Spotify for iPad arrives, aims to become 'the OS of music'

The goal to become, as one of Spotify's executives described it, "the OS of music," had eager fans of the service pushing the company to finally unveil the app, so the pressure to follow through was relatively high. The good news is that the app is as engaging and intuitive as other versions of Spotify are, if a few tidbits here and there do still need attention. 

Search function allows you access to the service's entire catalog, and, as with its desktop app, you can build, adjust and share playlists with friends and followers. Plug it into your home stereo system and  bingo, you've got the service's library at your fingertips. Sound quality is good (256 kbps, though they'd do well to up it to 320), and the stream is clean and relatively seamless. 

The biggest concern, though, is the scant space devoted to music discovery and new release updates. The company relies on friend connections to serve this purpose, but it's often difficult to intuitively learn about the new music that's arrived onto the site. There are playlist functions for this, of course; one called "New Album Releases on Spotify" has more than 25,000 followers who learn about essential music recently added to the site. But little energy seems devoted to keeping listeners fully informed about new music.

The main Spotify home page -- called "What's New" -- offers relatively little in the way of advice or tips, and what it does offer, a handful of new releases, much of it major-label fare, doesn't seem designed to create recommendations that are relevant to the listener's taste.

Also, the company's selection of add-ons and plug-ins -- a brilliant, built-in way to showcase and filter the vast range of music available -- doesn't function within the iPad version. Hopefully, these and other concerns will be addressed in future updates, but for now, if you've got an iPad and are able to spend $10 a month for the premium service, there are few better ways to discover and share new music than through Spotify. 

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Album review: Rufus Wainwright's 'Out of the Game'

Rodney King, John Singleton on 'Uprising: Hip-Hop and the L.A. Riots'

-- Randall Roberts

@liledit or follow on Spotify

Photo: Screen shot of Spotify's new iPad application. Credit: Randall Roberts / Los Angeles Times

Review: Coldplay goes big at the Hollywood Bowl

At the start of 'Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall,' the last song Coldplay performed at the Hollywood Bowl on Tuesday night, the band flicked on halos of lasers, cued a four-on-the-floor drum beat and sang about how it wanted to 'turn the music up, I got my records on / I shut the world outside until the lights come on.'

For an act that crankier critics accuse of playing middlebrow post-indie-rock for Apple adverts, this was awfully ravey. The London quartet, one of the biggest bands to emerge in the 2000s, is certainly grounded in earnest guitar-and-piano emoting (with the good taste and huge budgets that afford Brian Eno as a producer).

But that move implies that it sees the rise of dance-music culture as a stakes-raising challenge (or maybe a threat to its livelihood). Tuesday's show, the first of a three-night Bowl stand this week, proved why Coldplay is the last stadium-sized rock band left standing in contemporary pop -- a feat perhaps unrepeatable for future rockers in a laptop era.

Perhaps the one thing that sticks in craws about Coldplay is that its four sweet-tempered goofballs, who simultaneously want to play the most flagrantly moving rock music conceivable. Gawky dudes like singer Chris Martin, a 'Colbert Report' fan who rolls around on stage floors mocking his own falsetto, can't possibly be serious when he calls a song 'Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall,' right?

Well, the music had better make us believe it. And that, more than celebrity marriages (Martin's other half is Gwyneth Paltrow) or bucktoothed love ballads, is why the band is so enormous.

Rare music from George Harrison, Martin Scorsese doc out on CD, DVD

Filmmaker Martin Scorsese released a well-received documentary last year about the creative life of the quiet Beatle, 'George Harrison: Living in the Material World,' an intimate and revealing look at Harrison deep in his work. Fans were sure to notice that the film featured not just a trove of archival film footage and home movies but also some first takes, alternative tracks and other audio material that had never been released.

Much of that music is now available on a new CD, 'Early Takes Volume 1: Music From the Martin Scorsese Picture Living in the Material World,' released this week in tandem with the DVD/Blu-ray release of Scorsese's film. The album is available as a stand-alone CD as well as part of a deluxe set that includes the Scorsese film, the CD and an accompanying 96-page book that Harrison's widow, Olivia, assembled last year.

