imtheblogpost

Hey there guys and gals,

Here’s your cheat sheet to catch you up on everything that’s been going on at imthemusic.

We have a profile tab! It’s super easy to add - just click the + tab on your own profile. Now you can check out & explore the music straight from your profile!

We’ve had some super-prolific new writers join in the past couple of weeks. Funk Friday Disco managed to reach the 100 review mark in only a few short days. You should totally check out his review of Hercules and Love Affair and his profile pic - both are awesome. New users have taken the top writer prize for the past couple of weeks. Funk Friday Disco was our latest winner with his epic writing binge. Jason and James have also won top writer honors. James also won himself a fan favorite foam finger for his reflections on Why’s? life-changing Elephant Eyelash. The eloquent Adam B flies in the face of Pitchfork with his distaste for Silent Shout.

There’s been so many noteworthy reviews, I could go on for days! But, I’ll give you the cliff’s notes version! Our good buddy Jonathan from awesome concert website Bandega loves Eef Barzelay’s Lose Big, not as much as Kelly does. George really riled things up with his hate of OK Computer. It was a super polarized battle between his 0.0 and Peter’s 10.0, until the new Tyler (not McCauley!) came and broke the dichotomy with his 9.5! If you want to read something that stirs it up, I recommend Caroline’s review (and the ensuing comments) of Fleet Foxes. But I also liked her review of Modern Guilt, and everybody else did, too. Kyle was a fan fave for his love of dinosaurs and dreaming about them. Lyzi’s review of R Kelly’s epic hip hopera Trapped in the Closet was probably the deepest review in the (albeit short) history of itm. Oh, and Tyler McCauley likes Hootie and the Blowfish. And for that matter, so does George, a lot. Luckily, Jason is acting as the voice of reason. Go! Thumb him up, now!

Ok, that is all,

xoxo, Roseanne!

Occasionally, I become obsessed with a super cheesy pop song. I loved Umbrella last summer, that “To the Left” Beyonce song the winter before that, had a torrid love affair with Read My Mind, once. I will listen to the song on repeat, drunkenly admit to secretly loving it, and, yet, continue to scorn pop music in general.

Chris Brown’s Forever is the current object of my saccharine pop affection. I think the song is fun enough. Chris Brown is adorable, has the most amazing dance moves, and is 19 (which is like my favorite inappropriate crush age ever, Michael Cera- 20 is still ok, too). I even BOUGHT THE SONG ON iTUNES TODAY. Which is something I never, ever do (I am allergic to DRM). I wanted it for my run this morning and knew it wasn’t worth buying the whole physical album or bugging my friends. So I paid 99 cents to be locked in some contractual obligation with Apple for the tenure of this song obsession.

I definitely noticed the obvious DoubleMint gum slogan square in the middle of the chorus - but I thought it was a product of the current climate of the pop music song writing industry. Everything is so incredibly produced and cross marketed - really you’re not buying music, you’re buying into the artist’s (using this term ever so loosely) own brand. The right canned song just needs to be matched to the right kid, and you’re done. The lyrics don’t really matter - it just needs to be catchy. And people are getting pretty good at engineering songs to stick in your head (a la 5 dollar footlong).  I really thought the obvious jingle was just innocent, bad songwriting.

Oh No! After said Chris-Brown-laden-run, I read in the Wall Street Journal that, no, this isn’t a lack of creativity, it’s a fucking commercial. A commercial that they put on albums and charge for on iTunes. The song was released a few weeks ago, to be followed up today, by an indistinguishable 60-second jingle for  gum. The marketing geniuses (which I’m not using loosely here, they’re smart, yet evil) behind this wanted the song version to permeate popular culture and soften the ground for the commercial seepage into our collective psyche.

Ok, now I’m just ranting. I understand music is a powerful marketing tool. But how far is too far? It’s one thing to use a catchy song or a popular singer to associate with your product and help you sell it. It’s really another to package the commercial itself as something that is (sometimes) thought of as art. And it’s another thing for an artist to sell to and charge their fans to be a part of some marketing ploy. I guess, though, the artist really isn’t an artist, and more of some brand of which he happens to be the face. Arg, Chris Brown - thanks for ruining my guilty pleasure.

So, it’s been a while since I wrote. As I said earlier, I’m not a natural blogger. I’m not a big oversharer. But I still think blogging is cool and that I should do it (and Ben should, too!). At first, I was worried that I wouldn’t have anything to write about, but lots has happened - and now I almost have too much to write about.

Since these thoughts last propagated through the intertron, lots has happened at imthemusic! Our alpha testers have been busy reviewing all of their favorite music. The app is looking pretty awesome, and the first round of beta invites will drop this week! If you’re signed up for our beta, look out for your invite - if not, sign up at our website!

I have some fun events to mention, but they each deserve their own post, so I’m just going to post some pictures to get you excited for the full reports. To whet your appetite, if you will.

Awesome Thing #1: Boyz II Men at the Alameda County Fair

And yes, we totally held hands.

Awesome Thing #2: Alpha Tester Happy Hour @ Delirium

Awesome Thing #3: 80’s Prom

That is all for now, my pets. But there will be full reports provided in the very near future! Keep an eye out for you invite!

Hello Everyone! Welcome to the very first post of imtheblogpost, the blogging cousin of imthemusic.

This is going to be more than a purely professional blog filled with server updates and scheduled maintenence. It’ll be a little personal (but we’ll try to not overshare, of course). But when I say personal - I mean fun personal - cool things we go to, good shows we see, fun parties, adventures, funny/interesting things we find on the internet.

I hope this will make this whole thing a lot more fun, so maybe people will actually read it. I’ve never blogged before - as much as I’m obsessed with the internet, I like using it to communicate with people I actually know in real life. Until extremely recently, I only accepted facebook friends that were people that I actually know. I have a lot, but I think it’s due more to having lived in a bunch of different places than friending strangers. Also, I’ve never been a journal-keeper. Whenever I do keep one, I look back on it and wince - did I actually write that? It’s kind of like hearing your own voice on the answering machine.

All of that being said, this will also be a blog about our startup - imthemusic. The personal/professional blend of this blog is reflective of the personal/professional nature of a small, homegrown startup.