In the past, I've written long, crazy scribes that sound it should have the Star Spangled Banner playing in the background. However, I'm going to keep this very short and sweet.

I want to personally thank everyone for their continued support of "Inside the Circle" and the writers here. Throughout the year, we aim to provide you a place where you can come to for Zune information, tips and tricks and more -- all in the name of helping you get the most out of Zune and to help open and expand your musical palate.

I want to thank the writers who continue to provide great content for the site throughout 2010. Each of you have made great contributions, offered wonderful insight and helped the site connect with the readership in ways I couldn't have ever done on my own. To each of you (Neville, Alfa, Julio and Nick) you have my esteemed gratitude.

Between this blog, and our Facebook page, we hope to continue to bring you the stories and content that will help you when weaving through this crazy, but wonderful world of digital music and pop culture. We hope to continue bringing you the best of our abilities going into 2011.

Here's to a wonderful year for Inside the Circle in 2010 and to another wonderful year in 2011.

Thanks again, everyone.

As yet another year of our lives slides away, flipping and turning into the trash can of our memories, it's nice to take a fond look at the albums that touched me the most. As late as a decade ago, the concept of buying an album seemed like a waste when the whole disc was assembled to complement the hit radio song on it. Now that I'm older - and awesomer - I realize that musicians may have something going on when they assemble roughly an hour of related songs.

And so now it's time to reflect on the best of the best, so let's get to it! (On a special note, as of writing, all of these albums were available for download via Zune Pass, so snap to it!)

5. Daft Punk - The Score to Tron: Legacy

I've mentioned it before, but most soundtracks - as a slab of stand-alone music - are pretty boring out of the context of the film. This year, however, was a great one for the score-as-an-album. While not entirely Daft Punk's work (they collaborated with Joseph Trapanese for the symphonic sections) the score serves as the thriving life-blood of the film, standing as important as the special effects. Even if the film doesn't strike your fancy (and we would need to have a sit-down chat), the wonderful electro/string soundscapes here are thrilling and immersive.

4. OK Go - Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky

You may know this album for its slick music videos, but this "disc" was making "spins" in my "CD player" in a relentless loop for weeks earlier this year. Pop-y without being stupid, eccentric without being weird, OK Go exudes a palpable sense of fun in all of their formats. Damian Kulash is not only the creative lead here, but also the haunting center instrument of the band: screeching in "Skyscrapers", sleep-singing in "All Is Not Lost", then cracking in "I Want You So Bad I Can't Breathe". Progressive, multi-layered tracks pull you through like a conveyor belt and - oh, boy - is it a great ride.

3. Hans Zimmer - The Score to Inception

If you haven't seen Christopher Nolan's latest film - a dizzying vortex of dreams within dreams - you need to stop reading, run to the local shiny disc dispensary, and thrill yourself for two and a half hours. Not only will you have experienced one of the best films of 2010, but also one of its best music accompaniments. Nolan (The Dark Knight, Memento) partners again with Hans Zimmer to bring a pulse-pounding urgency to Inception. While Daft Punk's score was a synthesizer with a symphony, this is a symphony with a synthesizer. Rapid percussion keeps you on the edge of your seat in "Mombasa" before the synths melt away the hooks. This is a dramatic score that's as flash-bang as the movie's gunfire and car chases with a warped sensibility that reminds you that all is not quite right with the rules of these dream worlds.

2. Linkin Park - A Thousand Suns

I cooed about the newest album from early-00s nu metal, perfect-for-teenage-angst band Linkin Park already, but I still have to send up some props. They haven't fully stepped away from the fact that 'things are falling apart' or 'shut up when I'm talking to you' - instead adopting a teetering-on-slapdash 'war sucks' theme - but it's obvious that these guys are getting older and they know where they want to go. This album revives a lot of the fun of listening to their original entry (Hybrid Theory) without a lot of the baggage that we assigned to those tunes when a lot of us were still in school, doing that puberty thing. Linkin Park still knows how to rock it out, but they're far better at channeling it into more constructive works now.

1. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

For some reason, I just couldn't get into Arcade Fire's previous discs. Funeral was a little too subdued, Neon Bible was a little too... out there. The Suburbs, on the other hand, sunk its claws into me immediately. The album stands as a hulking monolith: a folksy, campfire denouncement of suburban life, told on the road in some post-apocalyptic nightmare. The lyrics paint a chilling vision of a neighborhood you may live in yourself, while the Montreal-style 'band the size of an army' backing ensures well-covered terrain. From the post-punk rock-out of "Month of May" to the purring synthesizers of "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)", from Win Butler's downtrodden exploration of underground cities to Reginee Chassange's (Win's wife) chirpy vocals, the group feels like a collection of stragglers joined in some great journey, devoting the peak of their talents to uncovering this tapestry for us to enjoy. And enjoy we do.

We have another player in the music subscription game....Sony.

Things have gotten quite interesting.

Here's part of the story, as printed in the L.A. Times:

Just in time for Christmas -- if you're going abroad, that is -- Sony on Wednesday unveiled a digital music subscription service featuring a catalog of 6 million songs from Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, EMI Music and Sony Music Entertainment.

For now, the service is only available in the U.K. and Ireland, but Sony said it plans to expand it to the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, Italy and Spain next year. Called Music Unlimited, the service costs 3.99 euros a month for the basic version, which streams ad-free radio much like Pandora. A premium version that lets listeners play songs on demand costs 9.99 euros a month.

I found this curious today. Cricket Wireless has announced a new feature called Muve Music. This is a music subscription feature, by which users do basically all of their music management from the phone (i.e. no sideloading).

Here's how Cricket describes Muve:

Muve Music™ is Cricket's newest innovation for the wireless industry marking the first time unlimited music is offered as part of a wireless rate plan. Muve Music is designed exclusively for the mobile phone so no computer is needed. Muve Music, delivered over Cricket's nationwide 3G network, includes unlimited talk, text and Web PLUS unlimited music downloads, ringtones and ringback tones. With Cricket's Muve Music rate plan, there are no download fees, no monthly music subscriptions, no streaming music to impact customers' data plans and no credit cards or contracts are required. In addition, Muve Music will have a robust catalog of music content including the four major record labels: Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and EMI Music. Muve Music by Cricket will be available exclusively on the Samsung Suede in January 2011.

About a month ago, I let you know about an underground concert tour taking place in December.

Raka Rico

Me and Brother Ali

• 10 Dec: Wild Buffalo (21+) in Bellingham, WA
• 11 Dec: Wonder Ballroom in Portland, OR 
• 12 Dec: Domino Room in Bend, OR
• 14 Dec: Empire in Sacramento, CA
• 15 Dec: The Independent (21+) in San Francisco, CA
• 16 Dec: New Parish (18+) in Oakland, CA 
• 17 Dec:  Avalon in Santa Clara, CA
• 18 Dec: Cellar Door in Visalia, CA
• 19 Dec: Downtown Brew in San Luis Obispo, CA

• The El Rey Theatre

• Los Rakas' official website 
• Thank Ghetto BassQuake for these free songs. Only track six is Los Rakas', though. The rest are good too! There were another five free Los Rakas track available through the official website, but they aren't free anymore.

• The official DJ Fresh Twitter page (can't find an actual website)
• Some free tracks featuring DJ Fresh and the Whole Shabang courtesy of Thizzler on the Roof. Note: When you're extracting the files, it'll ask you for a password. You'll have to pass on the tracks requiring this. Don't trip, though. You'll end up with nine free tracks.  

• Eligh's official page

• Check out Brother Ali's official spot within the interwebs 

• The Grouch's official page 
• Download this year's official #HTGSC theme song gratis, here  

• Yukmouth's Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter accounts 

• The official Living Legends site 

• Get to know the RhymeSayers at their official web page 

• For photos Amy and I took from the show, click on over

Inside the Circle’s “Artist Appreciation” Giveaway!

The kind folks at Windows Phone (specifically Brian Seitz) was awesome enough to send over a few of these “X-Mini Audio Speakers”.

