Music Download Sites Blog Moving to Wordpress

Hey everyone,

Just one last reminder that the blog will be moving over to Wordpress in the next little while and after today, I will not be able to update anymore until the switch is made since Blogger is stopping FTP uploading.

So to all subscribers of this blog, be sure to bookmark my homepage where we review the best legal music download sites available and stay tuned for the "Blog" link to bring you to a new looking blog where I'll continue providing you with music download news, songs to discover, album and concert reviews and much more.

See you guys in just a little bit at the new Wordpress blog!

Oh and if there is anything you would like to see more or less of through these blogs, or to suggest a song to discover or album to review, by all means, email us at feedback@comparemusicdownloadsites.com.

I look forward to seeing you guys at the new blog soon!

Music Download Sites - What Makes a Site Legal Or Illegal?

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to share with you a recent article I wrote about the legality of music download sites that is now published on http://www.ezinearticles.com/.

As an artist myself, I am frustrated with the illegal methods of downloading music which are still around but I tell myself if people don't know what makes a site legal or illegal, it's not their fault for using them so might as well put some information out there to educate users who are interested. Plus it helps me justify being upset a little since aside from my homepage which only compares the top legal music download sites, I'm getting a new article out there available to anyone interested in doing the right thing ... so now you know :)

The article takes a look at how music download sites started and got popular, what makes a site legal or illegal and what to look out for.

Check it out!

EzineArtciles - Music Download Sites - What Makes a Site Legal or Illegal

Please feel free to rate the article, pass it around, tweet it, all of the above. I'll try and put more of these together throughout the year but will get back to focusing on some music oriented posts which reminds me.

Another quick reminder, Blogger is taking out FTP uploading so I will be changing up the blog in the new upcoming month to Wordpress so to all subscirbers, you will have to re-subscribe. The "Blog" link through the homepage (www.comparemusicdownloadsites.com) will point to the new blog when it's up and running.

Thanks guys, enjoy the article and I'll hit you up with more music and music news soon!

Songs to Discover - Defying Gravity - Glee

Hey everyone,

First thing's first. I apologize. I took a step away from the song discovery theme which I've been getting some great feedback from only as "Blogger" seems to be doing a switch and will no longer allow FTP upload so we are thinking of switching everything to Wordpress. I'll keep you posted on that one. For now, I couldn't hold off on showing you a little something.

I don't watch the show but have a close friend who's a huge fan of "Glee" and knows I'm big into music so has always tried getting me to give it a shot. I just don't want to get addicted to another television show.

That said, this friend of mine sat me down in front of YouTube recently and said, dude, give this a listen ...

This is the first broadway type song I'm sharing with you because after a listen, there was just something with the song that really hit me that I haven't felt too often with this style of music.

First impression, when I heard that chorus that first time, the melody was just so strong. It felt unexpected and not predictable especially with the much more broadway feel to the verses.

My Interpretation

Well, it's a packed 2 minutes of what feels like a straight forward theme but I love the simplicity of the lyrics that were able to bring such a positive and important message across with ease. Don't be scared, take that leap towards whatever it is you're gunning for, don't let others stop you or take you down, you know, all that usual stuff. I've heard a lot of songs with the same theme but this one flows so well and just has the perfect musical and melodic accompaniment to pull it off.

I personally love it and hit repeat a good +10 times that same day it was shown to me. I hope you take a second, give it a listen, and enjoy it even half as much as I did.

As mentioned above, we may move everything to Wordpress so stay tuned since after May 1st, they are stopping this FTP upload bit that is very convenient so to all our subscribers, put a little mark in the calendar cause you may have to re-subscribe once the new set up is done.

Till then, enjoy the tune and I'll talk to you guys soon with some more little musical gems and other great music download sites news of course!

Poker Face - Chris Daughtry Acoustic Cover

Hey everyone,

Recently I wrote up a post about a well written song being great when stripped down to the bare minimum.

I found another great example I wanted to share with you guys of Chris Daughtry covering Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" on a radio show. Just him and an acoustic guitar playing a fantastic song:

The guy has a great voice, fine, but the point is to show that a well written song will sound fantastic even when you take away all the bells and whistles a producer added on top of the song to make it commercially accepteable and in the style of whichever artist is putting the song on their album.

Enjoy the clip, it's a great performance and an amazing song.

Concert Review - Nickelback in Montreal April 9th 2010

So I was at the Bell Center in Montreal for the Nickelback concert on April 9th, 2010 and what a show it was. Talk about a line up:

- Sick Puppies
- Shinedown
- Breaking Benjamin
- Nickelback

One of the problems with the show was that it started way too early though with 4 bands, I guess it would have been hard to put it on any other way.

Sick Puppies was on first and they started at roughly 6:15 PM which has to be the earliest I've ever seen a band play at the Bell Center. They started strong with "War" and as usual put on a fantastic show. The only negative is that 4 songs later, they were off the stage. Talk about a short set ...

Shinedown came on and I was really excited as they are one of my favorite bands. They played a good 30 minute set full of the radio hits and a few off their new album which rocked. Best part of it was the acoustic version of "Simple Man" mid way showing off the singer's incredible voice. He impressed me as a front man and did try to get the crowd going but I was personally embarassed at how relaxed the crowd was during the set. I understand most came for the headliner but man, you're at a rock show. It's ok to get into the opening bands!

