New York-Presbyterian Hospital Creates Playlist of ‘Songs to Save Lives To’

New York Presbyterian - Songs to Save Lives To

New York agency Seiden has launched ‘Songs to Save a Life to‘, a new CPR awareness campaign for New York Presbyterian Hospital.

89 percent of people who suffer cardiac arrest die because they don’t receive CPR from someone at the scene, and the initiative looks to help people learn how to perform hands-only CPR to help save more of those lives.

Hands-only CPR requires a pace of 100 chest compressions per minute, and the agency has created a Spotify playlist of popular songs to help you keep time. The list features 40 songs including ‘Stayin’ Alive’, ‘I Will Survive’ and ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’. Although the inclusion of ‘Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)’ and ‘Another Ones Bites the Dust’ show me that someone has a sense of humour.

[via Seiden Blog]

USA

Hyundai Partners with Spotify for ‘Break Free Playlist’ Facebook App

Hyundai i30 Break Free PlaylistBack in June, Hyundai Australia released Break Free, a fun TV ad featuring characters sing/speaking the words to Queen’s ‘I Want to Break Free’.

This week the car maker is launching the ‘i30 Break Free Dedicate and Win‘ campaign on their Facebook page, leveraging Spotify, which launched across Australia on May 21.

To win 1 of 150 Spotify premium subscriptions, fans are asked to dedicate their favorite ‘Break Free’ driving tune to one of their Facebook friends. Fans can search the Spotify database directly from the Facebook app, or choose from one of the pre-selected tracks.

The campaign will run til November 9, but the Top 5 tracks so far are:
1. All Right Now – Free
2. I Want to Break Free – Queen
3. Set You Free – The Black Keys
4. Free Bird – Lynyrd Skynyrd
5. Free Fallin’ – Tom Petty

The campaign was put together by Innocean Australia.

[via B&T]

Australia

Spotify Finally Set to Launch in the US (but not Canada)

Spotify in the USUS music fans are finally set to get their crack at using Spotify tomorrow. The launch has been rumoured as far back as two years ago when I was first granted a handful of press invites for myself and my music fan friends. Over that time we’ve run the desktop version through its paces, accessing the expansive library, creating shared playlists and providing the block rockin’ beats for two raucous Delvinia holiday parties.

According to an article published todays on GigaOm, Spotify will be offered in the U.S. in three subscription models: A free ad-supported service, a basic $5 per month subscription, and a premium subscription service for $10 a month which allows access via a mobile app, higher audio quality and access to exclusive content. You can head over to the landing page now and signup for an invite for Spotify as soon as it becomes available.

In the two and a half years since Spotify first launched in October 2008, several other competitors have emerged in the US such as Rdio and MOG, and services such as Last.fm, Grooveshark and Pandora have established themselves. Is there room left for another music service amongst music fans, or is Spotify simply a tech curiousity?

Below are a few screenshots of the Spotify application.

What’s New: this is the home screen showing which new albums or tracks have been recently added to the service, as well as a feed of news. This view also hosts popular playlists and a Feed of music that has been played by a user’s friends recently.

Radio View: Similar to Pandora, the radio functions allow a user to create a stream based on genres and decades.

Album View / Playlist View: Shuffle and repeat are available at the bottom of the screen as well as the audio controls. Tracks can be selected for a new playlist or dragged to an existing ones. Right clicking allows a user to grab the HTTP link, Spotify URI or simply share the track with another Spotify user.

Local Files: A user can mix and match your own locally stored music files with tracks from Spotify to create playlists.

Spotify Screenshots

Now, what’s this thing about not coming to Canada?

Spotify & NPR Listeners Get First Listen to REM’s Collapse Into Now

REM Collapse Into NowI don’t really listen to ‘radio’ anymore. Its been years since I’ve commuted by car and listened to morning and evening drive shows. I like most people discover and share music through their friends on Twitter, Facebook and Blogs or music services like Last.fm, Pandora.

One of the most common places I hear new albums now is at NPR Music. Anyone who follows me on Twitter has seen me tweet enthusiastically as highly anticipated albums are streamed through their First Listen feature. Recently NPR has used the chat application ScribbleLive effectively for shared listening parties of new releases including Radiohead’s ‘The King of Limbs’ 2 weeks ago.

On January 3, NPR debuted ‘Oh My Heart’ the first song from REM’s soon-to-be-released Collapse Into Now, their first album since 2008.

Since I don’t listen to radio I don’t know if these albums are being played in their entirety on air, but it hardly matters as ‘Collapse Into Now’ is being streamed in its entirety from the NPR Music site a week before its scheduled North American release date.

It’s also available to the premium users of Spotify in the UK, Sweden, Spain, Norway, Netherlands and Finland before its European release. I am fortunate to have an invite to Spotify, and that’s where I am enjoying the album right now.

I have a feeling that providing these exclusive preview releases will combat downloading by curious listeners. But serious fans will always want to have that instant access to albums for their mobile devices by downloading the files legally or in other ways.

One hopes that Spotify (if it ever makes it to North America), iTunes cloud service, or the half-dozen similar streaming music services will somehow be able to provide that instant access to music anywhere that I am.

As for my first impressions of ‘Collapse Into Now’ – it sounds to me as a return to the REM I loved on 1993s  ‘Automatic for the People’. Standout tracks on my first few listens are the ballads ‘Oh My Heart’, ‘UBerlin’ as well as rockers ‘All the Best’, ‘Mine Smell Like Honey’ and ‘That Someone is You’.