'We really were doing it for the fans,' Olivia said recently in a joint interview with producer and musician Giles Martin, who oversaw production of the CD and who is the son of legendary Beatles producer George Martin. 'They wanted to hear it, they've asked for it . . . They're so close to the songs, and these early takes really get to the essence of the songs. You can almost hear the excitement in George singing these songs, which he'd written maybe a few months earlier, or perhaps the year before. It's always an exciting time for a musician when you're writing a new song -- or for any creative person, when you create something that's new.'

'Early Takes' encompasses songs that figure into Scorsese's film, which helped Olivia Harrison and Martin sift through the piles of archival material that George Harrison left behind when he died in 2001 of cancer.

There's his embryonic recording of 'My Sweet Lord,' his biggest solo hit and the song that became the first No. 1 single from a Beatle after the group broke up in 1970.

How early is the 'Early Takes' version?

'It's Take No. 1,' Martin said. 'It's not from the Phil Spector sessions' that became his watershed solo album 'All Things Must Pass.' 'It's just George laying down the songs. It was the first time he played his songs with a band. It just shows the quality of his voice, the quality of his songwriting.'

Other works-in-progress versions of songs from 'All Things Must Pass' are included: 'I'd Have You Anytime,' which he wrote with Bob Dylan; 'Awaiting on You All'; 'Run of the Mill'; the title track; a late-'70s composition, 'Woman Don't You Cry for Me'; and his interpretation of Dylan's 'Mama You've Been on My Mind.'

'Early Takes' doesn't include any of Harrison's songs that the Beatles recorded. 'A lot of Beatles material was touched on in the 'Anthology,' ' Martin said, referring to the 1995 TV miniseries that brought Fab Four outtakes and other archival material public for the first time in official form. 'I do think it's important that people are not sold the same thing over and over again.'

In addition to the hard copy of Olivia Harrison's companion coffee-table book that was published last year, the book is available this week in e-book form.

One of the more revealing moments among several bonus features on the Scorsese film is an in-studio conversation among Harrison's son, Dhani, and both George and Giles Martin.

As they play back the original tapes for 'Something' -- Harrison's song that (along with 'Yesterday') is one of the most widely recorded of all Beatles compositions -- Giles Martin points out that it was the first Harrison song for which his father wrote an orchestral accompaniment.

George Martin had crafted string parts for Lennon and McCartney songs as early as 1965 with 'Yesterday,' on through the signature orchestral tornado that creates the climax of 'A Day in the Life.' He even scored the music for the animated Beatles feature 'Yellow Submarine.'

But it wasn't until the band's final recording sessions for 1969's 'Abbey Road' that he extended the favor to some of Harrison's music, and he has said in other interviews that one regret during his years as the Beatles' indispensable fifth man was that he didn't devote more time to nurturing Harrison's music.

Olivia Harrison decided to label the audio disc 'Volume 1' because she anticipates releasing additional tracks in the future. Among those she most prizes on this first release are 'Woman Don't You Cry for Me,' which takes on a benedictory tone in the wake of Harrison's premature death, and her husband's rendition of the Everly Brothers' 'Let It Be Me.'

'I remember the Everly Brothers had just come to England and that's when he recorded that song,' she said. 'Anything he did when I was around was special for me. I really wanted those tracks on there.'

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 --Randy Lewis

Photo of George Harrison circa 1970. Credit: The George Harrison Estate.

Review: Jack White magnetic at the Mayan

As much as any American musician under 40, White understands the vast well of music that gave birth to his sound, and acknowledges those antecedents in some manner with every lick and lyric. He's also not afraid to let images do the talking: While lesser writers mourn the end of an affair with obviousness -- some variation on sad, mad and glad -- White simply looks down and sees dead leaves and dirty ground, and in the vision you understand his mind-state. 

It was a history lesson amplified and bejeez-ified, with White's killer riffs rolling out of perfectly toned electric and acoustic guitars, played by a man who, though only 36, has already created a body of work worthy of overview -- which is exactly what he gave us.

