Google Music Canceled, Panic and Resolution

I love Google Music. I’ve been using it since the day (or the month) it came out and I will most likely be using it until it goes away (or I die, one of the two). I’ve built up a large number of playlists and a library. I have go to playlists for when I’m down or when I need to get into that “Work” mode. I have never canceled the service and I still get the promotional price.

And then Google Music was canceled

Imagine my surprised panic this morning when I found the following in my inbox:

Google Music Subscription has been canceled.
WHAT?!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOoooooooo!!!!

Egagh! Wha? Panic panic panic panic… what? Why has this happened to me?! WHY?!!!!

If they canceled my order, did they kill my promotional price?

Still panicking I went and searched through my emails from the last several days. I found the following email regarding my payment method not working (those credit cards, always expiring).

Google Music Order is on Hold Email
My order is on hold and will be canceled. Thank goodness for this Fix button.

They gave me a whole day to update my payment method. Why hadn’t I done it? Oh, yeah, the day that they gave me was Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is quite possibly one of the busiest days of the year (besides Christmas).

Excellent! The email that Google sent me includes a “Fix or Retry now” button. This should be able to “Fix” the issue! Unfortunately, no. There was no information on the resulting page that indicated or alluded to how to fix the issue.

So I did what any other normal extremely panicked person would do. I started up a support chat with Googles Customer Service.

The Customer Service Representative was very nice. They told me that I should be able to “Resubscribe” to Google Music and that I should be able to maintain my promotional price.

So that’s what I did. I visited https://music.google.com. There was a friendly banner right at the top asking me if I wanted to resubscribe. So I resubscribed and everything is great – panic subsided.

That said I do have a couple of suggestions based on this experience.

  1. If you are going to provide a “Fix” button… then at the very least it should point the user to how to fix the problem. A simple “Order Canceled by mistake?” would’ve done wonders in my situation.
  2. Maybe give the user more than a day to fix the issue? Especially if the day you give them just happens to be a national holiday.

Pick of the Week for September 16 – Tonight Alive

I just heard about this band the other day from my one of my friends during a text conversation. He thought it would be right up my alley, and well he was right. The name of the band is “Tonight Alive“. They are a five piece pop punk band from Australia. That’s right, Australia!

Tonight Alive has been around since 2008, so I would consider them a newer band. Some people have compared them to Paramore… but I think they’ve got their own little spunk that sets them apart. In either case they are a good band and I think you should give them a listen.

The song I’ve picked is from the new album, “The Other Side”. The album was just released on September 6, so it is brand new! I’ve actually picked two songs off this album. The reason is, well I just can’t pick between the two!

The first song I’ve picked is titled “The Other Side”, it’s the title track off the album. I picked this song because of how heartfelt it is. You can truly feel the emotion put into the song, from the way that it is sung to the way that it is played. It’s a great song and you can listen to it below.

The second song I’ve picked is titled “The Fire”. It is the song that I originally intended to put on this blog before I started struggling with “The Other Side”. I really enjoy the crisp guitar in this song. I especially like the guitars in the bridge. The song is sung very well and I find myself wanting to belt out parts of it with the singer.

Buy “The Fire” here.
Buy “The Other Side” here.

The Other Side

The Fire

Pick of the Week for September 9 – blessthefall

Wow! It has been a long time. The good news is that we are finally moved into our new house (although I haven’t got my computer up and running yet, tonight!). We have been homeless since August 15 and it sure feels good to have a home again. I’ve been up late painting and moving things and changing locks and installing blinds. It’s been crazy!

Alright, so the pick of the week is a song called “You Wear a Crown but You’re No King” from blessthefall’s new album “Hollow Bodies”. It’s pretty dang good! Give it a listen below and let me know what you think in the comments section below! Do it!

Buy You Wear a Crown but You’re No King

Pick of the Week for August 12

The pick of the week is from Dispatch one of my top five all time artists. I’ve only said that about one artist before. One of the things that I’ve always thought was a bummer is that I didn’t start listening to Dispatch until after they decided to call it quits! Yep! I started listening to them in 2004 after one of my friends introduced me to them. This just happenned to be right after there farewell concert, which, according to there website, was the largest independent music event in history. Needless to say, but I will say it anyways. It was only a few weeks before I had all of there albums.

This song comes from there first album, Silent Steeples. Silent Steeples is probably my favorite album by Dispatch. Each of there albums has a unique sound to it. Silent Steeples is more accoustic/folk rock whereas Bang Bang had more of a reggae/ska influence to it.

Well, I would love to go on and on about Dispatch, but I should probably just post the song already! The name of the song is “Bridges”. You can buy “Bridges” by Dispatch here or listen below.