These little beauties, while small on size, offer a great deal of audio power. Just plug them into the headphone jack of your audio player or ahem Windows Phone and they offer great clear sound (ideal for listening to music at your desk or playing an audio or video podcast while riding the midnight train to Georgia).

By the way, the purpose of this contest is to give you a chance to give a shout out to one of your favorite music artists, whether it’s here at the blog or via Twitter.

There are two ways to enter (so you can have two entries into the contest). Be sure to follow the instructions carefully for both methods, otherwise you make that particular entry method invalid:

Entry Method #1: Twitter

1. Follow @windowsphone and @tromboneforhire on Twitter
2. Find the official twitter handle of one of your favorite music artists
3. Send out this tweet: “I want an awesome mini speaker so I can rock out to the music of @[insert artist’s twitter handle here]. #MusicRocks http://bit.ly/ewGZI5”

So as an example, one of my favorite artists is Kaskade (@kaskade). My tweet entry would look like this: I want a mini speaker so I can rock out to the music of @kaskade. #MusicRocks http://bit.ly/ewGZI5

Entry Method #2: Blog Comment

1. Head over to zune.net and find your favorite artist’s page
2. Leave the link to that artist page in a blog comment (you may want to use tinyurl or bit.ly since those links can be pretty lengthy) and tell us why you like that particular artist: how long have you listened to them, what drew you to like them in the first place, etc. Doesn’t have to be an essay, but you may influence someone else to try that artist.

Entries will be accepted all this week. I’ll stop accepting entries on Friday, December 10, 2010. at 8pm PST. 5 winners will be announced on Monday, December 13, 2010. Winners will have 24 hours to respond (either on Twitter or by comment on the announcement blog post).

I’m opening this contest to everyone within the U.S. and Canada. Sorry, while I know Windows Phone has an international presence, I don’t have international shipping funds at the moment.

I know there may be an urge to send more than one tweet with different artists twitter handles. That’s actually ok, but I’m not tolerant of people who spam their timelines, and consequently their follower’s timelines with tons of entries. Any shenanigans like that will just disqualify all entries (twitter or blog comment).

Good luck, everyone!

When it comes to the Windows Phone 7 App Hub, we have seen the big money grabs, big number milestones, and read about 3rd party support from from popular app makers. At the same time, when looking at the Windows Phone 7 apps themselves, the speed they make it into the App Hub, the services they use, and the prices they sell for, there are some interesting points yet to be made. The data below represent the some of findings after watching the Windows Phone 7 App Hub for a little over a month.

App Release Rate

On average, Wednesdays looks to be the day your app will likely make it into the App Hub. After looking at daily totals, it is the day the highest number of apps are released each week. Perhaps this mid-week peak is indicative of some internal work flow or app release strategy. Then again app submissions from developers may be driving this trend. Either way, this release rate looks to be independent of the the European and North American product launches. One would think that prior to the release of Windows Phone 7, in its respective regions, there would be a rush to have App Hub “stocked” with new apps. To an extent, looking at the three day period before October 21st and November 8th, this appears to hold true as 235 and 225 apps were released during the respective periods.

Total Apps

By my count, the Thanksgiving holiday set back the progress of getting 3,000 apps in the App Hub by the end of last week. No apps were released between November 26th and November 28th. As a result I believe the App Hub did not reach the 3,000 app milestone, for the US Marketplace, until today. Screenshots from the website Marketplace Browser as well Bing Visual Search for Windows Phone 7 Apps as of late in the evening on November 30th support this claim as both photos show totals hovering just below 3,000 apps. Excepting the first two weeks, the growth in the total number of apps in the App Hub has been roughly linear over the past month. Initially growth started slowly but since then it has definitely picked up. For the time being, the growth appears to be constant.

Looking at growth, when comparing one week to another, there is a definite “hump” that characterizes the weeks on the graph. When looking at averages for each day of the week and plotting them as a stereotypical week, it becomes apparent why this is the case. An average week of app releases has a definite hump-like characteristic to it. As you can see again, Wednesday represents the peak day each week for apps to be released in into the App Hub. I should note that this chart and the ones above it try not to include apps that are no longer for sale in App Hub.

