Tag: MUSIC,@FEATURES

HYPE CHECK 'DJ Hero' What it is: Until now, rock-and-roll has dominated the rhythm-action gaming charts. 'Rock Band' and 'Guitar Hero' both provide amazing experiences for guitars-and-drums jams, but don't really address either hip hop or dance music (i.e., electronic music). Activision has tried to remedy this situation with its newest 'Hero' game, aptly titled 'DJ Hero.' Just as ...

digg_url ='http://www.switched.com/2009/10/15/the-frays-dave-welsh-is-a-mac-man-all-the-way/'; If you've glanced at the Billboard charts, Rolling Stone magazine, or your little sister's iPod over the past few years, you're bound to have seen the name: The Fray. Fronted by the piano-caressing crooner Isaac Slade, this Denver, Colorado four-piece has brought the mellow sounds of Coldplay and ...

The iPhone increasing lets you do many things, but playing a real piano in real time so far hasn't been one of them -- at least until this past week at CEATEC, the annual consumer electronics show held in Tokyo, Japan, which we were fortunate enough to attend. On display at the Yamaha booth was one of the more impressive iPhone apps we've seen to date: Called Finger Piano Share, since it lets ...

Hype Check: 'The Beatles: Rock Band' (MTV Games/Harmonix) What it is: A little band called The Beatles has joined forces with a little game called 'Rock Band' to create what is arguably the most highly anticipated music game to date. It includes 45 songs by the seminal British band, and a full-on visual overhaul to depict the Beatles' members and style. The game comes either bundled with ...

Recently, Aussie garage band Jet answered some of our questions about texting, YouTubing, and touring. When brothers Nic and Chris Chester, along with bandmates Cameron Muncey and Mark Wilson aren't on the road, they are either listening to Hall & Oates (so are we!) on their iPods at 5 o'clock in the morning or cracking up to old videos of a toasted Orson Welles. The boys, clad in leather ...

'American Idol' finalist (Season 7) Brooke White may take her inspiration from the past -- sweeping national audiences (and Simon and Randy) off their feet with her knock-out renditions of Beatles and Carly Simon tunes on TV last season -- but she's firmly in the present when it comes to technology. White tweets, texts, and plays Wii, among many other gadget-oriented activities. Just a week ...

Early this month, a huge group of dancers wearing Hammer Pants stormed a trendy store in Los Angeles and grooved their way to viral video stardom. In one flashmob, MC Hammer was back -- in a big way (although in our eyes, he never left). The '90s rapper and dancer now has his own TV show ('Hammertime,' Sundays at 10 PM EST on A&E) and is well on the way to Internet mogul-status, thanks to ...

Amanda Palmer -- half of the virulently successful Dresden Dolls, equal parts blogger, YouTube-fanatic, and Twitter-community-organizer, and altogether musician extraordinaire -- allowed Switched to pick her brain on technology, music, and Tweeting on Friday nights. Palmer, who is most famous for playing the piano (punk-cabaret style), has a rabid Twitter fan base, pens an exhaustive blog, and ...

Songbird What it does: Songbird aims to do for media managers what Firefox did for Web browsers: trounce the standard bearer (iTunes, in this case) with customization, open-source ideology, and sheer performance. Actually built on the same codebase as Firefox, Songbird allows you to manage your music collection, buy songs, and load audio on your iPod. What we like about it: Songbird is the ...

'Tap Tap Revenge,' an iPhone and iPod Touch game with a similar style of play to 'Dance Dance Revolution' and 'Guitar Hero,' has become the most installed app on the two Apple devices, attracting millions of downloads, according to comScore. This week, Tapulous, the makers of the commute-killing masterpiece, released its latest 'Tap Tap' iPhone app - 'Tap Tap Revenge Coldplay.' For this ...

Rapper, actor and, now, high-fidelity pioneer Ludacris will release his latest album 'Theater of the Mind' on DVD in high-definition surround sound next month, Monster Cable Products CEO Noah Lee and the Atlanta MC announced earlier today at CES. As you'll see in the video after the break below, we were able to sit down with the multi-talented star to discuss his latest project. Explaining ...

If you were born anytime before 1980, chances are you've at least a few records in your lifetime. But unless you're some young hipster enjoying the retro-lust for vinyl, you probably don't listen to those LPs much anymore, which is why you need to get them onto your iPod as quickly as possible. Time was that digitizing your vinyl took some complicated computer configuration, but over ...

What it is: Got a messy, disorganized iTunes library? Here's a solution: Launched last week, TuneUp is a free iTunes plug-in that is supposed to help you reign in your unwieldy music collection by cleaning up tags, like misspelled song titles and unnumbered tracks, as well as add missing album art. If that wasn't enough, it also tracks down YouTube videos related to artists you're ...

If you're jonesing to get your Rock Band 2 on like we are, you'll be all over these new shots of the game's upcoming controllers that we got all grubby on today at E3. First, the new guitars not only look better, but they will include some welcome hardware tweaks. The new axe includes an optical sensor that will make syncing the game to your display a breeze. Rather than go through that ...

Remember that one kid in your class who wore the Hawaiian shirts and played 'Hotel California' on his guitar at each and every school talent show, 'cuz he just loved The Eagles that much? Well, he's super excited about onetime lead guitar Eagle Don Felder's new memoir Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles (1974-2001). Here, The Eagles' secrets will be revealed -- tensions will run high, ...