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Sing announced for the Wii U, by DJ Hero devs
Reggie Fils-Aime just announced a music game called Sing for the Wii U. Developed by Freestyle Games, the developers behind DJ Hero, Sing will combine karaoke singing with lyrics on the Wii Pad with a dance running game on your television. The only track released for the game so far is Carly Rae Jepsen's shiny pop hit, "Call Me Maybe," but we'll wait for more info on the game later this week.
Shazam Player brings lyrics support and more to iOS
The iPhone's default Music app already has lyrics support built in, but you have to fetch the lyrics yourself; songs sold on the iTunes Store still don't include lyrics after all these years. Shazam, makers of the well-known app that will identify songs playing in your vicinity after sampling a few seconds of audio, has released a free music player app called Shazam Player for the iPhone and iPod touch that addresses this gap in a big way. When first launched, Shazam Player will scan your entire music library to find songs compatible with its LyricPlay feature. Depending on how big your library is, this could take awhile; my iPhone 4S has close to 5000 songs on it (though for some reason Shazam Player only scanned 1600 or so), and it took about 5 minutes for the app to finish scanning my library for the first time. Shazam's lyrics database doesn't appear to be especially comprehensive yet, or at least not for the kind of music I tend to listen to. Out of 4936 tracks, Shazam Player found only 374 compatible with LyricPlay. For songs that support it, LyricPlay is pretty cool and mildly reminiscent of the kinetic typography music videos I've seen on YouTube. Lyrics scroll or fly onto the screen perfectly in time with the music. There are a variety of fonts and animation styles in LyricPlay, with some of them easier to read than others -- one particular style displays the currently playing snippet of lyrics at the bottom of the screen with all other lyrics jammed above it, which isn't particularly readable. Fortunately Shazam Player also includes Lyrics sheet, a more standard text-based view of lyrics for when LyricPlay wears out its welcome. Shazam Player includes some other welcome features like links to YouTube videos of the currently selected song and tour dates for the band. Since it's integrated with your music library, you have full access to every song, artist, and playlist on your device. However, the app doesn't appear to support nested playlist folders, instead presenting all playlists in the same view; if you're like me and have many playlists, Shazam Player's playlist view could seem a bit disorganized. Shazam Player has a nice UI, and the price is right -- since it's free, there's no reason not to check it out. But while LyricPlay and the other features are novel features, I'll most likely stick with the standard Music app on my iPhone; Shazam Player seems to lag and choke a bit on a music library as large as mine. That having been said, I strongly hope that Shazam is working on a version of Shazam Player for the iPad. While I don't feel that Shazam Player is going to replace the Music app on my iPhone in daily usage, the Music app on the iPad is so terrible that something like Shazam Player would be a most welcome alternative.
What's next for Spotify? Apps, apparently
We may have to wait until noon ET today to get the official word on "what's next" from Spotify, but The Wall Street Journal has kindly given us an early peak into what we can expect a few hours from now -- namely, apps. The Swedish music streaming service is apparently getting ready to go all Facebook on us, offering up apps galore. When it launches today, the service's "app finder" will include magazine reviews, concert listings, lyrics and the like, so you'll never have to guess at what Tom Waits is saying again.
Shazam Encore updated with lyrics, how about iTunes?
Shazam has released another update for its paid Encore app, this one adding full lyrics of over 25,000 songs on the service from provider LyricPlay. It lets you stream the lyrics in real-time as the song plays, so you can sing (or even just read) along. It's not exactly a reason to shell out for the US$5.99 app -- I'm still using the free version to identify music that I listen to, and it works just fine for that purpose. But it's a nice addition to the Encore functionality, and it's good to see that someone has worked out how to make song lyrics available to listeners in a simple and easy way. In fact, this makes us wonder just where iTunes is on this issue. We've seen rumors for a long time that iTunes has been trying to add a lyrics feature (and there are plenty of ways to just do it yourself if you'd like to do that). But especially now that Apple has figured out something as complicated as iTunes Match, surely lyrics shouldn't be that hard to do, right? Unfortunately, the RIAA is still against it, and they've actually shut down any relatively easy solutions for quickly bringing lyrics into iTunes. It's a real shame -- especially for any music purchased from the iTunes Store (and because of the way iTunes Match works, all of your music will probably come from the App Store soon), we should really have access to the lyrics as the songs play.