For the most part, White has deliberately and admirably kept his distinct musical projects separate. Seldom (if ever?) during sets by his bands the White Stripes, the Raconteurs or Dead Weather has he mixed in songs from the others. But performing as Jack White with the Peacocks (featuring drums, pedal steel, bass, violin, keyboards, backing vocals), he's given himself the freedom to dip from his entire repertoire -- a word that feels funny uttering about someone so young and with a lifetime of music ahead of him, but is nonetheless accurate -- to illustrate the scope of his work. (Except for a version of "Blue Blood Blues," he stayed away from Dead Weather cuts, as he doesn't sing on many of them.)

He and the Peacocks strutted out White Stripes songs from across his now-defunct duo's albums, starting with 'Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground,' from the band's breakout album, 'White Blood Cells.' From 'Elephant,' White offered the anthemic love song 'Seven Nation Army.' And the sing-along classic 'Hotel Yorba' filled the Mayan with 1,500 voices in harmony. These once sparse songs, on record accompanied only by drummer Meg White, were offered up thick and beefy at the Mayan, allowing for instrumental meanderings that illustrated the songs' generous structures. 

From White's hard-rock band the Raconteurs, he did the twangy 'Top Yourself' and 'Carolina Drama,' and illustrated the ways in which he presents blue collar, beer-drinking shout-along rockers while peppering them with witty and literary lyrics.

Most of the set list, however, was dedicated to music from White's new solo album, 'Blunderbuss,' as impressive and magnetic a record as he's ever made. He played much of it, and in doing so illustrated the sweat-stained work ethic and gloriously rich aesthetic behind these songs. 'Weep Themselves to Sleep' was particularly huge, and showed not only White's ability to write a righteous rock song but also his knack for building a killer band. Drummer Carla Azar and keyboard player Brooke Waggoner were particularly magnetic, and pedal steel player Maggie Bjorkland offered chrome-toned runs that recalled 1950s Nashville country.

For the weepy ballad 'Blunderbuss,' White's voice softened, his high-pitched whine brought down to a whisper, as he strummed his acoustic guitar and conveyed the story of a Parisian tryst. Featuring some of the best lyrics he's ever written, the song starts in a public space with a would-be lover, who grabs his arm and drags him through "a corner exit not tall enough to walk out standing straight" and into a crowd.

Over the course of four glorious verses, White tells the story, and near the end wonders on those who would judge the pair. "So selfish them, would be their cry/And who'd be brave to argue?" he sings before offering a lesson that's served him well throughout his artistic life: "Doin' what you people need/Is never on the menu."

Set list: "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" (White Stripes). "Missing Pieces." "Sixteen Saltines." "Hotel Yorba" (White Stripes). "Top Yourself" (Raconteurs). "Love Interruption." "Weep Themselves to Sleep." "I'm Slowly Turning Into You" (White Stripes). "Blunderbuss." "We're Going to Be Friends" (White Stripes). "Take Me With You When You Go." "Ball and Biscuit" (White Stripes) Encore: "Freedom at 21." "My Doorbell" (White Stripes). "You Know That I Know." "Two Against One" (Dangermouse, Daniele Luppi and Jack White). "Carolina Drama" (Raconteurs). "Seven Nation Army" (White Stripes). "Goodnight Irene" (Leadbelly).

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Update, 2:45 p.m.: The original version of this post said that White didn't perform any Dead Weather cuts because he doesn't sing on any of them. He did, in fact, perform "Blue Blood Blues," which he sang both live and on record. It has been corrected above.

-- Randall Roberts @liledit

Photos: Jack White performs with his backing band the Peacocks at the Mayan in downtown Los Angeles on April 30, 2012. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times 

Rodney King, John Singleton on 'Uprising: Hip-hop and the L.A. Riots'

In Mark Ford's new documentary, "Uprising: Hip-Hop and the L.A. Riots," which airs tonight on VH1, the music coming out of South L.A. in the early '90s was more than just news, or what Chuck D of Pubic Enemy called the "black CNN." The explicit and furious hip-hop and gangsta rap that flowed out of that community was a warning about the riots that would erupt there on April 29, 1992.

