iTunes: Free Tuesday
Welcome to another week of iTunes: Free Tuesday. Today brings us a new, fresh collection of free singles and videos from around the world with sounds and artists to take your ears and eyes to new places. This week features a whole bunch of new US Videos including episodes of Top Chef and Ice Road Truckers.
US Music
US: Love Song by Sara Bareilles
Each week, we find a track from an artist or a band who's on the cusp of success and bring it to you, for free, as our Single of the Week. This week, Sara Bareilles delivers a jaunty pop song driven by some driving piano work which offsets the radio-ready form lying underneath. Bareilles takes the love song of the title and puts a spin on things (she's not going to write you a love song, but of course in saying that, she already has . . . get it?). Those looking for a break from the bubblegum might do well with Bareilles' more thoughtful pop smarts.
US: Una Página Doblada by Orishas
Each week, we find a track from an artist or a band who's on the cusp of success and bring it to you, for free, as our Canción de la Semana. Orishas is a Cuban group that specializes in fusing hip-hop with Afro-Cuban traditional styles. In the music of Orishas, the horns are just as heavy as the beats. "Una Página Doblada" brings out the funk with a heavy dose of hip-hop style.
US: Losing the Will to Survive (Beyond the Wizard's Sleeve Reanimation) by Findlay Brown
Findlay Brown is a songwriter from the U.K. whose tunes might be described as 21st-century folk-pop songs. He has the soft, soothing voice of a troubadour, but he's using every sonic trick in the book to take the music beyond the pale. Expect echoing effects, atmospheric sounds, and swirling blips and bleeps. "Losing the Will to Survive" has all of the emotional appeal of a Simon and Garfunkel song but sounds as if it's being beamed in from Mars.
US Video
US: AST DEW TOUR 2007
The AST Dew Tour, the world's premier pro-action sports tour, features more than 250 of the world's top action sports athletes, including Ryan Sheckler, Bucky Lasek, Jamie Bestwick, and Shaun White, as they compete in skateboarding (park and vert), BMX (park, vert, and dirt), and freestyle motocross for the largest annual prize purse ($3.5 million) in action sports and the highly coveted Dew Cup. Relive all the top highlights with these free episodes from the 2006 Tour, and keep checking back for all of the latest 2007 Dew Tour action.
US: Ice Road Truckers: Ready to Roll
In a time-honored tradition in the thick of winter, a steely group of truckers undertake one of the world's most dangerous jobs each year – steering giant 18-wheelers filled with vital equipment and supplies to miners hundreds of miles away on the Canadian tundra. In stark, blizzard conditions, the truckers travel over barren ice roads that often take their oversized vehicles over frozen lakes – but somebody's got to do it, and many of these men were raised to do the job. From fixing a truck in sub-zero conditions in seconds to escaping from a truck if the ice cracks, each man is trained in self-survival – and the training comes in handy more often than they'd like. On the other end of the arduous race against time are the miners whose lives depend on the truckers making it to their base, year after year.
Top Chef: Season 3 Premiere
The top food show on cable is back and it's muy caliente! Top Chef takes over Miami – one of America's hottest food cities – with sizzling competition from 15 chefs all vying for the title. Season 3 promises to be spicier than ever . . . the most seasoned contestants ever, tougher challenges, and all of the drama and emotion of an intense competition. The judging panel features returning lead judge Tom Colicchio; Gail Simmons of Food & Wine magazine, host Padma Lakshmi, and Queer Eye's Ted Allen. Plus, expect special appearances by some of the culinary world's most renowed figures as guest judges. Miami may be warm, but Top Chef heats up the city with the biggest season yet.
US: Nascar Citizens Bank 400
NASCAR is a chess match . . . at a thundering, heart-stopping 190 mph. Over forty drivers put it all on the line every week with only one driver spraying the champagne in Victory Lane.
Ratatouille (Frepeat)
9 Minute Preview from the upcoming Pixar movie.
US: Hit the Waves by Curl Girls (Frepeat)
Hit the waves with the Curl Girls: Gingi, Michele, Melissa, Erin, Vanessa, and Jessica. Lovers and friends, these six hot young women navigate the ups and downs of their love lives and careers while spending every free moment in the waves of the Pacific. By entering a competition against each other to win a trip to Hawaii and new surfboards, the ladies find connections that go above and beyond their unified love of surfing and the water. Through tensions and reconciliations, bonds form, and each unique personality shines. Which surfer has what it takes to come out on top? Follow the girls in the water, on the sand, and across the city to find out.
