Song of May 2009

Two weeks until my first exam and in three weeks I'll be on holiday in Antwerp, Belgium. Can't wait! With that said I first want to draw your attention to the best program in the whole wide world. I'm not exaggerating, I really think this will make us look at media in a new way. The program in question is Spotify. The idea is simple: listen to all the music you want and (unless you pay for the premium account, which you might have to do in some countries) in order to support the music industry there's a short commercial spot every 30 minutes. And it's not like your limited to never-heard-of-coverbands, all the famous singers and composers are out there.

So what's the catch? Since it's only beta you have to be invited to use the program (just like with Joost, Gmail beta etc.) but you can always pay for a premium day just to get an account (9 SEK, 0.99 USD). Still the program and the community is great and as long as the major music companies are playing along we can soon listen to any music we want where we want (assuming you have a internet connection). I also hope this will catch on in the movie industry, then illegal downloading would be history.

The song I've choosen for this month is a soundtrack to a classic movie series. I've never been a James Bond fan but through the sexist, racist and macho facade there's humour you can only find in 60s and 70s movies. This soundtrack is from On Her Majesty's Secret Service where Bond is played by George Lazenby. Oddly the movie is more similar in character to the newer ones where Bond suddenly appears to have emotions and in the end 007 actually marries! If you know your Bond facts you know the song is We Have All the Time in the World sung by Louis Armstrong (OPEN in Spotify). This is apparantly one of the most played wedding songs and it's not hard to see why. Who doesn't love Louis Armstong's characteristic voice and John Barry's romantic violin sections?

I have of course added the OPEN in Spotify links to all the monthly songs. Enjoy.