6 of the best music related sites and blogs

Jeeni Blog

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6 of the best music related sites and blogs

We have been scanning the internet and asking members what they think are the very best music-related sites and blogs. Basically, what's hot and what's not!

Our choices may well differ from yours, so let's have the debate. Many things have changed in recent years and will change at an even greater pace now. With online streaming services we can enjoy our music for free or a low cost. So let's get started with the ones we love.

We love Vampr. Vampr is an app that helps you discover, connect and collaborate with fellow musicians, the music industry and music lovers alike. Vampr stats show 33,798,736 swipes and 5,017,135 connections made in 198 countries worldwide. Pretty impressive stuff, so check them out here. https://vampr.me/

We also love Pitchfork. Pitchfork has some awesome features such as best new music, and we really like the music reviews. The writers seem to be in the know and very much "thought leaders" in the music industry. They are continually updating the website with the latest information related to the music industry. Unfortunately one of Pitchfork's main features is that they have their own music festival, this year to be held in Berlin which would have hosted over 40 bands across three different stages, but now cancelled. Check out Pitchfork here: https://pitchfork.com/

We also love Hypebot. Hypebot is one of the most well-known online music sites in the industry, and there is good reason for that! This site is updated very regularly so you know you are getting all the latest information possible.

They also cover other areas such as “Music Tech”, “DIY” and “Charts”. You can also sign up to the Hypebot newsletter to get the daily lowdown on everything happening straight to your inbox!

Hypebot covers a wide variety of topics in the music industry, so no matter what you are looking for, you’ll probably be able to find it here. They also have a charts section where you can filter by “emerging artists” or “established artists” as well as the country and city. And of course you can play artist tracks. Check out Hypebot here: https://www.hypebot.com/

Our next site is Your EDM, dedicated to Electronic Dance Music. Everything you need to stay up to date with the latest in this music genre can be found here. This includes all the latest news as well as featured articles and sub-sections/ genres of EDM, like house and bass.

On this site you even have the ability to download free songs, from a variety of different artists trying to make a name for themselves in the industry.

All the different sub-genres are listed on the site as well, so even if your taste is really narrow in EDM, you can still find some great information. New info is updated almost daily. Make sure you follow them on social media as well, so it is even easier to get updated on the latest information. Check out Your EDM here: https://www.youredm.com/

Next on our it's-gotta-be-hot list is All Music. All Music doesn’t really have as much news on the music industry as the others listed here, but their focus is mainly on providing information in new music and helping visitors discover their next obsession.

They also provide recommendations if you create an account, and once you have rated albums, you will get recommendations on what to listen to next.

They cover music from all common genres including pop, rap, electronic, classical, blues, country and more. They provide an in-depth review of all the latest albums and give options on how to stream the tunes, if you want to.

There are three different ratings available to view, “All Music Rating”, “User Ratings” and “Your Rating” so you can have a more detailed view on what people think about a particular album. Check out All Music here: https://www.allmusic.com/

Last but not least we love Jeeni. Jeeni is a new platform that we are developing for Independent Musicians and Performers and is in beta testing phase.

JEENI is a multi-channel streaming service for original and unsigned talent. Jeeni provides a showcase for musicians and performers to put their talent in the spotlight, giving superfans the power to make them stars. The Jeeni promise is to treat their creative talent ethically, fairly, honestly and with respect.

Most importantly Jeeni is committed to – No hype. No adverts. No rip-offs. No Fakes, and making sure that the artists get 100% of their direct sales. Jeeni is presently looking for beta-testers to help us improve the site. A beta-tester simply registers for a FREE account, then designs their own showcase by uploading their music and videos and give us feedback on their user experience. Please contact Shena@jeeni.com or call 07703567196 if you are interested and want to find out more.

Check out Jeeni today: https://jeeni.com/

That's all Folks!

