Promising Preview - Michael Bublé: Everything

When I heard that Michael Bublé's new single would be called "Everything" I immediately assumed it would be a smooth ballad - and knowing that he wrote it himself a love song to his fiancé Emily Blunt, I was even more convinced.

The single was released yesterday on iTunes, and after one listening I realize I was terribly wrong. This is a mid-tempo, happy, positive pop song; very untypically Michael, yet it won't cause him to fall into the mainstream pop category. It's the sort of song that makes you want to go out and embrace the spring. His vocals are brilliant as usual, and I think it's a smart move that he doesn't change the style of his singing to suit the pop style of the song. That's part of his unique sound. I also think - and hope -  the song will help to increase his fanbase, as people will learn that he can pull off modern, original songs too and not just standards.

This is a great preview of what's to come when his album "Call Me Irresponsible" will be released May 1st.

What's the point?

More and more people buy music by ordering CDs or buying MP3s online - and there are several brilliant and reliable web sites for that purpose. When I say reliable I mean in terms of payments safety and general integrity, but if you don't know exactly what album you're going to buy beforehand, things get tricky.

Say you like classical music, and browse the classical section of iTunes. Say you're particularly interested in Medieval music. And what do you find when you browse that sub-genre? R'n'B artist Mike Marshall. If you want to listen to the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, they can be found in the Comedy section. The one and only J.S. Bach is apparently classical crossover now, and so is, again according to iTunes, Tracy Chapman.

It seems the artists are devided into genres by mere coincidence or by some automatic system. When I browsed the genre World Music on Amazon.de I chose the sub-category Europe and under that, the sub-category Greece, and the first search result is Josh Groban's Live at the Greek. Most people know that even though Josh Groban has world music influences, he's not likely to belt out tunes in Greek, accompanied by bouzouki. But surely categories can't be put together just by looking at the title.

My euphoric dream is of course that these people would actually listen to the music before deciding what genre it shold be put in. Extremely time consuming, and of course almost impossible, but a girl can dream, can't she? It would certainly be my dream job. Mixing up the genres like these sites do makes it extremely inconvenient to look for new music. When you browse a genre it shouldn't be too much to ask to actually find music of that genre listed, not German 80's disco and low quality country music that seems to sneak in wherever you look.

How about just listing the artists alphabetically instead?