Jennifer Johnson

James Blunt is one of my new favorite artists. It seemed like over night he went from being semi-famous to a house-hold name within days. He even guest appeared on the Opera Show!

He served in the Army for four years, upon returning started writing awesome music that would soon embrace the whole world with great melodies and lyrics. James Blunt first was discovered upon appearing at the 2003 South By Southwest, winning the crowd. In 2005, “You’re Beautiful” spent five straight weeks as number one in the United Kingdom singles chart.

This picture is from his video “You’re Beautiful.”

The Fray is a Denver-based band that I recently found. I’m actually obsessed with every single one of their songs! The band was formed in 2002, with Isaac Slade (vocals, piano) and Joe King (guitar, vocals). They later had two members join Ben Wysocki (drummer) and Dave Welsh (guitarist). They signed with Epic Records in 2004 and released their debut album, How to Save a Life, in September 2005.

A few of their songs I suggest everyone download:

Over My Head (Cable Car), How to Save a Life,

Their music is compared to Counting Crows and Jimmy Eat World.

The newest iPod on the market can hold 15,000 songs, 25,000 photos, and 150 hours of video. It’s lighter, thinner with 30GB and 60GB models starting at $299. It not only holds a greater amount of songs than all of their iPods, but now you can actually sit down and watch a whole TV episode or movie. The graphics and images are extremely realistic. The screen offers a 2.5 inch color display screen.

The battery lasts up to 20 hours, which is 5 more hours than before. It has all of the features of the past generations of the iPod but now with a whole bunch more!

Apple has a wonderful feature on its Web site that allows you to read the latest news stories regarding iPods and Apple technology. It also has a little column on the left that allows you to see the “iTunes Top Songs,” which is a little suggestion of which songs are big to the Apple world. This feature allows you to see the top 100 songs iTunes values each day.

Here’s a sample of what songs are popular at the moment if you are stumped on what jams to download next. It’s a great variety of types of music and artist. It’s also a great way to find a new artist to download more songs from after sampling the suggest song from Apple. The top ten songs that are valued by iTunes today are:

1.) Bad Day- Daniel Powter

2.) Unwritten- Natasha Beding

3.) Move Along- The All-American Rejects

4.) Temperature- Sean Paul

5.) Beep- Pussycat Dolls

6.) You’re Beautiful- James Blunt

7.) So Sick- Ne-Yo

8.) Im N Luv- T-Pain & Mike Jones

9.) Ms. New Booty- Bubba Sparxxx

10.) Everytime We Touch- Cascada

So if you ever struggling in what to download next are just want to hear a few suggestions, check out www.apple.com and look for the column of the iTunes Tops Songs in the left hand of the screen.

The iPod Nano is a remarkable .27 inches thin and 1.5 ounces. It has up to 14 hours of battery life and comes in variety of GB: 1GB, 2GB, and 4GB. Which 1GB = 1 billion bytes. The iPod nano has a very bright color display. When choosing a certain song, artist, or composer, along side the song will be the album cover of your chosen option in a bright life-like image.
Finding music on the iPod nano is very simple. Everything is based on a touch-sensitive Apple Wheel. You may locate a song through a number of organized categories. You can search by looking for the artist, composer, song, album, genre, or playlist. You also have the option to shuffle your songs, by choosing to shuffle by artist, composer, song, album, genre, or playlist.

The iPod Nano holds up to 25,000 photographs. You can select an option called “Slideshow Setting” if you want to handless flip through your images. You can choose the time between slides, the transition effect, and the music that will play for your slideshow.
The iPod Nano also offers a Calendar and Contact feature. You can look at the “World Clock” on an iPod Nano. It allows you look at as many time zones as you would like. It also has an alarm clock!

What doesn’t the iPod Nano not have? Nothing!

Apple has many accessory options for iPods. Two of the most important iPod accessories I own, are the: Armband and car adapter.

The armband is very useful for active people or even for people who don’t really move a lot. I use it when I’m running, working out, cleaning my room, cooking, doing laundry. It’s very helpful because it’s so small and is very portable. I sometimes forget I’m wearing mine when doing things around the house because it’s so light and comfortable.

The car adapter is extremely important to me. Since I take my iPod everywhere, being able to transport all of my music from my iPod nano to my car speakers is just amazing. It is extremely crucial when I have long car drives. I charge up my iPod, plug it into my car, and am able to drive for around 3 hours without every changing the radio station or putting in a new cd. The car adapter is also great, because since I can make playlist on my iTunes, I can make a “Car Ride Home” playlist and play it on my long drives.

I also purchased some of the “tubes”, which are protective covers that shield the iPod Nano from getting scratched or hurt when dropped, stepped on, or forgotten. They are actually very handy and helpful. It fits on like a glove and has an open circular middle so the wheel of the ipod can be accessed. They come in five colors: clear, blue, pink, green and purple.

Apple also offers many other iPod accessories that I yet to own. They have “In-ear Lanyard Headphones,” which are supposed to be better than regular iPod headphones because it enters your ear deeper. It is supposed to make the bass more clear and lyrics full of greater clarity. It creates an uncluttered and clean listening experience because the audio cable is integrated with the lanyard itself.

There are many more choices to choose when searching for iPod accessories. For further information and images go to:
http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/accessories.html

I have an iPod Nano and I suggest everyone save up and buy one! They are amazing! Looking back I remember when I thought it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to have one because the Nanos are so small and thin I was positive I would lose it. Well after owning one, there is no way in the world I would ever lose this baby. I take my nano everywhere; it honestly never really ever leaves my side. Being so small, actually has its advantages because it can fit more places and is super light, not to mention how cute it is.

I have the 4GB, which holds 1,000 songs (3 days of music), and have yet to run out of room. I also chose the white nano over the black, because the white nano will not show scrapes as obviously as the black one. The ipod nano also shows color album graphics.

I urge everyone to put iPod Nano on the top of list of things to purchase. Trust me, if you love music, you’ll absolutely fall in love with your baby iPod Nano.

After going to spring break in Daytona,Fl. one of the top played songs every club played was S.O.S. by Rihanna. Rihanna created an album called, Music of the Sun. She couldn’t come up with a better name for her album! Her S.O.S. is a great song to hang out to while out in the sun. I learned this first hand while on the beach in Fl. Her music is compared to having a Caribbean-styled dance-pop genre. Basically, her music makes you want to spring up off your chair and start dancing. Rihanna signed a contract with Def Jam and began to succeed.
Rihanna is originally from Barbados, Rihanna gives us Americans exactly what our ears want to hear. In summer 2005, Def Jam released “Pon de Replay”, the lead single from Rihanna’s debut album, Music of the Sun.

If you ever in need of a good work out song or something to really shake your tail to, download a few of the many songs Rihanna has out there. I promise you, you will want to get up and dance the night away!

The Afters made their big break after gaining the main theme song, Beautiful Love, for MTV’s new hit television show “8th and Ocean”. The Afters are a Texas-based band with a whole bunch to sing about. They first started playing at an acoustic show at a church. The band was shocked at how much the crowd loved their music, asking for which song they were going to play next.

They later started playing at a hot night club called The Door in Dallas. The crowd absolutely loved them and wanted more. In 2000, The Afters recorded their first six-song EP selling 2,000 copies in a few weeks, earning enough money to return to the studio and finish their first debut, When the World is Wonderful.

Two years, The Afters signed with Simple/INO Records to record their follow-up album, I Wish We All Could Win. Epic Records agreed to sign with The Afters and agreed to re-release the album in winter 2005.

I suggest everyone buy their CD or download all of their songs, because they are all great! My favorite is “Little House”, but they are all very good and worth purchasing.