Bing Entertainment integrates Zune Marketplace purchases, improves Microsoft's media swagger
Bing, Microsoft's "decision engine," is wading into the entertainment realm today with the revelation that searches for music, lyrics, games, TV shows, and movies will get a new special sauce treatment from here on out. You'll now be able to play 100 basic games right in your search results, along with full-length streaming of songs (first time only, 30 seconds thereafter) from a 5 million-strong catalog. The latter is augmented with "one-click" purchases from the Zune Marketplace (directly through the web, no need to launch the app), Amazon, or iTunes music libraries. Movie tickets are promised to be similarly easy to buy, though the biggest new feature might well be the Bing.com/entertainment page, which acts as a portal into your media consumption with a selection of the most popular content in each category. It doesn't look terribly different from the iTunes storefront, but given its partnership with Apple's digital music shop, we doubt Bing's Entertainment section is perceived as much of a threat -- not yet, anyway. As to that other search giant, Google's been said to already be putting together a music store of its own. Man, all this integration and interconnectedness -- just where will it end?%Gallery-96092%
App Store Stories: One man's app. Three corporations. Lyrics 2 against the world.
When Joris Kluivers (@kluivers on Twitter) set out to write his Lyrics app for iPhone, he never intended to personally take on Apple, Sony, and Gracenote. Kluivers, a student at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, was just trying to get his foot in the App Store door, not go toe-to-toe with three media behemoths. The story of how he ended up navigating through the corporate bulwarks to eventually successfully publish his latest release, Lyrics 2 (iTunes Link), with the blessings of all three companies, no less, makes quite the App Store saga. The initial version of Lyrics was simple. Kluivers collaborated with Moop.me, a programming cooperative, to build his application. Published this past May, Lyrics was the first application on the App Store to allow users to find and display song lyrics. Several other similar applications followed in the weeks after. Kluivers built the application around the LyricsWiki database. Featuring over 700,000 songs, the wiki provided easy access to a much-desired resource. It was exactly that access to a vast library of songs that caused the first of Kluiver's corporate challenges. Apple insisted on censoring his lyrics. Read on to learn more about what happened...
iTunes Store to add enhanced liner notes, extra media to album purchases
Digital music purchases have been dominating the market for some time now as physical CD purchases continue to fall. For Apple, a significant lead over the rest of the music proprietor world is not enough: according to the Financial Times, the company is now working together with the four largest record labels in the business to add new features to accompany digital music purchases through its iTunes Store in hopes of stimulating full album purchases. [The FT also reports, without hedging, that Apple's "media pad" tablet device will ship in time for the holiday shopping season. According to the paper, the long-rumored iPad is intended as a full-featured portable computer and video & music player, like an oversized iPod touch, including wireless data connectivity but no built-in phone functions.] Apple has formed an alliance with EMI, Sony Music, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music to bundle whole albums with perks like interactive booklets, digital sleeve notes, and video clips. By doing so, Apple hopes to increase sales of the albums over single track purchases, a sales model that has been immensely popular in the advent of digital music. The project, codenamed "Cocktail," is intended to recreate the former experience of album-purchasing, where you could browse the liner notes, follow lyrics, and look at the album artwork as the music played. Executives have said that users will even be able to play music straight from the proposed interactive booklets without having to use iTunes. Of course, the main motivation for increasing album sales is to increase profits, as albums have a higher margin than individual songs. This change is one that should have taken place a long time ago- having to search for lyrics on shady, ad-ridden websites should already be a fading, shudder-inducing memory (though liner notes have been available on some albums, a change across the board has yet to take place). As items like liner notes and photos are possibly the last benefit that physical CDs can offer over digital purchases, this may turn out to be a very serious blow to the CD market. The iTunes Store album add-ons are set to roll out in September.
Lyric fetchin' lovin': how to batch fetch lyrics with GimmeSomeTune and Needle Drop
One neat little thing about the iPod and iPhone family of devices is their ability to display lyrics -- supported by all iPod nanos as well as the iPhone/iPod touch, and iPod Classic 5th generation and higher. On the iPhone and iPod touch, lyrics show up when a song is loaded (and can be re-displayed by tapping on the screen while a song is playing); while on the iPod nano, pressing the center button several times while a song is playing will cycle you through to display lyrics. But the real issue isn't so much about displaying lyrics as much as it is obtaining them. PearLyrics was once my tried and true favorite way of getting lyrics, but it passed away some time ago.
