EMI Plans Digital Music Service

EMI hopes to launch their own digital music service by year's end, the label revealed. Even though CD sales are consistently on the decline while digital sales rise, a source close to the new service says "This is not an effort to compete with iTunes or Amazon." Instead, it reflects an attempt to EMI to better connect with the internet age by providing consumers with a more modern, direct way of purchasing EMI music. The label hasn't counted out adding other labels to their enterprise, however. EMI's service will reportedly provide a blend of free and paid content, plus it will contain a "music discovery function" akin to last.fm and Pandora. The launch of their own music service might explain EMI's reluctance in the past to join similar sites like MySpace Music.

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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