Spotify takes music quality to the “extreme” on iPhone

If you’re a Spotify user with an iPhone, it’s time to pump up the volume.

The popular music streaming service has added support for extremely high quality 320 kbps music streaming and offline synchronizing — just about the best sound you can get from compressed music files.

Spotify originally offered low quality (96 kbps) and high quality (160 kbps) settings for streaming and syncing on its mobile apps, but an update over the weekend has … Continue Reading

Google-branded streaming music device in development, report says

Google is allegedly working on creating a company-branded entertainment device capable of streaming music in multiple locations throughout a person’s home.

The information about the Google-branded device comes from a Wall Street Journal report that cites unnamed people briefed on the project. If true, it would mark the Google’s first attempt at creating a hardware product without the aid of an electronics manufacturing partner. The search giant has historically concentrated its resources on developing web-based … Continue Reading

Mystery music app TastemakerX nails down a $1.8M funding round pre-launch

It hasn’t even launched yet, but TastemakerX has already sealed a reasonable deal to lock in funding from Silicon Valley investors.

Now that’s what we call rock n’ roll.

The social-mobile-music app raised a $1.8 million chunk of change for its first round of institutional funding. Investors include Baseline Ventures, AOL Ventures, True Ventures, and a slew of others, including a handful of angels.

The app is still shrouded in mystery; we haven’t seen screenshots … Continue Reading

What the fudge? iTunes Match bug replaces explicit songs with censored versions

Subscribers of Apple’s iTunes Match service are reporting that explicit songs in their library are getting swapped out for the censored “clean” versions.

iTunes Match, which Apple launched in November, is a music service that gives legal access to any songs currently in your iTunes music library. For $25 a year, subscribers can download their songs from Apple’s cloud to any device running the iOS 5 mobile operating system, such as iPhones and iPads. But … Continue Reading

Warner Music Group chairman loves Spotify, calls Google Music an “oxymoron”

Google Music is an oxymoron and Spotify is a friend to the artist, Warner Music Group chairman Edgar Bronfman, Jr. said Tuesday on his last day on the job.

Bronfman, Jr. expounded obtusely on the reasons why Warner Music Group has yet to sign a deal with Google and talked up the potential of all-you-can-stream music service Spotify in an interview with Peter Kafka at the D: Dive Into Media event in Dana Point, Calif.… Continue Reading

New record label lets you download music for free

“Download for free” is something of a taboo in the entertainment industry as bootleg content continues to take chunks out of studios’ revenue. But one record label is branching out and giving the people what they want: free music.

“At DigSin, we believe in the amazing talent of our artists, and we want to share their music with you,” DigSin says on its Facebook page. “We are committed to delivering the best new music to … Continue Reading

Google Music lets you backup your entire library

One of the only disadvantages of Google’s new Google Music service is that, until now, your music has essentially been locked within the cloud — with the exception of any tracks you purchased through the Android Market.

Today, however, Google has rolled out a new version of its Google Music Manager that gives its U.S. users the ability to download a backup of all the songs stored within the service. The feature addition will probably … Continue Reading

Spotify hits 3M paid subscribers, a good sign for streaming music

The debate over whether streaming music is good for artists and labels rages on, but the debate over whether the concept is catching with consumers might be at least be decided. Popular streaming music service Spotify now has 3 million users worldwide, the company revealed today.

Spotify is built on a “freemium” business model where users can listen to ad-supported music for free but after 6 months, the amount of free music drops to just … Continue Reading

Rhapsody acquires Napster’s European assets for Spotify battle boost

Rhapsody has just announced it’s buying Napster’s business in Europe.

Rhapsody’s European expansion begins today with the acquisition of Napster International, Napster’s European subscription music service. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Rhapsody will own and operate the Napster service in Germany and the United Kingdom, and the company sees it as a opportunity to expand its reach in that geographical area.

“The acquisition of Napster and its subscriber base in the UK … Continue Reading

Grooveshark denies service to Germany due to “unreasonably high” licensing costs

Streaming music site Grooveshark has decided to restrict access to Germany due to high licensing costs, the site announced today.

Grooveshark lets its users legally upload music that can be enjoyed by the entire community. And much like YouTube, if a user uploads a file that he or she doesn’t own and it gets a DMCA complaint, Grooveshark takes the file down. It’s estimated that Germany makes up less than 10 percent of the site’s … Continue Reading

Why Facebook’s “Listen With Friends” feature isn’t a threat to Turntable

Ruh-roh! Did Facebook just sideswipe up-and-coming music startup Turntable.fm with the release of its “Listen With Friends” feature? Hardly, but follow the headlines and you’ll find yourself swept away by the drama of something akin to a premeditated murder plot.

So what is Listen With Friends, exactly? Two new features from Facebook — simultaneous listening and group chat — added to an already popular music offering that’s been around since September. The social networking company … Continue Reading

Philips debuts headphones line for the Android fanboy in all of us

Major electronics manufacturer Philips debuted a new line of headphones and earbuds targeted at Android phone owners at the Consumer Electronics Show this week.

The company makes some of the best-sounding, affordable earbuds on the market, and now it is extending its focus to Android, which has the largest market share for smartphones in the world. While you can use any pair of standard headphones with an Android phone, these models are specifically designed to … Continue Reading

Shazam Player is the be-all, end-all music app for the lyrically challenged

There’s nothing more perplexing than figuring out the lyrics to an Elton John song — it’s a running joke on the Internet and in television shows and commercials — but a new iOS application from one of the most recognizable startups in the music space could stop the head-scratching for good.

Shazam Player launched Wednesday in the App Store as the be-all, end-all music player for the lyrically challenged or karaoke-obsessed people of the world. … Continue Reading

Pandora is leading the internet radio front by entering your car

While competition in the streaming music service market has steadily increased over the past year, Pandora is still strongly in the lead, according to new metrics the company announced at the Consumer Electronics Show today.

The company claims to have 68 percent of the internet radio market share, which is up slightly from what the company reported during quarterly earnings in November. Pandora now has 125 million registered users, and the average active user listens … Continue Reading

MOG and Aha bring on-demand music streaming to Subaru and Honda vehicles

On-demand music streaming service MOG announced today that it has partnered with JVC and Aha, a move that will ultimately put MOG’s unlimited music offering into Subaru and Honda vehicles.

MOG faces heavy competition in the on-demand streaming realm from Spotify, Rdio and Rhapsody, so each service is doing whatever it can to differentiate and promote itself. Offering applications across various smartphone platforms, connected TVs and now in-car dashboards will help get the word out.… Continue Reading

Digital music sales slightly beat physical purchases in 2011

For the first time in history, digital music sales were higher than traditional physical sales in the U.S., according a Nielsen and Billboard report released today.

It may seems odd that it would take this long for digital music to take the leadership spot, since digital music has been on the rise among consumers for the better part of a decade. However, it’s taken the major music labels about as much time to make sense … Continue Reading

Bummer: All major music publishers are now suing Grooveshark (update)

EMI, one of the largest music publishers in the world, is suing streaming music service Grooveshark over a discrepancy in royalty payments.

Grooveshark is different from other prominent streaming music services like Spotify, MOG and Rdio because it doesn’t have broad licensing agreements to play the majority of its music. It depends on its users to upload music that can be enjoyed by the community. If a user uploads a file that he or she … Continue Reading

Echo Nest powers Spotify’s new radio app

Music startup The Echo Nest revealed today that its music intelligence platform is being used for Spotify’s new radio app.

Spotify announced its new Radio function last week. Spotify Radio will let users create unlimited stations, skip an unlimited number of tracks and feature an all-new intelligent recommendation engine, powered by Echo Nest. The new radio service is available to both free and premium users. The function is available today and is located under Spotify’s … Continue Reading

Last.fm’s new music discovery web app focuses on indie bands

Streaming music site Last.fm has launched a new Web app for people who are bored with their music library and looking for some fresh tunes.

One of the first streaming music services, Last.fm grew in popularity for its ability to let users customize radio stations and carry their listening data (called scrobbles) to other music services for an enhanced experience. But with the influx of competing streaming music services (Pandora, Turntable.fm, Spotify), Last.fm hasn’t made … Continue Reading

Spotify debuts enhanced radio service with unlimited skips

One of the features popular music service Spotify has lacked most has been radio. No longer. The service has just added a new Spotify Radio function with an unlimited stations and skips.

Spotify has been on a roll with news lately and just a week ago it opened an API so HTML5 apps can be built by third-party developers that can take advantage of Spotify’s features. On top of this, Spotify made headlines in October … Continue Reading