Wurm Online needs lyrics!
Wurm Online is a Java-based MMO with some interesting features, including deformable terrain. It is so beloved by its players that the developers decided to grant each of the three races its own anthem. However, these stirring compositions are without lyrics for the people to sing along with. So they've decided to hold a contest to write lyrics for each song. The three winners of the contest will each win 6 months of Premium Time, 20 pieces of in-game Silver, and the title of Renowned Bard. The contest will be judged by a panel comprising the owners and developers of Wurm and the composer of the anthems. The competition ends at midnight (GMT) on May 31st. Aspiring Bards, start your quills![Thanks, Guru!]
Forum Post of the Day: Ode to the CMs
I have to say that I really enjoyed this little ditty Tatiana wrote up over on the forums. She's seen all the trouble the CMs are contending with lately, feels a little sad for our Community Managers, and decided to write a song for them. I don't want to turn this into yet another discussion about Shaman buffs (we've got other posts for that), but no matter how you feel about the CMs, you just have to be won over by lines like "You tease us with "When it's ready" and even with "Soon." / And you get flaming pumpkins as your forum toon."Hopefully some musician more qualified than I (I've got my trusty Uke right here, but unfortunately my mic isn't quite good enough to give this thing justice on a recording) will toss in a catchy chorus and set this to music. I imagine something a little Arlo Guthrie-- how else could you pull off the song's best joke: "In excitement I click on the Blue post, / To see if it's "Soon," or "!!!" or " If you have any complaints or feedback regarding a Community Manager, please email wowcmfeedback@blizzard.com. Thanks!" Funny. And if someone does put it together, drop us an email about it-- we'll be sure to play it on the podcast.The whole thing is reprinted for posterity after the break.
Free TunePrompter tool lets you make your own iKaraoke vids
There's a dark family secret in my house, but it's one I must reveal: my wife is a karaoke fiend. Seriously, she's got a monkey on her back, and that chimp is singing "I Know Him So Well" from Chess. With this in mind, I've considered getting her Griffin's iKaraoke as a gift... but how to accomplish that ultra-cheesy singalong lyric scroll on screen? If only there were some way to add the lyrics to my iTunes tracks...Trust those wacky engineers at Griffin to come up with something. The just-released, free TunePrompter for OS X 10.4 & Windows XP lets you load up your songs, search for lyrics online, and then sync the words to the music -- save out a video version and you're ready to rock and roll. Griffin's also running a giveaway of a bundle of products, and anyone who provides feedback on TunePrompter is eligible to win. One caveat: even though the iKaraoke is compatible with a range of iPods, the videos produced by TunePrompter will play on an iPod with Video (and on an iPhone, but chances are the microphone won't work). Download it here and start tracking your tunes... just don't tell my wife, OK?
Apple files patent for synchronized lyrics display
If there's one music player feature that never seemed to catch on, it's showing off the lyrics of a given song. The record companies quibbled a little bit about cover art, but now even iTunes will provide you with cover art, and yet lyrics are still confined to ad-laden websites trying to hide from the copyright brigade. Music players gained a little ground earlier this year when Gracenote won the ability to distribute song lyrics, but so far only Yahoo Music has taken them up on the offer (and who uses Yahoo Music anyway, right?).Apple is getting there, though. According to Ars Technica, they've applied for a patent to "dynamically" show text on the screen of a portable media device while the media is playing, specifically synchronized lyrics. They also mention two ways of doing this-- either scrolling the text across the screen (which seems like a strange setup, but might work), and the more standard method of distinguishing one part of the text from another-- in other, less legal words, the bouncing ball technique.Either way, I've never seen a good implementation of showing lyrics in a music player (the last time I messed around with it was a plugin for Winamp however many years ago, and of course in that case you had to get them in there yourself). If anyone can tell you what the hell Björk is supposed to be saying on her latest album, hopefully it's Apple.
Gracenotes and iTunes in lyrics talks
A deal between Apple iTunes and Gracenotes may be in the works according to this recent Reuters report posted by PC Magazine. Gracenotes has gained the rights to legally distribute lyrics from BMG, Universal Music, Sony/ATV and other content providers. A deal between iTunes and Gracenote is a natural evolution of this acquisition, similar to the existing agreement that allows Gracenote to supply iTunes with track information. Gracenotes CEO Craig Palmer expects lyrics to provide up to $100 million in annual revenues by a decade from now. An iTunes deal would create a portion of those revenues. TUAW recently showed readers how to add lyrics to iPods using iTunes' current features.
