But one of the beauties of television as a medium is that I didn’t have to form my ideas based on the name alone. On the screen were some vaguely familiar video clips with intensely familiar songs.

What is this? Songs from when I was in high school? But I’m a freaking Millennial!* These things should be all kidzboppin’ to songs that have been watered down from their Ho-Factor of 10 or Connie Francis compilations or loads of Whitesnake & Friends thrashing around. But now it’s the (de facto if not chosen) soundtrack to my high school years? Aiyah.

So now this televised jolt has seared another formative moment into my mind using the same music that branded all those high school memories into me.

*I just figured out this week that this is the widest used name in place for the generation following Y. Who knew? Why didn’t facebook tell me about this?

I used to go to YouTube and search for the song only to find out the video was taken down.  That gets annoying and old real quickly.

Now, I just use Songza.  Songza is a neat little Internet jukebox that lets you search for any song or band and listen in seconds.  You can even queue up songs and create a playlist.

What I Like

I like how simple it is.  You don’t have to register to play and the user interface is simple, intuitive, and reminiscent of the ipod interface.  When you click on a song, a directional interface pops up and lets you play the song, rate the song (for good or bad recording), add to a playlist, and share it.

How it Works

Songza works very simply. It takes music videos from YouTube and plays only the audio from it.  Recently, it added search results from mp3 search sites Skreemr and Seeqpod.

What I Don’t Like

I don’t like the color scheme.  The dark fonts on a read background are hard to read.  Not to mention the background can be a little jarring.  Also, sometimes I will click play and the song is just empty air.  I suspect its because the original songs have been deleted.

Radiohead is creating an online contest with animation site Aniboom that lets fans create animated music videos for any song in the album “In Rainbows”.  Finalists will be chosen by judges and online voting and the winner will be chosen by Radiohead and given the $10,000 prize.

There are many differences between Radiohead’s and NIN’s contest.  First, there is no prize for NIN film festival except self satisfaction.  Second, the winner of Radiohead’s contest will use the $10,000 prize to produce the full-length music video.  This makes me believe the music video will become the official video.  Third, Radiohead’s music videos have to be animated while NIN’s videos can be anything.

Radiohead and NIN are not the first to let fans create videos.  Other bands have done something similar including the Decemberists.  The Decemberists recorded the song “O Valencia” in front of a green screen and let fans create the video.  Even Stephen Colbert had a green-screen challenge, thus starting the hilarious Decmberists/Stephen Colbert feud.

Souce: Yahoo News [via: Digg]

Making your own music videos isn’t new. YouTube and other video sites are full with user created music videos. This announcement is important because it is legal. Ghosts is licensed under Creative Commons, meaning people are free to share, copy, distribute, and remix the songs any way they want as long its not for a profit. Having an official YouTube channel is just an extension of it.

Source: NIN