peter gabriel

Mega Music Meta-Battle: MOG vs. Spotify Reviews

by David D. on September 18, 2011

Spotify’s July launch in the US quickly heated up the market for music on demand.  Existing players Rdio and MOG both announced free service tiers last week, where previously they only offered free trials.  And this week, they’re all going to the ball with Facebook.

MOG, in particular, is on fire.  They introduced a slick new HTML 5 app in July, and just debuted a desktop client for the Mac.  Type Spotify vs. MOG into Google and you will get over 350,000 results.  We picked a few of the most thorough and thoughtful reviews to highlight here.

Sound + Vision – Streaming Deathmatch: Spotify Premium vs. MOG

You always want what you can’t get.  Al Griffin points out that Europe swooning over Spotify while the US was locked out made the Swedish beauty that much more alluring.

His review divides the battle into six rounds, and awards five of them to MOG, with a tie in the device support category.  Giving the PC/Mac Support category to MOG seems a little odd, since Spotify has desktop clients for both, and MOG is still working on a PC version.  However, MOG does have an excellent web app, while Spotify has none.

Computer Audiophile – MOG v. Spotify Part I and Part II

Chris Connaker provides the most thorough comparison of these services that I’ve been able to find, and his focus on audio quality is dear to the heart of MMT.

OS News – Spotify vs Rdio vs MOG

This one is for all you Rdio fans out there.  Unfortunately, the news isn’t good.  Rdio subscriber Eugenia Loli-Queru looks at all three services, and decides to ditch Rdio.  For him, it’s between MOG and Spotify.  Seems to me that Rdio is destined to become the Sprint to MOG and Spotify’s AT&T and Verizon (or RC Cola to Coke and Pepsi — whatever works for you.)

I have not tested Rdio for two reasons: 1) how much time do you think I have, people?; and 2) from everything I’ve read and heard, Rdio lags behind the leaders in the two areas most important to me: audio quality and catalog depth.

Audio Quality, AirPlay, and Bitrategate

The kbps listed above are the highest available from each service.  You need the premium flavor of Spotify to get 320 kbps streams from the desktop, mobile is capped at 160 kpbs.  Although Spotify says they are working to upgrade all of their tracks to 320 kbps, premium customers are still finding many tracks streaming at 160 kbps.  After a prolonged pause (the upgrades began in 2009), the pace seems to have quickened recently — check out this story for more on “bitrategate”.

MOG has AirPlay built-in to its Mac app, so you can stream to your home stereo from there or from an iOS device using AirPort Express or AppleTV.  Or you can just plug in your iPhone/Pod/Pad to your dock or home stereo to get music in your listening room.

Because Spotify limits 320 kbps streams to it’s desktop client, getting the highest quality audio to your home stereo is more problematic. Unless your computer is connected directly to your stereo, you will need a third-party app such as Airfoil to send audio to AirPort Express or AppleTV over your Wi-Fi network.

I found that MOG streaming over AirPlay produced consistently better audio quality than Spotify over AirFoil.  Of course, neither service will do for critical listening.  But for music discovery or casual listening, MOG sounds better, and gives you more and better options to get their highest quality streams.

One advantage Spotify has over the services is response time.  Tracks begin playing almost instantly, and rarely choke or sputter.  There is a price to pay for this: some of your bandwidth will be used to serve cached songs to other Spotify users.  Spotify’s use of peer-to-peer networking concerns some customers, here’s what it says under “use of computational resources” in the T&Cs:

Spotify has a right to allow the Spotify Software Application and the Spotify Service to utilize the processor, bandwidth and storage hardware on your computer or other relevant device for the limited purpose of facilitating the communication and transmission of content and other data or features to you and other users of the Spotify Software Application and the Spotify Service, and to facilitate the operation of the network on which the Spotify Software Application and the Spotify Service runs.

~ Spotify – Terms and Conditions of Use

Finding your music, or where’s the (arcade) fire?

Both MOG and Spotify have pretty impressive catalogs.  I decided to test them out by building a playlist dedicated to the September harvest moon, and was a bit surprised to find all the songs I searched for on both services.

A little more searching turned up a few gaps on MOG.  I found all of the Goldheart Assembly albums, but “Oh Really” from the So Long St. Christopher EP was missing.  Both services had Under the Table and Dreaming from DMB, but MOG’s album was missing two of the tracks.

WhileI found gaps on MOG, Spotify has some gaping holes.  MOG has had (it’s now being updated) the entire Pink Floyd catalog.  Spotify: one live album from 1995.  MOG has most of Peter Gabriel’s catalog, including the 2010 collection of covers: Scratch My Back.  Spotify: a couple cuts from soundtrack albums. MOG has both 19 and 21 from Adele. Spotify: 19 only.  And so on.

I’m not sure how the track counts are compiled, but I noticed a lot of duplication, and a fair amount of filler in the listings.  I can understand different mixes and remasters showing up as multiple tracks, but MOG lists 40 tracks for “Billie Jean”.  Eighteen are from Michael Jackson, the rest are covers, sound-alikes, and karaoke cuts.  Spotify is the clear winner of the “Billie Jean” battle, with a whopping 71 tracks.

