Archive for the 'gadgets' Category

Lyric sites are spam?

Here’s something that I have basically being saying for a good while: the lyric sites are by and large spam. You’ve probably checked sites for lyrics and noticed that they often same very basic level of information, a few words. There is very rarely any information about who wrote the songs, nor who the publisher [...]

Massive Attack writes music for Nathan Drake’s Trail

UK band Massive Attack produced the music for the upcoming PlayStation game “Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune”. The title refers to a mythical treasure stashed away by Sir Francis Drake.

Yahoo offers the “real” lyrics

From experience, I can tell you that finding accurate lyrics on the web is actually quite hard. The vast majority of lyrics you find seem to be submitted by listeners. I don’t think I have ever come across lyrics of mine that are 100% accurate. Someone making a mistake is no big deal. But many [...]

Test your lyric knowledge on your phone

Here’s a good one. EMI Music Publishing have teamed up with UK game developer Player X to create a phone-based game that will test your knowledge of lyrics from their catalogue, which includes the Rolling Stones, Queen and Sting. Lyric EMI will throw questions at you that you must answer within a given time. They [...]

We’ve moved, we’ve changed

Thanks for dropping by. As you can see, we have moved - and I’m still in the process of unpacking virtual boxes. The new design is easier to use, and faster. Plus you can now navigate by Tags such as Tribute, RIP, Awards and Meanings. I’ve put a few in on this article for you [...]

Bryan Ferry forgets lyrics

I just read a “report” about Bryan Ferry using a prompter at a show in Chamonix, France recently. Well yes, it is a bit embarrassing. But less embarrassing than standing in front of a microphone with your mouth open, I’d say. Quick to jump onto a tasty rumour, there was speculation that Ferry is losing [...]

Whatever happened to pearLyrics?

Mac users might remember (or still be running) a funky little application called pearLyrics that goes out and finds the lyrics of songs playing on your iTunes. Over a year ago, its creator, Walter Ritter, fell foul of the industry’s crackdown on lyric sites. Citing infringement of copyright, the US publisher Warner-Chappell sent out a [...]

Song lyrics go legit

As reported several months ago on A-Lyric, the music business and web companies have been searching for ways to do business with song lyrics. In an interesting deal, the music database company Gracenote has signed deals with hundreds of publishers and will start integrating approved lyrics into a range of services. The idea is to [...]

Gimmick time: Your own nametone

I couldn’t help enjoying this gimmick. How about having a ring tone that calls you by name? Or even better, sings you by name. This little gimmick does just that. Type in a name (nothing too adventurous) and try it. Personally, I think the reggae version works best. Gimmicky, I know, but fun.

Choose a nametone: [...]

Finding lyrics by morse

If you’ve ever tried to find the name or a song or remember the lyrics by going “dum-de-dum-de-dum”, help is at hand. On a site called SongTapper, Geoff Peters has compiled a database of songs with the lyrics noted as a rhythm. Huh? It’s easy. You simply tap in the rhythm of the lyrics [...]