HOWTO: Add lyrics to your iPod
Did you know you could view lyrics on your iPod? You can turn your iPod into a crude kind of sort-of-but-not-quite karaoke system by adding lyrics to your music and syncing those lyrics to your iPod. Both 5G and nano iPods allow you to view song lyrics as your music plays. Here are the steps to take to make this happen.%Gallery-2133%
Countdown to Burning Crusade: Lyrics contest winner
Without further ado, the grand prize winner of the Countdown to Burning Crusade lyrics contest: Josh Refenes, aka Ragbar, is going to take home the Belkin N52 gamepad and a Green Linen shirt for his entry, Soon the Crusade is Burning which spoofs "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel. Click on to read the rest of the lyrics, and also be sure to check out the excellent runners-up. Thanks to everyone who participated! Soon the Crusade is Burning -- by Josh Refenes (aka, Ragbar)Started out on Launch Day, Couldn't wait, install and play,In Azeroth there's Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms tooDarnassus, Durotar, Silithus is very farStranglethorn, Elwynn Forest, don't forget WestfallLevel up, quest grind, AoE will save you timeMove on up, don't delay, South Park just killed boars all dayGanked again in STV, corpse camping, let me beMy class sucks, it's not fair, I'm rolling warlockCHORUS:Soon the Crusade is BurningIn a few more days,We'll waste our lives awaySoon the Crusade is BurningDon't even try to fight itYou know you're gonna buy it
Countdown to Burning Crusade: Lyrics contest runners-up
At long last, we are pleased to announce the winners of the Countdown to Burning Crusade lyrics contest. The grand prize winner will be announced shortly, so stay tuned -- the second place award and a Green Linen t-shirt are going to Clinton Wolf for The Holiday Forum Song, aka The First LOL, sung to "The First Noel." The lyrics continue after the jump, so click on to check out the whole piece, as well as the lyrics from several excellent honorable mentions. Thanks huge to everyone who sent in lyrics -- you made it a tough contest to judge! The Holiday Forum Song, aka The First LOLThe first LOLOn the forums did say,"U should stop your QQing and just lrn2playIf u lrn2playThen u won't stay a sheepAs that POM Pyroblast makes your eyes weep.LOL, LOL, LOL, LOLBest lrn2play or you'll stay in nub hell."The OP logged on,And he saw the flameFrom that level 1 forum alt trolling for gameAnd to his great shame,He swallowed the baitAnd there was no rogue needed to Seal this Fate."LOL, LOL, LOL, LOLPost on ur main if u think ur so swell!"
Cowon's 4GB iAudio6 DAP reviewed
Cowon's gotten some rather mixed reviews in the past for their line of iAudio DAPs, but the outlook seems mostly positive for the upcoming hard drive-based iAudio6, with Anything But iPod finding very few flaws in the diminutive player's design, features, or performance. Especially impressive is the 1.3-inch OLED screen, which gets high marks for both color depth and clarity -- ABi calls it "simply brilliant" -- and makes watching XviD-encoded movies almost bearable on such a small display. The iAudio6, which we first spotted at CES, can handle up to 4GB of MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC, or WAV-encoded tracks on its .85-inch drive, but it's the drive that leads to one of the few knocks on this model, which is a noticeable lag time between operations. Other nice features include USB host capability for device-to-device file transfer with other UMS-enabled hardware, software that automatically tags certain tunes with the corresponding lyrics, line-in and voice recording, and surprisingly powerful output that can drive even large headphones. If you don't mind a bit of a delay when recording or changing tracks, or a bit of eye strain when watching your flicks, then the iAudio6 sounds like it'll make for a solid purchase whenever it becomes available Stateside.[Thanks, James]
Pod2go 1.6 released
That beta version of Pod2go we mentioned last year (ok, a month ago) has gone official. The new version boasts a wealth of upgrades to the way it handles lyrics, Mail, iCal information, backup, news and apps, as well as support for multiple iPods. A number of usability enhancements are present as well, such as holding down the option key to change the "Sync" option in the menu bar icon to "Sync and Eject." Check out the lengthy list of release notes to catch up on the massive amount of changes in this unassuming point upgrade.[via Hawk Wings]