Owl City to be Blamed for Recent Popularity of Electronically Driven Music

I just thought I would post this here while I was thinking of it. I believe that Owl City is to blame for the recent propagation and proliferation of electronic and keyboard driven music making it’s way into the mainstream. Granted, keyboards and synths have been around for a long time and have always had a following. But I believe that keyboard and synth driven music is just going to become more popular over the next few years. Adam Young, I believe, was the catalyst that helped spawn this growing trend in the popularity of electonically driven music.

So let’s say a big thanks to Owl City. Personally, I think the world could always use more keytar.

Pick of the Week for August 5th

Alright. I decided that rather than pushing the pick of the week off to the end of the week, like I did last week, I would just post it right at the beginning. No excuses!

It took me a while to decide which song to post here. I knew I wanted to post a song by The Birthday Massacre, I just had no idea which one to post! Now if you don’t know who The Birthday Massacre is, you are missing out! You might not think so my the name, but they are awesome. The have a seemingly perfect blend of 80’s bands like The Cure with modern day rock. I dig them, and you probably will too!

As I mentioned, it took me a while to decide which song to post on here. I decided, hey it’s my blog, so I can always post another TBM song at a later date. In any case, the fact that I had such a hard time deciding is a testament to the band in and of itself. The fact is, the entire Pins and Needles album is good and you should probably go buy it, right now.

The name of the song is “Sideways” and the reason it won out over the other TBM songs is because of the intro. The intro to this song is dang good! Listen below and buy the song here.

Pick of the Week for July 29

Ok. So I’ve been fighting some crazy sickness all of this week and half of last week. This has left me under the weather and the thought of blogging just skipped my mind. You’ll have to forgive me. I said you have to so… I’ll assume it’s a done deal.

Now, the pick of the week comes from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. It’s the opening song. Now, I haven’t been able to find the actual song anywhere. It looks like the film used a modified version of “(That’s Your) Consciousness” by Dan Hartman.

The song constantly gets stuck in my head. The opening scene of this movie is one of my favorite opening scenes of ALL TIME! It’s just that good. This song just has a good ol’ 80’s feel to it. So, without further ado here is the opening scene of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II.

EDIT: Here is the youtube link to the Dan Hartman song. (The movie rendition is much better)

Pick of the Week for July 22

Oh boy, it seems as if I’m becoming really good at not posting the pick of the week at the beginning of the week… ah well.

So I used to play World of Warcraft… a lot. I remember racing home from work on lunch breaks just so that I could log in to my level 4 Night Elf Druid. I ran all over Teldrassil and there was a time when I thought that Teldrassil was all that there was to the game. I won’t even tell you about how amazed I was when I realized that there was a whole huge world out there to explore. But… I guess I just did. Woops, my bad.

Here’s the thing. The entire time I was running around the giant tree doing random things for random people there was one thing being pounded into my head. Can you guess what that was? Nope… it wasn’t a gigantic piece of Salami. I’m not sure why you would even think that… It was, however, the song that I’ve picked below. The song is named “Teldrassil” after the gigantic tree that we Night Elves all ran around in.

The song I’ve picked is actually different than the one that appears on the Original Soundtrack. So… because I feel a bit dishonest about that I’ve linked to both songs! There are definitely similarities between the two. My favorite part between the two starts at 1:10 in the first video. It definitely brings back some good memories. You can buy the song in the second video on iTunes. Here’s the songs already… sheesh no need to get violent.

The first song named “Teldrassil”

The second song named “Teldrassil”

Pick of the Week for July 15

Wow, the week has gone by fast. Last week I could hardly wait to post the new pick of the week, and already it’s Tuesday of this week! I blame this partly, or mostly, on selling our home and trying to buy a new one before we have to move out of our current one. If you have never done this before, let me tell you, it’s crazy! The thing is, we really did not want to move into a rental temporarily, we want to move directly into the new house. We only have until 08/15 to find a new place though!

Alright, alright. Enough about me and more about the pick of the week! This weeks pick comes from one of my top 5 all time artists. She quickly gained this spot a few years back and I’m guessing she will retain it for years to come. The artists name is: LIGHTS. And let me tell you, LIGHTS is awesome. She’s kind of like me in that regard.

Several things I like about LIGHTS.

  1. She makes awesome music.
  2. She is a gamer (openly confessing that she loves World of Warcraft)
  3. She is real in the what you see is what you get kind of way.

LIGHTS is a Canadian artist known for her electronic keyboard and synth driven music. Recently she has dabbled in dubstep creating a genre which she dubs “DreamStep”. She uses a Keytar as well as a microKORG (I really wish I had a microKORG actually). In addition to her electronic and synth driven music she is also has some amazing vocals and has released a number of accoustic albums.

The name of the song I’ve picked is “My Boots”. It’s a track that didn’t make it onto her Siberia release, and therefore I didn’t know about it until recently. I like the track because it blends some of her older stuff from “The Listening” with some of her newer stuff from “Siberia“. It’s not like most of the dubsteppish songs on Siberia. It’s got a lighter feel to it.

Take a listen to “My Boots” below and buy it here.