MySpace new digital music space

MySpace will launch on Thursday a new service that will offer its 120 million users, free access to hundreds of thousands of songs from major record companies in the world.

But the music can only be played on personal computers connected to the Internet and users will have to accept advertising that will appear sporadically on their screens. All those wishing to transfer a song to a portable device like the iPod from Apple, will have to purchase music through the download service launched a year ago by Amazon.com Inc., which sells songs starting 79 cents per unit.

Unlike most of the material on the iTunes Store of Apple, music sold through the new version of MySpace does not contain limitations that restrict the number of times a song can be copied.

MySpace hopes to differentiate even more than iTunes to allow their users to create a unlimited number of lists that have 100 songs each, a concept similar to the exchange of music services offered by imeem and Last.fm.

If MySpace is successful, users will incorporate regular lists of songs to their lists and profiles shall make known to their friends their new musical tastes.

Kanye West's "Love Lockdown" song

Last night Kanye West premiered "Love Lockdown," the first single from his untitled fourth album. The song should be available on iTunes today and that clean/non-live reveal may disprove this thought, but I doubt it: Kanye, going against the grain, has made the most important song of his career since "Jesus Walks." And he pulled off a nifty prediction he made, albeit a year later than he said he would.
"Love Lockdown" is stadium music, far more indebted to U2 (or at least Coldplay) than anything he's recorded. Especially the song he actually recorded with Coldplay's Chris Martin. I struggled with last year's Graduation more than most, confused by the melding of old chipmunk soul Kanye ("The Glory," "Champion," "I Wonder") with Hybrid-happy Mr. West ("Stronger," "Homecoming"). Only in splashes did I think he'd hit on something new, something bigger, something wider in scope than what he'd done before. The sweeping orchestral skyscraper "Flashing Lights," in particular, a Capital B Big song nailed it, thumbing its nose at structure, toying with synths, and making fucking Dwele sound fantastic. "Love Lockdown" appears to be born with the same DNA. It's built on the tried-and-true quiet-loud-quiet construction (think "Smells Like Teen Spirit") and it's a heart-on-sleeve gutwrencher, once again either about his late mother, his ex-fiancee, or both. Or neither. Either way it is an affecting song that feels urgent and swept up, the same way "Jesus Walks" still does and probably always will. Oh, also he doesn't rap a bar. It's all autotuned vocals here. And, frankly, it's well-done.
Since College Dropout, Kanye's music has often sounded as though he were trying to top himself, more about form than feeling. Tinkering with Jon Brion, reallocating Daft Punk, sampling Can. These are all personal one-ups. "Love Lockdown" is a gut move, a personal record that, with this sudden and almost unhyped release, seems like something Kanye West needs to get off his chest.