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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

  • Trouble

    • 8 out of 10
    • Ray LaMontagne
    • At first, Ray LaMontagne might strike you as just another breathy-voiced knockoff of folk/rock guitarists like John Mayer and Jack Johnson. But he's actually got a better voice than either, he tell

  • Suspended Animation

    • 8 out of 10
    • Fantomas
    • Mike Patton may well be one of the hardest working men in showbiz these days, and his latest with Fantômas underscores just about how far out he is willing to travel.

      Suspended Animation

  • How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb

    • 6 out of 10
    • U2
    • U2's latest entry is a mostly underwhelming collection of songs that does very little to sound any different from its equally pedestrian predecessor, 2000's "All That You Can't Leave Behind." While

  • Bowie at Beeb: Best of BBC Radio 68-72

    • 10 out of 10
    • David Bowie
    • The companion CD to a BBC television concert, BBC Radio Theatre has some of the best renditions of many of Bowie's best songs throughout his career. "I'm Afraid of Americans" is substantial

  • With Teeth

    • 4 out of 10
    • Nine Inch Nails
    • In the sprawling post-A&R rock and roll world, there are two camps: the Beatles and the Stones. The Beatles are the artists that like to explore, evolve, and change styles. The Stones are the artis

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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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