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28
Oct

Interview with Musician, Writer, Poet and Creative Artist - Baby Panna

EJ Salako got the chance to speak to Baby Panna at Victorious Festival 2021, where he discussed his music, poetry, creative process and future goals. What sort of music do you make? I do all sorts, to be honest, I do a bit of hip hop, but it's more alternative, more experimental. I write poetry as well and I’m working on some indie rock music as well. So, it’s everywhere, a bit of everything. What influences you to make music, and what influenced you to get into music? My main influence was Kendrick Lamar I was like 12 on YouTube and I found Good Kid Maad City on an upload, I heard it and the poetic nature of it, the interludes, it opened my mind up to new ways to make music and I was in love with from there. My biggest influence is Kendrick, Kanye, Frank Ocean, the versatility, and the artistry that they show is something I want to emulate. When you’re writing your own music, what is your creative process? For me I think my process changed a lot during the lockdown, at first, I would be like “I want to make a banger so I can make peace” so I’d structure it like that you know. But now I just try and whatever I feel goes on the paper and I try and edit it as little as I can, try and keep the original beat, because I want to keep it as raw and as me as possible. So that’s me right now. Which one of your songs is your personal favourite? Right now, I’ve got one for life and one for listening, I think right now “Murder She Wrote Live” I really enjoy doing that, it gets the crowd going. But personally T1GR355, one of my most recent releases, it’s really close to poetry, and I focus on poetry a lot right now, so I love that. Future goals, where do you see yourself in the next 3-5 years, do you have an end goal? 3-5 years I think right now I’ve got a lot of rap music, I’m working on a poetry mix, and an indie rock tape and in 3 years that will all be out there. I think that’s when I will be able to confidently say people know who I am as an artist. I’m just trying to show I can do all these things, so that’s where I want to be in 3 years’ time just have people kind of get a feel for me as an artist and I wouldn’t say I have an end goal I think for me it’s just finding a way to have my creativity fund itself, that’s my goal. Watch the video interview here: Baby Panna Inside Story Interview at Victorious Festival 2021 Check out Baby Panna's showcase here: Baby Panna Jeeni Showcase

