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Release Date: August 05, 2009
Genre: Games
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iTunes New Music Releases

Release Date: September 29, 2009
Genre: Rock
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Discover New Music

  • Physical Graffiti

    • 10 out of 10
    • Led Zeppelin
    • This album bears every flavor of genius from the five records that came before. It is, I believe, the band's finest. With Physical Graffiti, Zep came raging back to their musical home territory -- har
  • Wolfmother

    • 8 out of 10
    • Wolfmother
    • Black Sabbath, The White Stripes, The Stooges. There aren't many bands worth their salt that want to be compared to other bands, but when I listen to Wolfmother's self-titled American debut, I can

  • Jagged Little Pill (Acoustic)

    • 6 out of 10
    • Alanis Morissette
    • Ten years after the original release, comes the traditional celebratory acoustic re-recording. The album has held up remarkably well. While it is not as meaningful to me as it was when I was sixteen,
  • Mystics Anonymous

    • 8 out of 10
    • Mystics Anonymous
    • Mystics Anonymous is the brainchild project of Jeff Steblea, a fantastic songwriter and good friend of mine, as well. In fact, I even played the drums on all but one of the tracks on this album. Jef
  • Spilt Milk

    • 10 out of 10
    • Jellyfish
    • The second and final album from this power-pop group makes me wish Jellyfish had been able to make just one more record together. The album is best enjoyed as a whole piece, flowing from one track to

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News

SpiralFrog Misses December Jump Into Music Market

SpiralFrog made waves in August when it announced that it would offer a free and legal music download service by December. The promised launch has yet to happen, and now it looks like it may be late January 2007 before the service starts up, according to Forbes.

The music download service is hoping to generate revenue through online ads instead of track sales. Companies like Perry Ellis, Levi's, Aeropostale, and Benetton have all expressed interest in advertising through SpiralFrog.

Big-name labels Universal Music and EMI have already signed on, as has the independent label Koch Records. SpiralFrog hasn't said how negotiations with other labels including Warner Music Group and Sony BMG.

When SpiralFrog finally launches, it won't be able to offer one feature that the iTunes Store does: Cross-platform support. Music tracks downloaded from the service will be encoded in Microsoft's WMA format with digital rights management copy protection that supports Windows only.

The copy protection also prevents using downloaded songs on an iPod, potentially on Microsoft's Zune player, and also prohibits burning music CDs.

Whether or not an ad-based music download model can last long-term remains to be seen, but recording labels are optimistic. William Crowley, vice president of special markets at Koch Entertainment, Koch Record's parent company commented "Given the general fortunes of Internet advertising, especially rich media advertising, it does appear to me that there's a real opportunity there."

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