Plan your journey with an iPod playlist

I’m no driver but I like new sites that mash things up and give you some sort of tangible output. harman/kardon Aplified Journeys does just that.

The premise of the site is you get driving directions along with a personalised playlist for your journey.

The playlist is based on either an artist of your choice, a genre of music or your mood.

You can then decide whether your playlist is built based on driving directions (so the Oversley Mill Roundabout on the A429 for some reason triggers It’ll Take Millions in Plastic Surgery to Make Me Black by Kid 606), dictated by landmarks along the route (which resulted in nothing for the Evesham to London route I looked up) or by bands that are linked to places on your journey. Apparently the 4th exit on the M40 ramp to London/Banbury is linked to Coco Lee, whoever that is, and her song Belly Dance.

Once you’ve picked your playlist, you can email it, print it or export it to your iPod. If you print directions out, you are told the reasons for match, which in most cases for my route were either because ‘London’ was in the track name or the song, was considered ‘upbeat’, my chosen journey mood.

Right now I think it’s a great bit of fun to have a site suggest tracks for you to listen to in addition to the Google Map directions output but I don’t yet see its value.

What would make this a useful tool is it suggesting music I already own, or letting me pick what percentage of new music I’d be willing to buy for my journey.

Should I ever start driving I’ll give it a go and tell you how I get on!

Europe: stop recycling, the planet doesn’t need your help!

Ever sat in a café in Paris and coped a listen to the radio in the background? Aside from the very catchy jingles the French seem to love in their advertising (Eurostar travellers will be familiar with SNCF’s “ba da baaa da” at Gare du Nord), you’ll hear a lot of French language music. Actually, you’ll hear at least 40% of French language music on French radio due to the Pelchat amendment to the 1994 Broadcasting Reform Act requiring this. So there you are, sipping a erm.. cafe and you hear a really familiar tune on the radio but you don’t recognise the voice.. wait a minute.. it’s not even in English!

Living in the UK, we (thankfully) don’t get to experience much of this euro-recycling but today I came across a classic example of 3, count em, 3 songs from 3 different countries, performed by 3 different acts but all the same 1 song (this sentence was sponsored by 3 mobile broadband).

So from France we have L5, Deconnecter
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnYc21JiNBg]

From Spain we have Natalie, De Repente
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wuql6ty7Tk4]

Finally, from Germany we have the er, talentless Sandy and Unexpected
[youtube=http:/www.youtube.com/watch?v=utIGzfyqI6A]

Ok, that’s enough for one day. Sorry.