Snow Patrol's "Suns" Packed With Liner-Note Extras for iPods and iPhones

The next big digital step for albums may arrive this October, when U.K. rockers Snow Patrol release their new LP A Million Hundred Suns packed with interactive applications for iPod Touch and iPhone. Whereas most iPod-bound albums just include the music and cover photo, Suns' "interactive album art" will also boast additional photos, lyrics, extra artwork and other downloadable content — a special liner-notes package and then some. While Snow Patrol's album extras aren't expected to make their physical CD unnecessary due to its smaller target audience of iPhone and iPod Touch users, it does reflect the potential and the possible future of the digital medium. Apple users have already proven they're willing to watch movies on an iPod video, so reading lyrics and interacting with the artwork seems like a logical next step.

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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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