iTunes featured music

I'm all about free music and some of my current favorite artists are ones who have chosen to give at least some of their music away. More will come on this later, but who can complain about free music? It probably doesn't come as much of a surprise that as each Tuesday rolls around, it doesn't take me long to remember to click the iTunes Store button in my player so I can check out, what else, the updated Free on iTunes section.

iTunes may not be my personal top choice for purchasing music (I prefer independent providers, Amazon, or even sources like iLike), but I do enjoy these free downloads and sometimes really, really like what's offered. In fact, “Can’t Find the Words,” by Karina is just one free iTunes dowload featured on Summer Songs. Also considered were Joel Auge’s “So Deep in Love,” and Eric Hutchinson’s “Rock and Roll.”

This week there are a couple available downloads I'd like to feature. First off, Adam Gregory's "Crazy Days." This song was considered for Summer Songs but didn't end up fitting in. It's a catch country song first released in mid-2008 and is the artist's first U.S. single. Gregory is familiar with the Canadian music scene with two Billboard Top 40 hits. However, his 2009 self-titled album will be his first U.S. release.Next, SafetySuit is featured with the free video download for their single “Someone Like You.” This is a group I actually only checked out this past month, so it’s interesting that they are featured as soon as I really heard about them. This single isn’t my favorite song from them but it is up there. In fact, it peaked at #15 on the Alternative rock chart. I’d suggest also checking out “Stay” and “Something I Said.”


These are all off their 2008 debut album, “Life Left to Go.” The band is from Tulsa and currently resides in Nashville. On their official Web site, the band says everything about them can be summed up with the word “safety” featured in their name.

“I think the key word is ‘safety,’ explains singer/guitarist Doug Brown. “The four of us in the band have been friends forever. We feel comfortable around each other. We’re in a safe environment…and that makes us feel free to be who we are. And, if we can inspire that moment or that feeling in our fans, we’ve succeeded.”

1, 2, 3, 4

Plain White T's released their new video for their single "1, 2, 3, 4" today on their Myspace page.

"1, 2, 3, 4" was featured on "The Songs in My Head" of Summer Songs 2008.

Check out this video—it has a very personable and real feel, as was intended by the artist. The ending made me like it even more because it lets you know WHY this song was written. That's always one of the things I'm most interested in about specific songs—what were the songwriters thinking, does it really relate how I see it doing, etc. etc.

Here's the introduction from Tom of Plain White T's

A couple weeks ago I was out to lunch with my friend Mike at Portillo's. The Christmas buzz was wearing off and we were throwing around ideas of making a fun, youtube style video for 1,2,3,4. After brainstorming for a while we came up with the idea of heading into Chicago armed only with a camera and a guitar. He would film me breaking out the guitar and playing the song at random locations around the city. The focus however, would be on the people who stopped to watch. The song is a simple love song so we wanted to capture various little love stories throughout Chicago, and feature them in the video. We had no idea how it was gonna turn out- Would anyone even stop at all? Would I get mobbed? Would people give permission to be filmed? Was this even a cool idea? We had no clue what was gonna happen, but the next day we ventured out to do it. We made a pact that we would give it our best shot and just roll with it. Whatever happened we would just edit together and put up online. So we went around the city freezing our butts off (it was 18 degrees outside) following through with the plan and meeting some great people. After about seven hours in the cold we called it a day and drove back to the burbs. I was honestly concerned my ears were gonna fall off, that's how cold I was! Needless to say they didn't, and after a week of editing Mike sent me his first cut of the video. I almost cried. I couldn't believe how perfectly it captured the sentiment of the song. I knew we had something here, so we showed it to the guys in the band, our managers, and our label. They all loved it and now this simple idea we thought of over lunch and filmed the next day is getting all this hype before anyone has even seen it! We made this video for you, for the fans, so enjoy it with love, from the Plain White T's.

-Tom

Check out the video here

Summer Songs 2008

Summer Songs 2008 is here. With the start of this blog, I am officially announcing the finished products: The Songs in my Head, The Lyrics of my Life.

I am especially proud of these compilations. From the music to the artists and from the selection process to the finished "artwork," everything that has gone into these this year has almost definitely been above and beyond years past. I believe the songs that made the final cut weren't even half of the songs nominated. :) I love using words like "nominated" for this very important and official project. Each year in Summer Songs' history has shown vast improvement and further excellence from the previous years. (And for those still waiting for 2006 and 2007, keep in mind that I am judging this by an overall process from the first step to the latest step...not the various missteps in the middle. lol) And that's not to say the first year wasn't amazing either...because it was! I loved the first year (2004) and birth of Summer Songs. And I'm extremely happy that it is still continuing today. This is almost five years later.

And with that, here's a listing of the songs on each cd:


I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed putting them together. There are a lot of really cool artists on here that I know you will hear about in the future. And there are a few who you might not otherwise hear about, but who are probably greater than the others.

My starting plan for this site is to establish set publishing days on which I will feature a different artists from these track listings. While there were a couple artists or groups who got a track on each cd, there were many others who had song great songs that I had difficultly choosing from. (And that's on top of the artists that got cut altogether.) So that's for starters.

Since I found these songs and artists in various ways in the past summer (and a bit before), I have heard a few of the lesser known ones played on the radio, albeit very seldomly. But that's probably going to continue to grow. To date, I've heard, Paramore's "That's What you Get," The Hint's, "Remember (No One Said It Would Be Easy)," Thriving Ivory's "Angels on the Moon," Eric Hutchinson's "Rock and Roll," and a few others.

Using this site, I hope I can help others find some great new artists to listen to. Thanks!