US: Jeep World of Adventure Sports
The Emmy Award-winning Jeep World of Adventure Sports presents an array of adrenaline-inspired feats and adventurous sporting events from around the world. Tour seldom-seen volcanoes and steaming rivers in southern Chile and the breathtaking backcountry of Alaska with the Teton Gravity Research team; Olympic silver medallist Danny Kass leads a world-class collection of snowboarders as they compete in professional rail jam events; see the first-ever Aerobatic World Championships for hang gliding and paragliding in Switzerland; and discover an epic day and night off-road motorcycle race through Texas. These adventures and more await you in the Jeep World of Adventure Sports.
US: One Life to Live
Prom Night: The Musical. Music video.
US: Brian Williams Reports
NBC News brings its worldwide resources to these in-depth special programs. Brian Williams takes the lead in covering topics that enlighten, uplift or demand further scrutiny. Williams, Dateline NBC anchor Stone Phillips, and other reporters go behind the scenes to bring you first-hand accounts of the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina; the truth behind Dan Brown's best-selling novel, The Da Vinci Code; the real risks of a bird flu pandemic, and much more. Important stories of our time – these are the stories of NBC News Specials.
US: The Starter Wife Preview (Frepeat)
After she receives an unexpected phone call from her Movie Mogul husband announcing that he wants a divorce, Molly (Debra Messing) is instantly transformed from a Wife Of into a Starter Wife. Blacklisted all over town from premieres to Pilates, Molly suddenly has a blank calendar and too much time on her hands.
US Audio Books
The following audio book is not a freebie this week, rather a special deal. This unabridged 21 hour plus book is being offered for $18.95 for a limited time. I decided to include it in today's listings because of the positive response to the last audio book sale for "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time". Again: not free, but a big price cut.
US: Middlesex (Unabridged, $18.95)
In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry-blonde classmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them – along with Callie's failure to develop physically – leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all. The explanation for this shocking state of affairs is a rare genetic mutation – and a guilty secret – that have followed Callie's grandparents from the crumbling Ottoman Empire to Prohibition-era Detroit and beyond, outlasting the glory days of the Motor City, the race riots of 1967, and the family's second migration, into the foreign country known as suburbia. Thanks to the gene, Callie is part girl, part boy. And even though the gene's epic travels have ended, her own odyssey has only begun.
International
Australia: Mama by Kate Miller-Heidke
Each week, we find a track from an artist or a band who's on the cusp of success and bring it to you, for free, as our Single of the Week. "Mama" is a witty bit of eclectic, rocking pop from Kate Miller-Heidke. Her distinct vocal skills come from her background in opera, but here she uses a sweet, fluttering tone to counter the idiosyncratic feel of the raging guitars in the chorus. Fans of Tori Amos take heed!
New Zealand: Mama by Kate Miller-Heidke
Each week, we find a track from an artist or a band who's on the cusp of success and bring it to you, for free, as our Single of the Week. "Mama" is a witty bit of eclectic, rocking pop from Kate Miller-Heidke. Her distinct vocal skills come from her background in opera, but here she uses a sweet, fluttering tone to counter the idiosyncratic feel of the raging guitars in the chorus. Fans of Tori Amos take heed!
Canada: The Wishes Pile Up by Jim Bryson
Each week, we find a track from an artist or a band who's on the cusp of success and bring it to you, for free, as our Single of the Week. "The Wishes Pile Up" is a track from Bryson's Where the Bungalows Roam, a stunner of an album from the Kathleen Edwards cohort. This particular track comes off like a folk version of the Velvet Underground with Bryson's double-tracked harmonies and sweet melodies leading us into the sunshine instead of the abyss.
France: Criminal by Justin Nozuka
"Par chanson individuelle". No further description.
UK: Vandals by (We Are) Performance
Each week, we find a track from an artist or a band who's on the cusp of success and bring it to you, for free, as our Single of the Week. This Mancunian quartet climbs to the top of the heap with its brightly lit, harmonic fuzz-pop. Anchored by solid Peter Hook-esque bass lines and some fine lyrical quips ("this isn't a club, it's an abattoir"), the music makes the band sound like a U.K. version of the Killers or Interpol with a little more hope.