Music

Could the Death of Groove Music Pass be the Death of Microsoft?

It seems that MS are jumping out of a sinking industry. Getting us users to move from one sinking ship to another and announcing it as great news. How long can Spotify exist with being over 600 million in debt and not making a profit? Just how have they survived so long?

With MS killing of its hardware side, as those in the know have just announced they expect the Surface range to die next year. Could only make people wonder, just how long has the XBox got?

Microsoft is giving every impression of a shrinking company, the average consumer may come to forget who they are. This in turn may affect enterprise customers thinking. Seeing Microsoft retreating into a virtual world where nobody cares about it.

Their competitors have streaked past them in the consumer market to be companies that everybody knows and recognises. Even those companies know that they can use their vast resources and pockets to prop up a side of the business that in turn makes their other products look good. People will become those that only use Microsoft products in the office. A competitor could see just how Microsoft has become and decide then they want that business. By then Microsoft would simply be too small to have the resources to fight back effectively.

Links:

MS Power User

The Register

Update: So when I wrote this I was extremely pissed off at losing such a good service that I love and use all the time. And will continue to do so until December 31st anyway. But seeing as the Spotify app for Windows Phone is so bad and its the only device I would use, I also hate paying for something so poor and buggy. Don’t you just hate it when good things come to an end.

I’ve had my ups and downs with Microsoft as a company. This has just kicked off one of those down periods. Lets hope they do something good soon to turn that around.

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Gary Numan – The Liverpool Experience

The Gary Numan show at the Liverpool Exhibition Center was everything I was hoping for and very enjoyable. Standing behind the lighting and effects people didn’t detract from the show even

with the camera people stood up in front of us filming everything. The highlight being “My Name is Ruin” with his daughter Persia singing for the first time in front of thousands of people. The moment that sticks in my mind is when Gary, looking out for his fans, said to those seated at the front but way off to the left and right that if they can’t see move to the center, where there was a huge gap between the seats. Adding “because that’s shit”. It looked like a proper concert then. Light and effects were fantastic. The large light strobe sticks spread around the stage were very effective and impressive. But the music itself was of the course the highlight, good and loud.

Here is the official video for “My Name is Ruin” followed by how it looked that night. Enjoy.

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Gary Numan With Gang of Four – Liverpool 27th July – Update

New UK Concert

As I listen to Gary Numan (nearly) all the time, his recent stuff as well as his old, I thought it was about time I went to see him in concert. What makes this concert extra special is the inclusion of John Foxx (with The Maths) playing as well. Not to be missed at all. Got my ticket as soon as the fans were allowed to by them, which was a couple of days before general sale. Had to make sure I got mine.

Check out Gary Numan’s Pledge Music – New Album Experience & garynuman.com

Savage

The new Gary Numan album, entitled Savage, is due for release in August through the BMG label. Gary is once again working with Ade Fenton as producer. For those of you interested in after the progress of the album more intimately you can subscribe to Gary’s Pledge Music campaign which gives you unique, inside access to progress at every level, via text updates, audio updates and video updates and the chance to hear new music from early piano demo’s, through early production and guide vocals to the fully produced but pre mixed versions prior to the mastered versions that will be on the finished album.

Song titles confirmed so far are: ‘Bed Of Thorns’, ‘I Heard A Voice’, ‘Mercy’, ‘If I Said’ and ‘My name Is Ruin’ but there is still a great deal of work to do.

The main album recording is due to be completed in April, with the extra tracks required for giveaways and potential single B-Sides are due to be finished in May, with mixing and mastering also taking place in May.

The sleeve design and photography will, again, be taking place in May at some point.

This is an interesting time for Gary Numan fans as he been more open about his life and his music in the past few years which in my opinion has brought him closer to his fans and it certainly didn’t hurt that his last album “Splinter” has a been a great success and one of his best.

Update

Due to family illness John Foxx will not be able to play at this event. A great shame. I hope they get better soon.

Further Update

It seems that a new support band will playing in the place of John Foxx. They are The Gang of Four.

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