Strike One For Apple

Finally, an Apple product or service that I am not happy with.

Just signed up for iTunes Match, the service that stores all of your songs "in the cloud" (or really, "in the iCloud"). I haven't had any problems with the other iCloud services, but so far, iTunes Match is just a big fail on my new iPhone 4S.

Ever since I turned it on my iPhone, the Music player just seems to be buggier than I've ever seen it. When I have a playlist on shuffle (my usual mode), I will usually get two or three songs into the list before it just stops playing. The little play triangle is present, but the timer doesn't move forward and no song is playing. Skipping forward and backwards shows different songs, but still no sound.

Then I'll get tracks that don't show the artwork. But if I go back to the Songs pane and restart the track explicitly, the artwork will be there.

And sometimes a song will be playing, but the wrong song will be displayed! If I move forward a track, the display will skip two tracks, with the extra track in the middle being the one that had been playing.

I'd like to use this service - it's cool to get an urge to hear something and be able to get it from my Mac at home right away. And for what it's worth, the Mac and Windows iTunes clients seem to be working correctly. But until the iPhone client is cleaned up, this is going to be a no-go for me. A big disappointment.

Updated: Well, I turned off iTunes Match on my iPhone and went back to the explicit syncing - and I am still getting the hanging on shuffle mode! I'll have to see if the other symptoms are present also, but maybe this is just a base iOS error of some kind. I definitely don't recall seeing a lot of mentions of this bug around the Mac blogs, though.

The Song That Should Not Be

Metallica gets together for a new album. Reaction: mild interest at best.

They announce they are replacing Bob Rock. Reaction: somewhat optimistic.

They announce the name of the album is Death Magnetic. Reaction: meh.

They announce the track list includes a song called "The Unforgiven III". 

Reaction: Oh well. It was nice while it lasted. Back to Master Of Puppets.

What Rhymes With Katrina?

Via Libertas, word of yet another anti-war documentary hitting the screens of Austin. The two people who end up seeing this one can extend their pleasure by picking up the 30-song soundtrack with such gems as "No War" by Eddie Vetter, "Yo George" by Tori Amos, and a rap song called "Bushonomics" by .... Cornell West?

Ye gods.

That last one might just be worse than the current gold standard for horrible anti-Bush songs, "Leaving Beruit" by Roger Waters, which features the immortal lyric:

Oh George! Oh George!
That Texas education must have fucked you up when you were very small.

Pretty bad, but I'm willing to bet West can beat it.

Join Together Redux

There's been a sudden rash of musical reunions announced recently, some of which I'm more interested in than others:

The Who

This one has already occurred - what's left of the band has recently released a new album. I heard the first single from the album on the radio once, and it left such a big impression that I can't remember the name of the song, or even the name of the album. Hold on a minute.

/me checks All Music Guide

The album is called Endless Wire, and the song was apparently "It's Not Enough". I haven't heard anything else off of this album, but Daltrey did seem to be in pretty good voice during their Live 8 performance. On the other hand, the last few Townshend albums I listened to did absolutely nothing for me. It's been a while since his last solo release - maybe he's relocated some inspiration. I'll keep my ears open - my interest factor in this reunion is Mild.

The Police

This reunion has been announced, with the reformed band playing at the Grammys this weekend and a tour to follow. I don't know if they are releasing new music or just touring the old material. I like a lot of the old Police stuff, and I was also liking Sting's solo work until about Ten Summoners Tales. His more recent material though strays too far from the eclectic part of albums like Dream Of The Blue Turtles - they sound more like album-long copies of "Fields Of Gold". Andy Summers has mostly been doing jazz guitar work, some of which I find interesting, some of which drifts too much into the New Age genre. And I don't really know much about Stewart Copeland's solo work, except that he's done a lot of soundtrack work, so I've probably been hearing it without knowing it.

I hope there is new material coming out of this reunion - the last one only managed to produce that lame cover version of "Don't Stand So Close To Me". Hopefully, Andy and Stewart can pull Sting back away from the generic pop rut he's been in. Interest level = High.

Van Halen

Van Halen's decade-long search for a front-man to replace that guy from Van Halen III has led them to hire some ex-radio-talk-show host. Eddie's life has pretty much been a train-wreck, and I don't think anyone's interested in seeing Diamond Dave bring out the spandex. It's been a long time since these guys produced anything of relevance, and I'm not expecting much here. Interest level = Low.

Genesis

This reunion tour has been announced, and apparently will only include Collins, Rutherford and Banks, with no new album. I might be interested if they include some stuff before Invisible Touch. I know everyone slags the Collins era, but I think there's some good stuff on the albums after Gabriel left, but before Invisible Touch, and I'd like to see some of those songs covered. Interest level = Medium.

Pink Floyd

I'm including this one just since the endless rumors about a reunion (with or without Roger Waters) have ramped up a bit since their Live 8 performance. It looks like the official word is still No, and I wouldn't really expect anything. Gilmour just released On An Island, which is a nice enough quiet listen, but not really very Pink Floyd. He doesn't seem to feel a need to return to that genre right now. As for Roger, I'm pretty sure I'm not that interested in anything he has to say anyway. Apparently, he thinks lyrics like "Oh George! Oh George! That Texas education must have fucked you up when you were very small" (from "Leaving Beirut") are clever, creative political commentary. He really thought that this song would affect the 2004 Presidential election? Sheesh.

Since this one ain't happening, my interest level is Irrelevant.