, the following scenarios would work: If you listen to a radio station over the Internet, the software could identify the track that is currently playing.

If you've got the TV on and you want to identify what is playing, point the computer's microphone at the TV and use the software.It was just a thought :)

--Philip

Jason Dunn
03-24-2004, 05:17 PM
Potentially, though, if I understand the technology correctly, the following scenarios would work: If you listen to a radio station over the Internet, the software could identify the track that is currently playing.
If you've got the TV on and you want to identify what is playing, point the computer's microphone at the TV and use the software.

Sure, I think the idea of the technology is great, I just think it's a solution in search of a problem. I rarely listen to radio on my PC, but when I do, the song title is part of the stream. And when I watch TV, I don't have a computer in the same room (except for my laptop, which doesn't have a built-in microphone anyway).

I'm not saying the solution isn't a good one, I'm just saying it's not useful to me.

Janak Parekh
03-25-2004, 05:00 AM
The problem with this is that often singles shift quickly nowadays. I've seen two or three singles come out in a short time period.

The best solution is what *cough*iTunes*cough* does: full 30-second previews of every track on every album. Does PureTracks do this? That's usually sufficient for me.

iTunes often also has exclusive EPs for featured artists, but I don't use that nearly as much...

--janak

Jason Dunn
03-25-2004, 05:05 AM
The problem with this is that often singles shift quickly nowadays. I've seen two or three singles come out in a short time period.

Sure, but if you list them in order of release, it would narrow the results down quite a bit in terms of finding them.

The best solution is what *cough*iTunes*cough* does: full 30-second previews of every track on every album. Does PureTracks do this? That's usually sufficient for me.

Yes, Puretracks has all the tracks, but it took me ten tries to find the song I wanted. That's just plain stupid. :evil:

Janak Parekh
03-25-2004, 05:06 AM
Sure, but if you list them in order of release, it would narrow the results down quite a bit in terms of finding them.
I guess that would work if it was an extra column.

Yes, Puretracks has all the tracks, but it took me ten tries to find the song I wanted. That's just plain stupid. :evil:
Well... does the radio station(s) you listen to have a website? Most "modern" radio stations in NY do, and they have a playlist page. Makes it very easy to find current singles.

--janak

Jason Dunn
03-25-2004, 05:19 AM
Well... does the radio station(s) you listen to have a website? Most "modern" radio stations in NY do, and they have a playlist page. Makes it very easy to find current singles.

8O

Why are you and Philip trying to "solve" the problem for me by telling me things I should to find out the information for myself? I didn't ask for ways in which I can figure out singles on the radio. I'm not looking for suggestions here, I'm simply stating my opinion on how I'd like to see online music stores improved.

Jeeze, can't a guy rant anymore on this own site? :lol:

Janak Parekh
03-25-2004, 06:09 AM
Jeeze, can't a guy rant anymore on this own site? :lol:
Sorry. :oops: Just trying to be helpful. ;)

--janak

ale_ers
03-25-2004, 11:18 PM
I have the same problem....this has been my solution:
In Napster if you look up a band (I'm used to the MCE version so YMMV) there is the option for "Top tracks" which are the most popular downloads. Of course this doesn't work real well for your purpose right now, because these services are so new people are buying old songs from bands that have been around awhile.

But it works pretty well with new bands, and after the 'newness' of pay per download wears off I think this will give you what you are looking for. At least it will narrow down the amount of songs you have to listen to the 30 sec. clip.

Anyone else have good ideas...As for radio station playlists, I have been trying to find ones with VERY new songs. My local radio station used to be good at 'breaking' new songs, but that is not the case now.

Jonathon Watkins
03-28-2004, 03:10 AM
In happier news, my life is complete: Guns N' Roses has released a greatest hits album in digital format. This sure beats the recording I took off the casette tape I have... :lol:

:razzing: G&R? That takes me back a bit! Bit of a metalhead were you Jason? :wink: