If It's Too Loud...

First, a caveat to all of this: I know full well that streaming music isn't great . I am very aware of the ever-dwindling payouts from streamers, and further aware of the way streaming has changed many people's relationships with music. As an individual who met my co-blogger in part because of our then-Tuesday treks to our respective local Newbury Comics locations to drop money we didn't have on four-to-five new releases a week, I also know that the previous model was unsustainable and I'm glad that there's something out there that replaces the sort of Napster / Limewire reality that threatened to kill the industry entirely. With that said, I now listen to 40-50 new releases a week now, as opposed to the four-to-five I could afford in a given release week. For every teenage girl listening to nothing but Taylor Swift or mid-30s dudebro on whatever mainstream country playlist he has on shuffle, streaming for me has become a vehicle for musical disc...

Photo by Angelina Castillo for Third Man Records Considering how much I love Margo Price, Bob Dylan, and covers, somehow this one slipped by me for two months. As part of Spotify Singles, Margo Price (who had my 2017 album of the year with All American Made ) has released a cover of Bob Dylan's iconic but possibly overlooked "Most Likely You Go Your Way." Price keeps Dylan's classic ramblin' style for the song, but injects just enough of her own vintage, shiny classic country into it to make it her own. It's quite literally the perfect kind of cover: Not an imitation and doing the song in your own style, but keeping enough of the original so that it's still recognizable as the original. You can listen to Margo Price's version of "Most Likely You Go Your Way" below. For more on Margo Price, check out her website . 

Photo via Facebook I know a lot of people hate Spotify, but when Spotify releases a single that includes Wilco covering Nick Lowe's "(What's So Funny Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?," they're all right by me. With the post headline of 'Wilco Covers Nick Lowe," you pretty much know if this will be for you. And, if you think you'll like this, you probably will. Wilco's version is a step or two slower than Elvis Costello's trademark version, which is exactly what you'd expect from the current version on Wilco. It's the most dad rock take on what is a dad rock classic, chugging along with Wilco's trademark new blend of Americana but with enough noise popping up every now and then to keep things interesting. It was recorded at Spotify Studios, and it feels like a live recording, especially when Jeff Tweedy's voice cracks every so often. You can listen to Wilco's cover of "(What's So Funny Bout) Peace, Love an...

We're definitely Spotify partisans here at If It's Too Loud. I know I was one of the earliest American adopters, and it's easily some of the most valuable $10 in entertainment I spend a month. Spotify, however, has had one critical flaw, and that's in the music discovery area. Even to this day, I still find a lot of my new music the same way I did ten years ago - new release newsletters, music blogs, and poking around Amazon. The Spotify radio thing is nice when you're just looking to cruise around a bit, but part of the appeal of Spotify for me was the control. Enter Discover Weekly. Last week, Spotify users got a new playlist, which was basically a 90-120 minute long curated playlist based on past listens. Usually, the whole curation thing is a bit much for me musically, as I tend to be all over the place with my listening and the fact that I'll try anything for the blog doesn't help. But Discover Weekly knows something I don't. I don'...

I still think there's something bizarre going on with Spotify's music recommendation system...

Help stream Wish You Were Here 1 million times to unlock Pink Floyd's catalogue on @Spotify : http://t.co/PpNjKAm3AX #floydcountdown — Pink Floyd (@pinkfloyd) June 13, 2013 So Pink Floyd's catalog, as of this moment, is not available on Spotify. However, there's a fairly unique little promotion happening right now where, if Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" is streamed a million times, the catalog will be released. I'm not really much of a Pink Floyd fan - the only song that's ever really caught me, interestingly enough, was " The Division Bell " from the album of the same name. So, if I'm feeling a little evil today, maybe I don't go on a streaming party. I doubt my little act of protest will do much, but still, if Floyd's your thing and you've got some spare drugs around...