Please vote for me!!
In shameless X-Factor style, I am here to beg for your votes!!
If you’re not already aware, I’m a big fan of Spotify, the music streaming service that is taking the world by storm. Since it’s popularity began to rise, 3rd party sites have sprung up offering Spotify users many ways of sharing the playlists that are so easy to create within the application.
By far and away the best of these is ShareMyPlaylists.com, and at the end of 2009 they launched a competition for users to compile the very best songs from 2009 into one playlist and submit it for the chance to win a years Spotify subscription for free.
I have been very lucky to have been shortlisted from nearly 100 playlists and am now in a final battle with 5 other lists which will all be voted on by the general public.
So my plea to you all is to pop along to ShareMyPlaylists and vote for “Failed Muso’s Sound of 2009″.
To vote, you do have to be a signed up member, but it’s quick and easy, spam free and best of all free of charge. The benefit being that you have access to over 12,000 submitted playlists, categorized by genre, as well as access to your own little page where you can chat with other users, blog or just hang out and enjoy other peoples choice in music.
So, please vote for my list!! I came 3rd in their last competition, narrowly missing out on winning a PS3 console 
Thank you very much! 
My latest Spotify playlist – Totally Trevor Horn
Trevor Horn
I’ve blogged about the wonders of Spotify and how it’s the greatest thing to come out of Sweden since…., well, Abba I guess (seeing as I hate Ikea!)
I’ve also blogged about the fantastic 3rd party playlist gathering site called ShareMyPlaylists.com.
Well, after a long absence of putting playlists together, I was inspired to compile a new one. And here it is…
Failed Muso’s Totally Trevor Horn
As you can tell, it’s all about Alan Parsons…. oh, ok, it’s all about my favourite producer ever, Trevor Horn, featuring songs that he has either produced, composed, arranged, mixed or performed on or a combination of the aforementioned.
You probably won’t find a collection of better produced music, spanning a glut of genres and styles. The man’s a freakin’ genius and I salute him.
I do still toy with the idea of trying to arrange an interview with him for this blog, but I worry that I’d end up being such a sycophant, the whole thing would be crass and subjective. We’ll see.
In the meantime, enjoy the playlist and do please rate it over at ShareMyPlaylists.com. If you haven’t got Spotify already, (and FFS, why not???), leave me a comment and I may be able to put you in touch with some people who have a pile of invites! Do remember that it’s only available in the UK, Sweden and other slected European countries at the moment.The USA is coming soon Check Spotify for more details.
The Art Of The Playlist
The advent of Spotify and the joyous way it enables you to listen to music online has been nothing short of revolutionary. Sure, there have been numerous ways of streaming music legitimately for some while, but not as easy and as satisfying as Spotify. And because it is so easy, the concept of playlists has taken on new life. With a Spotify playlist, music can be shared quickly and, best of all, collaboratively. And because of the surge in popularity, websites like ShareMyPlaylists.com have sprung up all over the place. I could mention the others, but a simple Google search will unearth them all for you. ShareMyPlaylists does appear to be one of the better ones with a simple user interface and ratings system, and great communications with it’s users too.
Now, I have created a small number of playlists which are hosted there and I am very pleased with the responses I have got on them. But having trawled through many lists on there and other playlist sites, it became quite clear that many of them were a major letdown or just totally ill conceived from the get go. With all due respect to those that created them (and I won’t be naming & shaming), a little more thought and care could have turned them into excellent and viable lists. So I got to thinking about what constitutes a great playlist.
The first major sin committed by a dodgy playlist creator is to chuck in entire albums of their favourite bands. If I wanted the whole of Blur, I’d just search Blur directly in Spotify and away I go. Worse still are playlists that contain just one album. Bizarre!
Secondly, a list that claims to contain the “best of” a particular artist or genre should be approached with caution. I did one called the Best Of The 80′s and knew that I couldn’t possibly get everything, but I made sure that I covered as many bases as possible.
Next on the list is the length of the playlist. Make the list worthwhile. Don’t make it too short and don’t be afraid to make it too long. But always keep it relevant. Know when to stop.
Artwork for your playlist is a must, just like an album sleeve is. Make it relevant and make it punchy. The image must also convey the sentiment of the playlist.
Song placement within the list is a matter of taste really. You could organise it track by track, but bear in mind that Spotify has a shuffle feature so your careful planning might be undone in an instant. When compiling your list, you can sometimes be hit by a wave of inspiration and add in large swathes of tracks, only to find that you want them all in a different order. This can prove to be a bit of an effort, so I often suggest that listeners use shuffle.
And that brings me on to descriptions. Name your list appropriately and give some thought to a short description about it. What inspired you to make the list? Why choose the songs you chose? Who are the songs about? Is there a particular relevance or theme and what is it? Sell your playlist to the listener.
But above all, remember that music is entirely and totally subjective. One man’s meat is another man’s poison. I’ve had some comments on mine about the inclusion of certain artists with others, but in the context of the theme, I was happy with my choice. For a brief period I was a bit angry at someone criticising the list, but soon realised that everyone has unique tastes and that was just the way he felt about my list. They can always make a list of their own ;o)
If you really like your playlist and want to share it, make sure you do via place like ShareMyPlaylists.com and see what people think. It can be quite a gratifying experience 
)
Four Years Old Today!
Yep, on this day in 2005, I started the Failed Muso blog.
I had confused intentions back then. I wasn’t sure if this was to be anything specific or just a place to collate my ramblings. It soon took a turn towards my passion for music and music technology, with a soupçon of random shit thrown in!
MUCH has changed since then, mostly for the better )
Anyway, Happy Birthday Failed Muso! You have served me well and here’s to many more!
By way of a celebration, I created a rather large and eclectic new Spotify playlist today, entitled, “Failed Muso’s History Of New York” which attemps (successfully, I hope) to bring together almost a century of music from that fine city. So expect to hear pieces by Al Jolson, George Gershwin, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, French Horn Rebellion, Suicide, Television, Velvet Underground, Blondie, Barbra Streisand, Ethel Merman, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Wu-Tan Clan, Jay-Z, Grandmaster Flash and many more.
It can be found on the most excellent ShareMyPlaylists.com site, along with all my others….
Failed Muso’s History Of New York
Failed Muso’s Spotify Playlists