Breaking Benjamin was next playing a good 30-40 minute set again with all the radio hits and mixing it up with a few songs from each album. Same problem with the crowd though. I don't know if technology is hurting concert goers where they just text and play games while waiting for the only band they paid the ticket for but man, once again, I bowed my head down in shame looking at the crowd response to such a great live band.

The sound overall for the openers was to be desired but the same goes for a lot of opening acts. They won't get the same juice from the PA as the headliners so they are quite limited, let's not even talk about the 10% of lighting they get next to headliners.

Nickelback was next and from the start, the sound was amazing, pyro was going off everywhere, light show was half descent, you felt the rock show started after that. The crowd was 100% behind Chad's every word and singing along all night.

They must be the tightest band I've ever seen live. I'd be impressed if you could point out a mistake musically or vocally. They are all just spot on. Incredible. I was impressed by the small amount of sequences used also. Usually, you have rock bands go on and you hear 12 violins, back vocals, and hundred of sounds in the back to fill it up but they were very transparent with Nickelback to the point where in some songs, I couldn't guarantee that they used any at all.

All the radio hits were played and as they've been around for a little time and have a few hit albums out, hits pretty much made up their entire 2 hour set. Chad did a great job of interacting with the crowd and the show was built up to be very fun and entertaining.

There was a drum solo 3 quarters in. Now he may be a very tight drummer but I was a little dissapointed with the drum solo. A lot of it was rythm patterns as opposed to showing off and doing something impressive to the drummers in the room. Like most drum solos, people just went crazy anyways anytime there was double bass and a lot of noise regardless if it was at some of the simpler parts during the solo. I give it a 6/10 from all drum solos I've seen live. Far from the worst but no where near a top 10 drum solo.

Overall, the show was awesome and I recommend checking Nickelback out any time they are in your area and headlining. Easily the tightest band I've seen live and one of the best vocals too. I know people like to give them a hard time but if you can't appreciate a Nickelback show, you're just being ignorant cause it's really hard to say it was anything but a great rock show. Good job guys! See you at the next one.

What Ever Happened To Good Lyrics? Jason Derulo Lyrics Are Horrid

So the radio was on in the car and doesn't Jason Derulo's new single come on, "In My Head". Aside from having the beginning of the chorus identical to Lady Gaga's song (I'll keep that for another post), my first impression was that the song is insanely catchy but holy crap, who wrote the lyrics and are they serious?

What ever happened to lyrics that mean something? I get that it's the pop style and the idea is to pump these songs out ready to play at clubs so you throw in "girl", "baby", "dance floor" and all of the cliche terms you can but I at least feel better putting it out there that lyrics to these songs are getting worse and worse.

You be the judge for yourself. Here's a lyric video to the new single from Jason Derulo:

Are you done reading the lyrics? Is this serious?

I don't want to take away too much from the song cause indeed, it's insanely catchy and at least in my area, I wouldn't be surprise if it hits #1 soon enough. Maybe I'm jeleous that artists are almost "getting away with it". They water down songs so much and now even slacking on lyrics.

So I guess this post is to throw it out there that while you may find these songs extremely catchy, don't let it make you think this is great songwriting as a whole. It's like the quicky of songs. In and out, throw all the moves that work and just have a bunch in the pipeline to keep feeding people. I think music lovers are smarter than that and hope they can notice bad lyrics when they hear it but puting up a post while at least make me sleep easier at night.

Damn it's catchy though and serves its purpose well, just harder to respect lyric wise.

Side note, if you are looking for legal ways to download the top music hits around, be sure to check out our main page where we review the best music download sites on the net.

A Good Song is a Good Song - Rihanna Covers

I'm a songwriter with songs written having been in rotation on MuchLOUD and even top 10 on radio stations around my area. I think this is the first time I pass a link in a blog about my band but I'm the singer and lead songwriter of Play The Angel by the way - http://www.playtheangel.com/. It's only when I started getting really into writing songs that I started noticing the beauty in a lot of other songs around me.

When I'm in a car with someone else driving somewhere and a pop song comes on produced as hip hop or any other genre, sometimes I'll say out loud, "Dam, that's an amazing song". I'm a rocker so no one gets it and some of my friends even give me a weird look but what I mean is that there's a reason the song is being played on radio that much and built up to be an amazing success. Here's the reason:

A great song is a great song!

All these hip hop songs or super pop songs like Britney Spears or Rihanna, these songs made it to be such successes cause they are insanely well written songs. When you break it down to an acoustic version in your head, or if someone plays you a cover just voice / piano or voice / acoustic guitar, the songs are absolutely amazing. This is why a producer can take that version from these great songwriters and producing them to being these hip hop or very pop songs and they are insanely catchy. It's not the "yeah yeah's" in the back they add (though that does give an element), it's cause the song is just a great song to begin with. It's almost hard to mess it up at that point ...

Here are 2 quick examples of Rihanna songs that are amazing when broken down to their original state so hopefully the rockers out there like me can break out of that shell and start giving credit where credit is due to these great song writers. I'm not talking about Britney and Rihanna, I'm talking about the song writers who wrote their songs. Please don't get these mixed up, but start appreciating good song writing no matter what the genre they are produced in dammit!

Enjoy!

Rihanna's Disturbia - Acoustic Cover

Rihanna's Umbrella - Acoustic Cover