App Prices are Moving

While I have tracked apps in the App Hub, I noticed a few price changes. Generally, the price changes that I saw were those that lowered the price of apps. There were a few apps that did raise their price as well. Thanks to the way I catalogued apps, I noticed these price changes within a smaller sampling of the overall catalog of apps. While this only represents a small portion of the overall marketplace it is still an interesting trend to note. Considering the short period most of these apps have been in the App Hub this could simply be developers looking for a sweet spot to sell their apps. In particular this looks to be the case with Guitar Hero 5 as app reviews noted $9.99 to be too expensive. Currently, Guitar Hero sells for $6.99.

Something for the Road

While it is great to read other's findings and look at charts of their data, playing with that data yourself is even better. That is why I want to take these results to the cloud by putting them in a shared folder on our SkyDrive and sharing what I have been working on in the form of two separate spreadsheets. Below is a copy of the full spreadsheet:

Before you continue let me provide some context for these spreadsheets. Over the past month I tracked twenty-five attributes of just under 3,000 apps in the App Hub. Among other items, the data includes cost, app category, and services used by each app. Because it is such a daunting task, just over 800 apps have all twenty-five attributes filled out. At a minimum all apps include their name, cost, the date I first saw the app, and its rating at that time.

The first spreadsheet contains all the apps I have catalogued from the App Hub. In addition it includes the formulas and charts used for this post as well as Part 1. There were two times that I counted all the apps in the App Hub on the same day more apps were being released, 11/7 and 11/16. As a result it is possible I missed a few apps on those days. This is something I am double checking to make sure all apps are accounted for. This is the spreadsheet that contains a minimum of four points and a maximum of all twenty-five. It is possible there are spelling errors in app titles that have not been fully cataloged. The website Marketplace Browser has been helpful in helping me correct my overzealous typing. So far I used the site to help me with six apps that I could not find on my own because of spelling errors or app name changes.

The second spreadsheet is a limited list of just over 800 curated apps that have all twenty-five values filled. This list should be spelling error free, as I found the app and was able to look at its attributes. This curated list includes the top 30 free and top 30 paid apps. There are also some apps that are not in English. However, I am not sure this curated list can be seen as representative of the App Hub as a whole. Among other apps, it includes most of the Tip Calculators, Flashlight apps, and the first 300 apps in the App Hub. The reason I over-analyzed the first two app types is that it helped me identify apps with the same or similar names from different developers (e.g. apps called ‘Tip Calculator’ or ‘Flashlight’). I included the first 300 apps because my initial process was to catalog all twenty-five attributes before moving on to the next app. This was going slowly so I switched to a faster process that is the basis of the full spreadsheet. With this second spreadsheet you can answer questions such as how many $0.99 apps include a free trial (134 of 813 apps).

Apps with no ‘Description Language’ are in English while apps with no indication of whether they are ‘Ad-Supported’ are that way because I cannot tell from the services listed, app description, or preview pictures provided whether the app serves ads. The app ratings and number of reviews per app come from anywhere between the date the app was first seen to the date I last updated the spreadsheet. As a result, there may be some apps in this spreadsheet that have fewer reviews than their current total in the App Hub. Apps highlighted in red are apps that are no longer available. These apps are usually in hidden rows but using a filter can make them appear again. I will be updating the first spreadsheet more frequently than the second. Using the Pivot Table sheet provided in the first spreadsheet will probably give you similar results to the second spreadsheet.

I mentioned taking this to the cloud and I mean it. I am looking for some help. If you want to help fill in app attributes or know how to parse the XML entries that pertain to each app so that this data entry process can be automated send me a message (Twitter, Zune) so we can get to work. If not, feel free to download either spreadsheet and play around with the data. If you do find these spreadsheets useful or use the data provided within either spreadsheet, be sure to say thanks below and link back to this blog post.