LOS ANGELES ? Diana Ross thinks she should receive a lifetime achievement Grammy for being a mother ? not a music legend.
The 67-year-old diva, who served as the leader of the Motown group The Supremes before striking gold on her own as a singer and actress, giggled at the notion of such an accolade while on hand to accept her trophy at Saturday’s Grammy Special Merit Awards ceremony.
“It’s been such an incredible ride,” said Ross, who was joined by her five children and one grandchild on stage at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre. “I’m very happy, very excited. I look forward to the future ? and going into the studio to make new music.”
The other lifetime achievement winners were country legend George Jones, “The Girl from Ipanema” composer Antonio Carlos Jobim, iconic horn section Memphis Horns, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” wordsmith Gil Scott-Heron, everlasting blues-rock group Allman Brothers Band and country showman Glen Campbell, who is set to be joined by Blake Shelton and The Band Perry on stage at Sunday’s Grammy ceremony.
The technical Grammy Awards recipients were music software developer Celemony and pioneering recording engineer Roger Nichols.
The Trustees Awards, which recognize contributions to the music industry in areas other than performance, were awarded to band leader Dave Bartholomew, jazz recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder and Apple impresario Steve Jobs.
“Accepting this award means so much to me because music meant so much to him,” said Eddy Cue, senior vice president of Internet software and services at Apple. “He told us that music shaped his life. It made him who he was. Everyone who knows Steve knows the profound impact that artists like Bob Dylan and the Beatles had on him.”
The ceremony, already a somber event because many of the recipients recently passed away or weren’t healthy enough to attend, was further marred when those in attendance learned Whitney Houston died Saturday afternoon. The news of the 48-year-old pop-music queen’s death ? and a brief rainstorm ? dampened the mood at the Grammy nominees reception following the ceremony.
“I didn’t know her, but she was a hell of a talent,” said Allman Brothers Band drummer Butch Trucks. “I hate to see somebody like that go. She was damn too young.”
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Online:
http://www.grammy.com/
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AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang will be tweeting from inside the Grammys. Follow him at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang/.
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120212/ap_en_mu/us_music_grammywatch_special_merit_awards
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The biggest missing piece of Google Music has finally fallen into place, with yesterday’s announcement of the Google Music Store. While the search giant has a way to go before catching up with Apple’s iTunes (Free, 4.5 stars) or Amazon’s well-stocked MP3 store and Cloud Player (Free, 3.5 stars), Google is at least now seriously in the online music sales game. And that’s extremely important for the 200-million-and-counting Android phone and tablet users, who haven’t had a way to acquire music comparable to what iPhone, iPad, and iPod users have. The launch of the Google Music Store certainly marks a time for Android users to rejoice. But can they feel the equal to the Apple loyalists yet?
The Android version of Google Music has yet to be updated to include the store, but Google Music on the web is open to anyone who wants to sign up for an account. This review concerns only the Web version. Look for a review of the Android Google Music App in the near future.
When I tested Google Music while it was still in beta at the company’s I/O conference in May, my main complaints were its lack of a direct way to purchase music, issues with streaming music over weak connections, and an inability to specify which song files or folders to include in Google’s music cloud. Aside from these concerns, the service’s simple interface was clear and serves its purpose well. We know that the song-purchasing feature has been addressed, as that’s the big reveal in the Google Music Store. Let’s take a look at how well it does this, and find out whether my other reservations have been remedied.?
Signup and Setup
Getting started is a simple matter of directing your browser to music.google.com. You’ll need a Google account, whether Gmail, YouTube, or Apps. And before you can download anything?even free tracks?you’ll need to enter your credit card information. Even though the site header no longer says “Beta,” the license agreement, to which you’ll have to agree, and the window title still says beta. The license agreement asserts that you must have the rights to any music you upload, and that Google will terminate your account if you’re a repeat infringer.
Adding Your Own Music
The first thing you see on the Google Music website’s muted orange borders is instructions on the two ways to get music into your account: downloading, installing, and running the service’s accompanying Music Manager software; and shopping in the new music section of the Android Market. I tested the service in Firefox on a low-end Windows 7 laptop with a fast T3 connection, and on a 2.6GHz Intel-based Macbook with a slow DSL connection.
Music Manager starts with a quick half-megabyte download (18.5 for Mac), and on my hardly screaming system, it installed in but a few seconds. A headphones icon appears in the Windows system tray, where you can call up the Manager’s window with a double click. The app has been updated since my “hands-on” article about the beta, with tabs for Upload, Download (for purchased music), Advanced, and About. And there’s much better choice over what you want uploaded to the service?you can add or remove specified folders or even iTunes and Windows Media Player playlists. You still can’t designate individual songs, but the playlist and folder controls should be enough for anyone. Still, if you choose the Music folder, all subfolders get uploaded, too. You can’t remove folders at a lower level, so you may have to move things around.
The Advanced choices let you set a bandwidth rate in case you have other heavy uses for your Internet connection. You can throttle the Manager down to 128Kbps, or just let it run as fast as possible. You can also choose whether to start the software when you start your computer, and whether to send Google crash data. Clicking this link will wipe out previous settings and kick off a wizard dialog that lets you choose whether to keep your Google Music in iTunes, Windows Media Player, the Music folder, or another folder you specify. First-time users get this wizard the first time they run the Music Manager.
At the bottom of the wizard dialog, you can see how many songs you have and how much space is left. The next page tells you how many songs Google Music found.? I had 7,846 songs and remaining space for 11,948?the service accommodates up to 20,000 in total. But it turned out that only 1,777 of my songs were valid, while 6,009 were rejected as invalid! Most of these files weren’t actual songs, but just WAV and OGG files that I wouldn’t want on Google Music anyway. The service can handle MP3, AAC, WMA, FLAC, and OGG?more than iTunes Match, which doesn’t support lossless FLAC (Google Music downgrades it to 320Kbps). Amazon only supports MP3 and AAC files up to 100MB.
Next, you tell the Manager whether it should automatically upload any new songs found in the chosen folder. After a page explaining the tray icon, you’ll be told that your music is uploading.
My 1,776 songs took 4 hours to upload on a very fast T3 connection. This isn’t so bad for a one-time process, but if you have a huge library and not such a fast Internet connection, you’d be much better off with Apple’s iTunes Match. That service also benefits you by upgrading any music to a higher quality if its bitrate is below 256Kbps and it’s in Apple’s library.?
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/9J1aS6WoKDs/0,2817,2385570,00.asp
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