Blog

At Feed.fm, our mission has always been to help our customers engage with their members through music. We make it super simple to add music to your app, site, smart device, or connected equipment, and we provide legal solutions for playing music in studio. 

With the global pandemic and shelter in place orders rocking everyone’s world, many in the community have been struggling to find a way to create digital content, host it, and legally stream music. In answer to this call, we’ve been working day and night to bring a quick, easy solution to the market. 

Today we’re announcing Fitness Streaming: Music + Video. 

As curator and writer for a Music as a Service company specializing in the fitness technology sector, I spend most of my working hours soundtracking a variety of exercise programs. Thanks to innovations in fit tech, people have more workout options than ever before, both in terms of exercise modalities and settings (encompassing gyms, home workout and outdoor activities).

In the days since President Trump’s Oval Office coronavirus speech, we’ve seen just how timely these transformations are for the fitness landscape. Even as people comply with new social distancing, lockdown, and/or “shelter in place” mandates, overall usage for our 50+ fitness brand partners has increased by more than 30%, both domestically and--to an even greater extent--internationally. This inspiring statistic shows that at least some of us, at least some of the time, are managing our stress more constructively than just binge watching or succumbing to the Quarantine 15.

There are a number of reasons why I love funk, but to boil it down: funk is all about the groove - a highly rhythmic experience where each musician needs to think about their specific part and most importantly, how it fits within the broader context of the song. The guitarist may be doing something different from what the keyboardist and bassist is playing. The kick drum might be locked in with the bass while the overall rhythm is different from the guitar strumming. Each musician has a role - they need to find and stay in their lane or “pocket” - so that they properly fit with what the rest of the band is doing. Finally, adding a hooky melody and horn section over the rhythmic section requires a deep understanding of finding your place in a band.

Ironically, while the rhythmic interplay and the need to find the pocket make funk incredibly complex to play, funk is often just a one-chord song. The experience is about listening to what the other band members are doing as opposed to focusing on your own playing. In my early years playing in various rock bands, it seemed that the experience was often about increasingly playing louder and louder to make sure your part was “heard.” Eventually it just led to a cacophonous, head-banging, ear-splitting experience - which, can be awesome in its own right, but just different from what funk is about. When I started to focus on playing jazz, I learned the importance of actually listening instead of playing. Miles Davis always emphasized that music isn’t about the notes you play, it’s about the notes you don’t play. I was recently asked what exactly funk is and the origins of funk. Let’s turn back the clocks and learn a bit more where this great style of music began.

I spent last week in Nashville, soaking up the sights and sounds of Music City while working remotely. As Feed.fm's Curation Lead, I was inspired to share some highlights that will hopefully help stoke your love of country music and discover a few new artists.

I had the pleasure of spending some time at Creative Workshop recording studio to hear some yet-to-be-released tracks from Lauren Morrow. She's got a song called "Hustle" that is an ode to Jay-Z and is amazing. I'm going to hear Lauren perform live in the Bay Area next month, and I encourage you to check out her other tour dates...or catch her in Nashville.

Anecdotal instances of music being “therapeutic” can be pointed to by most people. In one way or another, music has impacted our lives - almost everyone we know has had moments where the right song at the right time has improved a mood, helped repair a relationship, or even uncovered an insight that helped shape our personalities.

Beyond these meaningful but non-scientific personal anecdotes, there is an extensive history of real scientific literature on music’s effectiveness in improving the quality of life for a host of conditions and illnesses: autism, dementia, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, depression, and even amongst cancer-stricken or terminally ill patients.

The term for this is music therapy, and it isn’t a hidden idea: in the last 5 years alone, more than 20,000 scientific papers studying or reviewing music therapy as a mode of treatment have been published by academics at institutions such as Johns Hopkins, the National Institutes of Health, and Harvard University.

Feed.fm works with the world’s leading fitness companies to provide legal, curated music integration in their apps and digital settings. While each brand has unique considerations (development bandwidth, customer acquisition challenges, competitive pressures), we consistently hear from customers that "I wish we'd done this sooner."

From our vantage point of working across the fit tech sector, we can see there is a clear opportunity cost to waiting on music integration. So we tallied the Top Reasons for “Why Music Now?”

REASON #1 — Exerciser Impact

The world’s leading authority on fitness and music, Dr. Costas Karageorghis, has proven that music can improve running performance by 15%; it can be a sedative or a stimulant; a nerve calmer or focus inducer; a pre-workout entryway into flow state; a mood enhancer; and an agent that reduces perceived effort by up to 10%.

The holidays are a mixed bag for music fans. On one hand, you’ve got Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” and Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You”―great songs, but how many times must we endure?―and on the other, lesser-known gems like Bing Crosby’s “Jingle Bells” and Ella Fitzgerald’s “Frosty the Snowman.” (And, perhaps the most famous classic in all the world of music.) But December also brings a chance to catch up on the year’s best music swag. Our 9 Great Music Gifts list has a few choice options for the discriminating music lover in your life.

TURNTABLES, HEADPHONES & PORTABLE LISTENING
We’re big fans of live music, but most modern listening experiences begin and end with the push of a button. Here are some of the best cutting-edge playback options and devices on the market today.

As we reflect on the most popular, breakthrough music of the 2010s, an interesting trend stands out. A lot of ink has been spilled over the idea of “post-genre” pop - pop that subverts traditional genre definitions and blends different styles in a way that makes it difficult to categorize. Put simply: pop songs that are genre mashups (think “Old Town Road”). We were inspired to pick 13 of our favorite “post-genre” pop songs of the decade, describing why they fall into this non-category and why we love them.

Before getting to our top picks...

What the hell is “post-genre” pop?
Let’s agree on a loose definition, that post-genre pop is popular, often top-charting music that doesn’t neatly fit the definition of today’s Billboard categories.

One of the distinguishing features of electronic music is how rapidly it changes, both in absolute terms, and relative to other genres. Modern electronic music traces back to the 80s with new wave and synth pop bringing electronic to the mainstream. The 90s saw an explosion in distinct sub genres and underground techno and the sudden access to production tools like Fruity Loops that opened up production and composition to something anyone could do.

The turn of the century ushered in the Electronic Dance Music (EDM) era and electronic is no longer just a genre, but an influential component of all mainstream music. “Electronic” is an alarmingly broad term that encompasses both the mainstream pop tracks so prevalent today, as well as a thriving underground ranging from house to dubstep to minimal techno.