'Ironically, I was working at the real CNN at the time. I remember being baffled by the violence and not really having a frame of reference for it,' Ford said. 'But as I studied hip-hop, I saw that it was music with very specific grievances. Some people took a song like 'F' tha Police' as inflammatory, but it was the truth.'

Watch a clip from the documentary, which does contain mature language and scenes of rioting, here.

On the 20^th anniversary of the riots, Ford's documentary examines the cauldron of anti-authoritarian rage cooking in what was then called South-Central L.A. in the years leading up to the riots, seen through a lens of the visceral hip-hop music being made across the area. Interviews with performers such as N.W.A., Snoop Dogg and Ice-T illuminate the prescience of albums that re-defined a genre, made big headlines, and drew condemnation from the FBI with their brash imagery.

FULL COVERAGE: Remembering the riots

For those who knew the perils of being a minority in L.A. at the time -- police harassment, a violent drug trade, gang warfare to rival any military occupation --  records such as  'Straight Outta Compton' were strong representations of conditions on the ground. The early era of gangsta rap was an artistic primal scream from a community that felt victimized by the LAPD, by drugs, by an institutionalized poverty right at the doorstep of L.A.'s extreme wealth -- a corrective to mainstream media depictions of life before and after the riots, which oscillated between sensationalism and demonization.

Grand Performances brings Haim, Allah-Las for lunchtime sets

For downtowners, the local bar and restaurant scene offers dozens of good reasons to blow off work this summer (Note to my editor: So I've heard, from other people who get to see sunlight occasionally during the week!). Now, the concert series Grand Performances and the Silver Lake club the Satellite have teamed up to offer even more compelling reasons to take a long lunch.

The new collaboration has co-curated a noontime concert series at California Plaza on Grand Avenue for Fridays in July and August. While the setting is a bit less scruffy than a rock club, the bill has some of the better names in rising local rock. Highlights include the throwback garage-surf act Allah-Las on July 6; the winsome singer-songwriter Priscilla Ahn on July 13; the Fleetwood Mac-inspired sister trio Haim on July 20; and their fellow folk-pop sibling group the Belle Brigade on Aug. 3.

Sets from Lady Danville, He's My Brother She's My Sister, Ethan Lipton and Ozomatli's kidcore side project Ozokids round out the season. All sets are free and start promptly at noon -- which, we know, is when some of you red-eye types roll into the office. But that's what bloody marys are for, no? 

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French pop icons romance and rock L.A.

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-- August Brown

Photo: Haim. Credit: Haim's  Facebook page.

French pop icons romance and rock L.A.

Charles Aznavour croons to fans' delight and Johnny Hallyday shakes it up in separate shows.

French expatriates living in Los Angeles got a reminder of home this week at separate concerts by Charles Aznavour and Johnny Hallyday, two aging giants in French pop music whose relatively limited renown in the United States seems only to have endeared them more deeply to their fans. When Aznavour asked which language he should sing his next song in during his performance Sunday night at the Gibson Amphitheatre, the response from the audience came quickly and with audible pride: "En français!"

The shows illustrated plenty of differences between the singers and the traditions from which they descend: Aznavour and the lyric-driven chanson versus Hallyday and his Continental take on American rock 'n' roll.

But there were similarities too, including each man's all-black wardrobe and a shared repose that worked in appealing opposition to the melodrama in both singers' material.

For Aznavour, 87, that low-key assurance felt like the natural product of the countless hours he's spent onstage over the last half century, playing gigs fundamentally indistinguishable from Sunday's.

Backed by a slick eight-piece band, the singer pondered romance and nostalgia in "L'Amour C'est Comme un Jour" and "La Bohème," punctuating his words with understated facial expressions; "What Makes a Man," Aznavour's well-known depiction of a lonely drag queen, was draped in existential gloom, tender but cool to the touch.

Occasionally his reserve turned dreary, as in "Yesterday, When I Was Young" and "She," his biggest English-language hit.

Mostly, though, Aznavour projected a kind of très chic fatalism that seemed open still to fresh disappointment.

Performing for the first time in L.A. (where he's nevertheless lived since the early 1970s), Hallyday, 68, kept his mustachioed upper lip similarly stiff Tuesday night at the Orpheum Theatre.