Let Music Be Upon You

Prepare to rub your eyes in general astonishment, or pure fear and disgust. As the very eagle-eyed amongst you will no doubt have already discovered, the strikethrough on the navigation bar - music - has disappeared, meaning that the page is now open!

I’ve been working on it for a little while now, and while that may not immediately be apparent, you should know that I’ve written all of the reviews on that page and personally looked through my iTunes library to see what deserves a mention at launch. Over time, more and more bands will be added for your viewing/listening pleasure. In-page listening would be fantastic, but kind’ve tacky.

Speaking of tacky, the design is a bit different to the rest of the site, but not overly so. Why is this? Sheer experimentation - I wanted to go for something brash but still dominating, and I hope I’ve hit the right balance. The actual pictures are the main parts of the page, and they are what the page is designed around. However, it all still links in to the main style with the orange/grey colour scheme and the greyscale images. All of the tiling is intentional, by the way, and the fantastic five slider at the bottom will be regularly updated.

So, let me know what you think. This is sheerly a base, and it might be worth knowing that this is my first attempt at a traditional static page on the site since ‘Reviews’ disappeared with the previous redesign, so I may be a little rusty. Comment it upppp.

iPod + iTunes

Well well, this wasn’t a surprise. Just like last September, and the September before, and the September before, Apple has refreshed its iPod family with the addition of a second generation iPod touch and a fourth generation iPod nano, pictured right. The muted colours for the iPod shuffle were ditched, and the iPod classic was bumped up to 120GB. Oh, and iTunes 8 was released. Sound overwhelming? It really wasn’t.

Firstly, iTunes 8. This comes with two headline features; new browsing in grid view, and the new Genious music recommendation feature. The Grid view is interesting - a little difficult to work at first, but I’m sure it will come in handy, especially with video and podcasts. And, having played with Genious since I downloaded it yesterday, it seems alright - not quite perfect, but I’m sure this will improve. The theory is a good one, in that Genious gets smarter and smarter as it analyses peoples music tastes. Solid update, as Apple was never going to change much.

Onto the iPod nano, which was the main refresh today. The new model reverts back to the second-generation form factor, but sports an elongated screen which makes it look a little…odd. It sports a refreshed UI, which looks interesting - especially the big album art - and the accelerometer which is built in was a nice touch, and a bit of a surprise. Tilt to scroll through Cover Flow, and shake to shuffle! Glad to see the colours are back in force - 9 brash, bright colours that I’m sure people will eat up as we get closer to Christmas. The price of the 8GB model has dropped down to £109, with double the capacity for £40 more.

And finally, the iPod touch. There was never going to be any major cosmetic change, due to the reliance on the same 3.5inch screen, but the thinner design and contoured back look really nice to me, as do the addition of exterior volume controls and, to a lesser extent, the external speaker. It now looks exactly like the iPhone from the front, almost, but who says that’s a bad thing? Now that the iPhone has built up its own audience, I see no problem. And, to me, this is what I will most likely be buying soon-ish. My nano is on my last legs, and I am longing for video. The price drop makes it even more irresistable.

So, overall? Not particularly exciting, but you wouldn’t bet even a tiny amount on Apple losing their way in the digital music player market.

Underwhelming: the season so far

If you live in England, you’ll know that the football season started three weeks ago. And, if you live in Liverpool, you’ll know that, despite achieving 7 points out of 9 from the opening three fixtures and sitting joint top of the table, fans are disappointed with what we’ve seen so far. According to the ever-optimists - which I don’t count myself as, by the way - this is meant to be our year. Robbie Keane is meant to be the last piece of the puzzle - but I am so sick of hearing this. We need to be realistic - we aren’t going to win the league this year. The best we can hope for is finishing in the top two, or I’d at least settle for third to shut up all those idiots that say we always finish fourth, when we’ve finished third twice in the last three seasons. Stupidity.

Liverpool are renowned for their excellent defence. The loss of Steve Finnan will hopefully not be noticed, ditto John Arne Riise, and the new signings will hopefully fit into the system along with the excellent trio of Jamie Carragher, Martin Skrtel and Daniel Agger - and Samii Hyppia, to a lesser extent. However, so far this season we have looked desperately short of ideas, lacking inspiration. Could this be because Gerrard hasn’t been 100% fit? Hopefully his operation will sort that out. Keane and Torres have so far failed to click, but how that justifies playing our new £20.3million striker on the left wing is beyond me. Let’s hope Albert Riera sorts out that particular problem.

And this all brings me onto my final point - a chronic lack of width. At Aston Villa yesterday, we were playing with two strikers on the wings - Dirk Kuyt and Keane. None of these are wingers, and so they constantly cut in and congest the centre, leaving no space to work with. Ryan Babel should be given his chance, because he is the best existing outlet of width in our squad.

So, it’s fair to say that I’ve been underwhelmed with what I’ve seen so far. But, at least we’re picking up the points, so it isn’t a catastrophe by any means. And it surely can’t get any worse. But, as for the new stadium…

I’ll save that particular story for another day.