23
Feb

A Legendary NME Journo, his New Book and Other Tales

About to release his third book, a novel entitled 'The Unstable Boys', legendary NME journo Nick Kent, is interviewed by his stable-mate, Kevin EG Perry about his new book and other tales from his extraordinary career. The Unstable Boys - Nick Kent's new novel Nick Kent started writing for NME in 1972, which was a good year to be a rock’n’roll writer. And no writer in Britain was more rock’n’roll than Kent, who was soon as notorious for wearing a perpetually ripped pair of leather trousers and dating Chrissie Hynde as he was for writing novelistic profiles of enigmatic figures such as Syd Barrett and Lou Reed. Even now, almost half a century on, stories of Kent’s escapades and expenses-claims get passed down like lore at NME. There’s a good one about the time he flew to LA to profile Jethro Tull in 1975 and somehow wound up on a bender with Iggy Pop. Holed up in the Continental Hyatt House hotel on Sunset Boulevard, they hit upon the cunning wheeze of telling visiting drug dealers that they could help themselves to whatever they wanted from the luxury shops in the lobby and charge it to Kent’s room – leaving poor old Jethro Tull to pick up the tab. Truly, a grift for the ages. NIck Kent - Legendary NME Journalist Kent published the best of his collected rock writing in 1994 as The Dark Stuff and followed that essential tome in 2010 with his ‘70s memoir Apathy For The Devil. He’s just published his third book – his first novel – The Unstable Boys, which concerns the unhinged frontman of a mostly-forgotten ‘60s band appearing on the doorstop of his biggest fan after many years in obscurity. Over a video call from his home in Paris, Kent – 69 and just as louche as ever – discussed the book’s origins and held court about a life spent at the unforgiving coalface of rock’n’roll. On his no-fucks-given style Things weren’t looking good for NME when Kent first slouched through its doors in ‘72. Sales were so bad that the editors had been given just 12 issues to save the magazine. They hired Kent and other new writers such as Charles Shaar Murray and Ian MacDonald from the alternative press. The magazine then saw a huge jump in sales – but not for the reason Kent wanted to believe. “The assistant editor Nick Logan called me into his office at the end of the year and said, ‘Well, we’ve got great news – we’re outselling the Melody Maker’, which was a big deal at the time,’” remembers Kent. “He said: ‘In fact, we’re the biggest selling music weekly in the world!’ Pats on the back all round! I was standing there thinking he was gonna say: ‘It’s all you, Murray and MacDonald, you wonderful, beautiful people!’ “Not at all. He said: ‘We’ve done a survey of new readers to ask them why they buy the thing. They don’t buy it for the articles. They don’t read the articles, except for the quotes. They might look for a David Bowie quote, but they’re not interested in what the writers are writing. The only thing they actually read is the gossip column on the last page.’ What they really wanted to know was: What did Bowie’s latest haircut look like? And were Led Zeppelin playing a gig near where they lived? “After I picked my wounded ego up off the floor, I came to the very quick conclusion that I was writing for an audience with an extremely short attention span. I realised I had to go to extremes, because I would not be ignored! 300,000 people were buying the NME and the idiots weren’t reading it! That affected the way I wrote. You’ve got to grab them with the first sentence and say: ‘The action starts here’ you cannot not read this.’ I’m living proof that going to extremes gets results. The problem is that they may not be the exact results that you set out to attain.” Access all areas Kent went to extremes on the page and off it, where he found that the road of excess led not to the palace of wisdom but to a debilitating heroin addiction. His best work included an epic feature about the tortured genius of Brian Wilson, which ran to 10,000 words and was published across three issues of NME. He was also granted unprecedented access to a Rolling Stones tour and wrote memorably about the strange, distant atmosphere backstage and the darkness lurking in Jagger and Richards’ “numb, burned-out cool”. “There’s this whole idea that the writers of that time were the reason why the NME was so successful,” he says, “and that’s partly true, but the main reason was that we had more access back then to Bowie, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and the other big names of the ‘70s. There was a kind of give-and-take there, and I was lucky enough to get into that.” That time he was a Sex Pistol Kent first met punk impresario Malcolm McLaren in December 1973, when he went to France to interview the New York Dolls and found McLaren among their entourage. The pair became close and regularly dined together – along with their partners, Vivienne Westwood and Hynde – at what the writer describes “the only Indian restaurant in Clapham South”. When McLaren sacked guitarist Wally Nightingale from an early line-up of The Sex Pistols because he didn’t think he fit the band’s look, he asked Kent to replace him. Kent spent three months playing with guitarist Steve Jones and drummer Paul Cook, but says he never quite matched the Sex Pistol temperament. “What I learned from playing with The Sex Pistols was that there’s a big difference between a middle-class guitar player and a working-class guitar player,” says Kent. “For a working-class guitar player, it’s all about repetition. It’s like that Johnny Ramone thing of playing the same chords over and over again. If you’re a guy like me, I’ll play a three chord riff like ‘Louie Louie’ for a minute but then I’ll get bored and throw something a bit jazzy in, and immediately that’s like going into Radiohead-land! My Sex Pistols experience taught me that I’m a middle-class guitar player.” On the rocker who reminds him Trump Kent’s new novel The Unstable Boys centres around the titular band’s grotesque, narcissistic frontman, known as ‘The Boy’. Given his abrasive personality traits, it’s no surprise that The Boy idolises Donald Trump – and Kent says he noticed plenty of parallels between the former President and some of the more self-absorbed rock stars he’s encountered over the years. “The rock star that really reminded me of Trump is Axl Rose,” says Kent. “I went out to America in 1991 at the height of Guns N’ Roses mania. They were the biggest group in America at that time. At almost every gig they played there would be a riot. Axl would usually be late, and then he’d come on stage and spend 10 minutes putting down whatever celebrity had said something in the press about him. I saw him once put down Warren Beatty because Warren Beatty had dated his girlfriend. “We got 10 minutes of: ‘What an arsehole!’ He was using the stage as a forum for his own narcissistic shit fits, just like Trump. At least Axl Rose could perform and could sing well, whereas Trump has neither talent. He doesn’t have any talent! He’s the ultimate huckster.” And the horror story behind The Unstable Boys In The Unstable Boys, things take a turn for the worse when ‘The Boy’ turns up at the home of a wealthy crime writer who also happens to be his band’s biggest fan. Kent says he was inspired by a real tale involving the British rock’n’roller Vince Taylor, who sang the 1959 hit ‘Brand New Cadillac’. “He was one of the best early British rock singers – one of the only ones, actually,” says Kent. “He’s probably best-known now because he became the inspiration for Ziggy Stardust. Bowie had met him in the ‘60s and became fascinated by him. By the ‘70s, Taylor had gone from bad to worse and he was basically penniless. He would just turn up on the doorsteps of people that he imagined were fans of his. He turned up on the doorstep of his fan club president in Switzerland and of course the guy invited him in – this was his hero! Things didn’t go well. Before long his wife left him, his dog disappeared and his pub burnt down." Kent adds that he’s been working on the novel in some form or another since his wife Laurence first told him Taylor’s story back in 1990, so he’s delighted to finally see the story in print three decades on. “When I’d finished it, for about two or three hours afterwards I felt really, really good,” says Kent. “High in a way that eclipsed all the drug highs I’ve ever had.” – Nick Kent’s The Unstable Boys is out now via Constable www.jeeni.com www.nme.com

