Instead of whining about me not getting my dream job I’ll just introduce you to some of my new music.
Starting off with a Discovery Download from the iTunes Store: A little bit of country music brings you Ha-Ash feat. Brandi Carlile with their song Already Home (Amazon w/ preview). It’s nice and emotional and well worth listening to. Continuing with country: I finally decided to re-buy some songs by Mark Wills from his album Wish You Were Here. I originally bought the CD back in 1998 while I was …

It’s time again to do your ears some good so hear are my recommendations for this week:
First off is “My Day So Far” by John Powell from the Motion Picture Soundtrack “Jumper”. While movie itself (starring Hayden Christiansen) is boring to the point of sleep inducing, the very first track that is played when the movie opens is pretty cool, especially the first 10-20 seconds. Luckily, iTunes could still my thirst for this track immediately. [iTunes Link]
Next are two songs by one of my favorite bands, Lifehouse. I thought …

There we go again, new music discoveries are waiting to be shared:
While the new movie was not really all that terrific, the »X-Files« music still sends shivers down my spine. I remember how I fought with my parents to watch the show. Back in 1994, when the show started on German TV, we didn’t have a VCR. So I held my audio tape recorder against the speakers of the TV and recorded the audio, always hushing my mom or dad when they spoke up during those 45 minutes. I loved the …

Just a quick music update:
Perfectly timed with the Olympics many artists have released singles and two have caught my ear: Kate Voegele with “Lift Me Up” [YouTube] and Chris Brown with “Dreamer” [YouTube]. I could put them on repeat for hours, the songs are great.
After I have already recommended Jon McLaughlin with “So Close” [YouTube] from the wonderful movie »Enchanted«, there’s another song I want to bring your attention: “Proud Father” [YouTube] encompasses everything I like about his music.
And as an Oldie I will throw in “Faithfully” by Journey [YouTube].

Quite by accident I stumbled across the music video of “Angel” by Sarah McLachlan on YouTube and clicked on play. And it hit me. Powerfully. Memories crashing in, feelings flooding through my body …
I watched the movie »City of Angels« on my birthday, just days after it hit the theaters in 1998. Wow. That is almost exactly 10 years to the day now. Apart from the fact that the movie touched me incredibly and remains one of my all time favorites, the song “Angel” got stuck in my head and I ended …

I have stumbled across a song on iTunes that I want to share with you. What made me listen to the sample was a comment by another iTunes user that was short, but electrified me:
“Girl in the War” could change your life if you let it. Such clarity and beauty is worth listening to again and again.
- linsdarlene
Usually comments are long winded and not very informative, but this one was just too interesting to pass up. And the little I heard of the song in the 30 second sample made …

If you are a Lifehouse fan then go to iTunes or your (online) music shop of choice and buy the new release of their song “Broken”. I already had the song, it came with their last album, which I downloaded the minute it became available on iTunes. But their rendition of »Broken« is just absolutely wonderful. If you don’t know anything about the song, read the lyrics here.

iTunes Link Broken
But that’s not all: Currently the iTunes Store if offering the book “The Alchemist” by world-renown author Paulo Coelho for FREE until …

Mac computers don’t play AC3 files natively so what to do? And how to add them to iTunes so you can sync them to your iPod or Mp3-player of choice?
First thing’s first: How to play those files? You need to download the A52 codec, that will enable Quicktime to play the files. Read the instructions in the »Readme«!
Now, I am running Mac OS Leopard and conversion did not work for me with mac3dec.1.6.3 – it worked fine under Tiger, but not anymore. Instead, I downloaded MpegStreamclip. Just load your AC3 …