lyrics

Updated 2/11/09 at 6:50 P.M. PT to add more context to the licensing debate and to correct Amnon Sarig's title.

Back in October, we took a look at close look at TuneWiki, a media enhancement application for Google Android that scrolls through a song's lyrics as you play a song or YouTube music video. The company announced this week an update to its free Android application that will let you also stream Internet radio on your phone. The update, which will be submitted to the Android Market this Saturday, will give streaming songs TuneWiki'… Read more

Given that TuneWiki was one of the 10 top winners in Google's Android Challenge, it's no surprise we're taken by its originality and ambition.

The free music application for Google Android not only plays your media, but it also helps build your library with songs and YouTube music videos. An additional search for streaming lyrics attempts to get you singing the right words at the right time.

TuneWiki doesn't ace everything it sets out to do, but if you're willing to give it some leeway, you won't be disappointed. Check out the First Look … Read more

There's been a lot of speculation lately about whether iTunes is a boon or burden to album sales.

Kid Rock has sold more than 1.7 million copies of his latest album, Rock and Roll Jesus, with no iTunes presence at all. And last week, Warner Bros. pulled Estelle's new album from iTunes in the U.S. in hopes of spurring physical sales. (The plan appears to have failed miserably.)

Apple is striking back before this scattered practice turns into a trend. According to Music Week, the company is working with alternative rock band Snow Patrol on an … Read more

I was notified a few months ago of the possibility of adding our extended show notes to the MP3 files that we publish daily. This is something that fans had been asking for in the past and up until then, I thought it was utterly impossible. Well, there is a way. Here's how.

The first thing to keep in mind is that adding show notes to your MP3 file must be the last thing you do to the file before publishing it to the web. If you add show notes to the file and then open it up in … Read more

On Monday, MTV Networks is set to unveil an initiative to connect its television, online, and mobile presences by helping music fans answer that crucial question--"Who the (expletive) sings that song?"

In other words, MTV Networks, the Viacom division that encompasses the MTV, VH1, and CMT brands as well as a host of other pop culture channels, is aiming to renew its focus on music by bringing lyrics to the forefront. This will begin rolling out in November and is expected to be complete by the middle of 2008.

On television, several of the networks' existing music-related … Read more

Back when the Web was young, one of my favorite sites was the International Lyrics Server, a searchable database containing lyrics to more than 100,000 popular songs. In 1999, the site was sued by the Harry Fox Agency, a major song publisher, and Swiss police raided the site's ISP and the homes of two of its owners. The site shut down, and today lyrics sites are among the worst, plagued with obvious inaccuracies, pop-up ads, and even drive-by spyware installations. (I won't link to them, but run a search for any song lyric on Google and you'… Read more