05
Oct

Jeeni Spotlight - Mel Croucher

This week marks the start of a new blog series here at Jeeni.com, where we shine our spotlight on remarkable Jeeni people. Our first Jeeni Spotlight shines on our very own creator, Mel Croucher. Mel is an icon with a decades-long career, architect, journalist and founder of the British computer game industry, he has released countless albums and books, and has spent the last few years creating the free music platform Jeeni.com, where we have bridged the gap between fan and artist for a seamless musical experience. Mel is best known for creating Deus Ex Machina, a ground-breaking and innovative computer game that was far ahead of it’s time, bringing together music and gameplay in one effortless accomplishment. Although set in a dystopian machine-led world, the game is an allegory of Shakespeare’s Seven Ages of Man. Throughout the game, the player experiences each age from conception to the afterlife, including an old and feeble creature on the verge of death. What was especially fascinating about Deus is the way it was designed meant the music synced with each stage perfectly, something that was unique to the gaming world at the time of it’s release forty years ago. Mel wrote and performed all the music in Deus and has since had a lucrative career selling his own music, including albums Pimania and Hang Loose. Counting luminaries such as Sir Christopher Lee, Doctor Who himself, Jon Pertwee, and Steve Jobs’ mentee Kelli Richards among his collaborators, Mel has had a passion for music since he was a small child. Creating a platform for undiscovered artists to sell and share their music without being exploited by big names like Spotify and Apple Music has been a wonderfully fresh new take on the world of streaming, with Mel becoming a pioneer in music sharing as well as in the computer game industry. Jeeni is ‘a multi-channel streaming service for independent musicians and performers, providing a unique showcase to put undiscovered talent in front of a global audience’ says Jeeni’s US managing director. Mel is a force to be reckoned with and has worked with some of the biggest names in the music business such as Eminem, Prince, Frank Zappa, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd. Mel is not one to name-drop, however this Jeeni writer thinks it is important to highlight that Mel has worked with many more music industry veterans discretely, like Phil Collins and U2, as well as big names in other parts of the celebrity world such as the comedian Frankie Howard, who voiced The Defect Police in Deus. Beginning his career as an architect, Mel has gone on to create video games, written articles and in recent years has changed his focus to revamping the music industry with Jeeni.com alongside our CEO Shena Mitchell. He has faced many challenges in his glittering career, such as Deus being well ahead of its time, as well as more physical issues such as recovering from an accident that left him in a wheelchair for some time (Mel would now recommend calling a locksmith when you lock yourself out of your house, and don’t try to climb onto your own kitchen roof, leap towards your bathroom window and end up breaking yourself). As a writer, performer and creator, Mel is a genius. As an acrobat, less so. To find out more about Mel’s exploits as a video game creator, working for celebrities, and painful accidents, check out his book Deus Ex Machina: The Best Game You Never Played In Your Life or his website www.melcroucher.net. Here at Jeeni, we are so excited to welcome undiscovered artists to our platform that breaks down the barrier between fan and artist to create a unique relationship and allowing for easy interaction. How does Jeeni support artists? JEENI is a multi-channel platform for original entertainment on demand. We’re a direct service between creatives and the global audience. · We give creatives, independent artists and performers a showcase for their talent and services. And they keep 100% of everything they make. · We empower our audience and reward them every step of the way. · We promise to treat our members ethically, fairly, honestly and with respect. · Join us at Jeeni.com

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