Quick fyi: Bruce Spring­steen’s next album, Mag­ic, will be released on Octo­ber 2. To whet appetites, the lead sin­gle, “Radio Nowhere,” has been released. You can down­load the mp3 here. (PC users, right click ‘save tar­get as’; Mac users, con­trol and click, then Down­load Linked File.) To watch the free music video of the sin­gle, just click here and scroll down. Final­ly, here are the new­ly announced dates for Spring­steen’s upcom­ing tour.

We’re tak­ing you back to 1980, to the evening when John Lennon was shot in New York City. This sound file lets you lis­ten in on what New York­ers heard that evening — Decem­ber 8 — as they switched from one radio sta­tion to anoth­er. The event was cov­ered across the radio dial, and you hear the news media start­ing to piece togeth­er exact­ly what hap­pened at the Dako­ta. This record­ing was put online by Beware of the Blog, which we indexed in our list of MP3 Music Blogs.

As an aside, Beware of the Blog has also post­ed some mp3 files that fea­ture jazz singer Keely Smith singing cov­ers of var­i­ous Bea­t­les’ songs. Here is her ver­sion of “Do You Want to Know a Secret.” Last­ly, if you haven’t already, you should check out the 3‑hour Rolling Stone inter­view with John Lennon that we men­tioned in our recent piece, The Bea­t­les: Pod­casts From Yes­ter­day. It gives you a lot of insight into the man, his good traits and bad.

Here’s a quick fyi for clas­si­cal music lovers…

OnClassical.com has just relaunched its web­site, and you may want to give a look. If you don’t already know about it, OnClas­si­cal is an inde­pen­dent clas­si­cal music label based in Italy that fea­tures inter­na­tion­al­ly-acclaimed artists. They offer a “mani­a­cal­ly high sound lev­el” and pro­duce their record­ings with­out shar­ing prof­its with inter­me­di­aries … which stands to ben­e­fit artists and con­sumers. Their audio is DRM-free and, what is more, their albums can be entire­ly pre­viewed for free under a Cre­ative Com­mons license (read more here).

For clas­si­cal music (free Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, etc.) feel free to peruse our Music Pod­cast Col­lec­tion.

“Sub­tract the fol­low­ing 2,400 hours from his­to­ry and you’d have no mp3s, no LSD, no hip–hop, no soul–sucking cor­po­rate rock — actu­al­ly, can we erase that last one? Blender presents the most earth–shakingly impor­tant days in music, ever.”

Here are the top 10. Make sure you see the full list.

10.) April 26, 1977 — Stu­dio 54 opens

9.) May 6, 1965 — Kei­th Richards writes the “(I Can’t Get No) Sat­is­fac­tion” riff

8.) Decem­ber 21, 1960 — Bob Dylan leaves Min­neso­ta

7.) March 2, 1983 — MTV airs “Bil­lie Jean” video

6.) Octo­ber 25, 1997 — Dr. Dre hears Eminem freestyling on KPWR’s “Wake Up Show” in L.A.

5.) August 1, 1981 — MTV debuts

4.) March 30, 1994 — Kurt Cobain buys a Rem­ing­ton M–11 20–gauge shot­gun and a box of ammu­ni­tion

3.) June 1, 1999 — Nap­ster released

2.) August 11, 1973 — Kool DJ Herc invents hip–hop

1.) Feb­ru­ary 9, 1964 — The Bea­t­les on Ed Sul­li­van

We talk a good deal about vir­tu­ous pod­casts here. But this episode of The Bri­an Lehrer Show (iTunes — Feed — Web Site) com­ing out of NYC, focus­es on the down­right embar­rass­ing songs that you have hid­den on your iPod. And they talk about it with Kele­fa San­neh, the pop music crit­ic from The New York Times. If you care to admit to your own songs of shame, you can use the veil of anonymi­ty and list them in the com­ments below. And don’t wor­ry, we won’t hold it against you… Have a good week­end.

Pod­casts often have a nice way of bring­ing the past back to life. Bea­t­les fans will undoubt­ed­ly appre­ci­ate sev­er­al audio files ded­i­cat­ed to the Fab Four. Let’s start with a par­tic­u­lar­ly good one. Rolling Stone Mag­a­zine, as part of a web fea­ture called Lennon Lives Fore­over, has released a pod­cast (iTunes — Feed — Web Site) of Jann Wen­ner’s famous 1970 inter­view with John Lennon, which was con­duct­ed short­ly after the band’s bit­ter breakup. Run­ning over 3 hours, it is one of Lennon’s most exten­sive inter­views, and it ranges broad­ly, touch­ing not just on the breakup, but also on art and pol­i­tics, drugs, Yoko, pri­mal ther­a­py and more. Anoth­er notable pod­cast along these lines is The Lost Lennon Tapes (iTunes — Feed — Web Site). Orig­i­nal­ly pre­sent­ed by West­wood One in 1988, this pod­cast presents a col­lec­tion of Lennon’s pri­vate tapes — tapes that include ear­ly record­ings of The Bea­t­les, radio inter­views with John, demo tapes, chron­i­cles of the Dou­ble Fan­ta­sy record­ing ses­sions, and pri­vate moments at home.

Next up is some­thing for George Har­ri­son fans. This pod­cast, called George Har­ri­son Liv­ing in a Mate­r­i­al World (iTunes — Web Site) takes a look back at George Harrison’s 3rd solo album. And, among oth­er things, it includes inter­views with artists who played on the album. Liv­ing in a Mate­r­i­al World, which went to #1 on the charts in 1973 and was dig­i­tal­ly remas­tered last year, rep­re­sents, at least for some, Har­rison’s most artis­ti­cal­ly pure solo work.

Last­ly, we con­clude with a cou­ple of pod­casts that look at The Bea­t­les as the col­lec­tive Bea­t­les. Here, we give you Beat­legs Pod­cast (iTunes — Feed — Web Site), a show that always fea­tures rare inter­views or behind the scenes clips, fol­lowed by a rare out­take or live per­for­mance that few have heard before. And then there is Bea­t­les Minute (iTunes — Feed — Web Site), a pod­cast com­ing out of Philadel­phia that gives you short, dai­ly tid­bits about the band.

Bonus: you can get a few alter­na­tive takes on songs from the Help! and Abbey Road-era here. (The site pro­vides songs in mp3 for­mat.)

As a final note, all of these pod­casts are housed in our devel­op­ing Music Pod­cast Col­lec­tion. If you are not sure what a pod­cast is, check out our Pod­cast Primer. And final­ly, if you want more cul­tur­al media along these lines, be sure to Sub­scribe to Our Feed.

A quick heads up for Elvis Costel­lo fans: In this ten-part pod­cast (iTunes — Feed — Web Site), Elvis reflects on the first 10 years of his career, tak­ing lis­ten­ers on a tour that looks back at “his child­hood, musi­cal influ­ences, singing, song­writ­ing, chang­ing his name, record­ing, Nick Lowe, the Attrac­tions, the hits, the miss­es, get­ting arrest­ed and much more.” So far, 4 of the 10 seg­ments have been released; the oth­ers will be rolled out over the remain­der of the summer.For more pod­casts along these lines, check out our Music Pod­cast Col­lec­tion as well as our Arts & Cul­ture Pod­cast Col­lec­tion.

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