And the winner is…

MOG wins: audio quality, catalog quality, web interface, radio features, music discovery

Spotify wins: integration with local files, catalog quantity, windows desktop, streaming performance

Editor’s Choice: MOG

Big Box of Disclaimers

Your choice will depend on what’s most important to you.  Catalog quality is a subjective issue, so check each service to make sure the music you want most is available.  If you like to listen to music on your work computer but can’t install apps, then Spotify’s lack of a web interface will be a problem.

If Facebook is successful in popularizing these services, then streaming performance could become more of an issue, and Spotify’s peer-to-peer approach gives them a substantial advantage.  For now, I like MOG so much that I have decided to drop my premium subscription to Spotify and become a MOG affilliate.

MOG is currently available only in the US, so that makes the decision easy for a lot of the world.  This article is geared towards US readers, and Spotify’s catalog and features vary by country.  Artists and tracks are continually being added to and removed from each service, and there are multiple flavors of free and premium offerings for both services.

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Cover My World #1: Amanda Palmer Performs The Popular Hits Of Radiohead On Her Magic Ukulele

by David D. on August 18, 2010

Covers are HOT this year. The Onion A.V. Club is wrapping up its Undercover Series: 25 Bands, 25 Cover Songs, 1 Small, Round Room.  So if you want to hear Superchunk cover The Cure (Yeah!), or Cymbals Eat Guitars cover Superchunk (probably not), you’re…uhh, covered.

Over at NPR, All Songs Considered has selected Five Great Cover Songs From 2010 (So Far).  And Peter Gabriel released an album of covers: Scratch My Back, where his voice is accompanied solely by piano and orchestra, leading to some “radical reinterpretations.”

“Songwriting is what drew me into music,” Peter reveals. “The craft and the process of putting together a good song seemed both exciting and magical.” And it’s this magical craft that Scratch My Back salutes, a dozen covers of songs that Peter regards as among the pinnacles of songwriting endeavour. “Songwriting is what turns his crank,” agrees long-standing member of his management team Mike Large, “and there’s a whole bunch of songs that, when he hears them, the meter goes off the end of the scale.“

So this series will present a few of MMT’s favorite covers.  The best covers are not just same song/different singer, but re-imaginings that might amplify an undercurrent or illuminate hidden corners of the originals.  And speaking of radical reinterpretations, we kick things off with “Creep” as performed by Amanda Palmer.  What began as a party goof blossomed into a full album of  Radiohead covers.  Here’s the one that started it all…

Looking for more Radiohead covers?  Check out the surprising “Optimistic” from Hanson (yes, the mmmboppers), and the sublime instrumental performance of “Kinves Out” by the Brad Mehldau Trio.

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Free Friday: Peter Gabriel Edition – Here Comes The Flood

by David D. on August 12, 2010

Ok, so it’s more like trade your email address for a free MP3 download Friday.  But you’re probably already on Guitar Center’s mailing list, and you should be on Peter’s.  (You can unsubscribe at any time.)  Peter’s performance from the unlisted (i.e., don’t try to search for it) YouTube video below is available as an MP3 download here.  Beautiful.  (More on that later.)

If you have DIRECTV, Guitar Sessions: Peter Gabriel premieres August 21st, 9pm ET/PT on DIRECTV channel 101 and in 3D on n|3D.

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Peter Gabriel performs Tom Wait’s “In the Neighborhood” for the Voice Project

by David D. on August 9, 2010

Peter Gabriel covers Tom Wait’s “In the Neighborhood” for The Voice Project, a music-based initiative to support the peace movement in Uganda. Read below to learn more about the situation there and how you might help.

IT BEGAN WITH SONGS, WORDS AND MUSIC

A peace movement is an incredible thing, people coming together, mobilizing like an army, and in this case armed not with guns but with songs and something more powerful than than any bullet; compassion, the strength of human will, and determination.

For over two decades war has ravaged Northern Uganda. It is Africa’s longest running conflict and it has spread to Southern Sudan and Eastern Congo. Joseph Kony’s LRA has made abducting children and forcing them to fight his chief weapon of war, even making them kill their friends and family members. Many abductees and former soldiers escape but hide in the bush, afraid to return home because of reprisals for the atrocities they were forced to commit.

The women of Northern Uganda – widows, rape survivors, and former abductees have been banding together in groups to support each other and those orphaned by the war and diseases so prevalent in the IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camps. And they are singing songs. The lyrics let the former soldiers know that they are forgiven and that they should come home. The songs are passed by radio and word of mouth out into the bush, as far as the Sudan and DR Congo. And it’s working. Former LRA are returning and for the first time 24 years the region has a chance at real peace.

The Voice Project is an attempt to support these incredible women and the peace movement in Uganda, and an effort to see how far a voice can carry.

HOW IT WORKS

1. Artists do the cover chain episodes to spread the word (one covers another and so on)

2. We put the videos up at our site

3. We use money from donations, sponsors and advertisers to support programs on the ground which aid in the peace, reconciliation and rebuilding efforts.

~ The Voice Project

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