Holiday Moments: The Eyes of a Child
During the 80s, a powerhouse ballad band emerged. That band? Air Supply. Russell Hitchcock’s soaring vocals complemented Graham Russell’s smooth warm vocals. Here, we get to hear the softer side of both of these vocalists. Let’s take a listen to The Eyes of a Child. Enjoy.
Holiday Moments: Deck the Halls
Jennifer Paige’s amazing voice brings us this fun and fresh holiday classic, Deck The Halls. Enjoy!
Holiday Moments: Christmas Eve / Sarajevo
The Trans-Siberian Orchestra wows us with this incredibly powerful and moving rock opera-esque Christmas spectacular, Christmas Eve / Sarajevo. Enjoy!
Holiday Moments: Underneath the Tree
Throughout the month of December, Randocity will offer holiday cheer in the form of music. These are some of Randocity’s favorite holiday musical moments. Let’s kick this new month long segment off with Underneath the Tree by Kelly Clarkson. One new song will appear each day until Christmas Day. Enjoy!
A full playlist of these songs will become available on YouTube and Apple Music on December 25th. The links to these playlists will be available with the final Holiday Moment posted on December 25th at 6AM CST.
Lyrics: Only Solutions by Journey
Every once in a while, I come across a song that I decide to listen to the lyrics a bit more closely to deduce what’s going on. Journey was also one of my all-time favorite bands during the 80s. Let’s explore.
[Updated for 2023]
I’ve recently come to find that the version of Only Solutions on the 2006 reissue of Frontiers Deluxe Edition has a completely different mix. I can’t exactly tell if this song’s backing track is fully re-recorded or simply remixed from the original masters or a combination of re-recording and remixing. It sounds more like a re-recording by Neal and co layering Steve’s original vocals over this mix. Regardless, Steve Perry’s vocal stems from the original 1982 recording are all there. In fact, because of this re-recording, Steve’s vocals are quite a bit more clear in this newer mix. Let’s have a listen…
In fact, because of the above new mix, I’m hearing a lyric change. I was originally thinking Steve was saying, “Find the beast to logical life”. In fact, in the above mix, I can distinctly hear Steve pronounce the last word as light (with a hard T sound) in the second half of the song. I couldn’t hear this in the 1982 mix.
As a result of this clearer mix, I’ve changed the lyrics below to “Find the beast to logical light“. The word “Light” also makes more rhyming sense to the line just before “In the jungle, I run tonight” and the line just after “No confusion, just run right, oh yeah”… making the three lines end with tonight, light and right. Perfect.
I’ve also updated “Magic leaves you without any clues” to “Logic leaves you without any clues”, the word ‘magic’ actually makes more sense because magic doesn’t leave clues. Since this song is about Logic and not Magic, the word Logic makes more (ahem) logical sense in this song. If you listen to Steve, his pronunciation sounds more like he’s singing ‘Logic’, not ‘Magic’.
Lyric Analysis
Diving into the lyrical end, some bands occasionally release a song with odd lyrics and odd phrasing by the singer. As an example, Only Solutions specifically comes to mind. Within this song’s primary verse + chorus, many believe this section of lyrics to be, ‘Don’t pull me down, I just want to hear’. Steve clearly pronounces a ‘j’ sound at the beginning of this specific verse every time. I believe he’s attempting to contract the words Just and Don’t together and then attempts to shorten the whole thing into a single word which comes out as ‘Jo’, short for just don’t or j’ont (as the contraction). He clearly is not singing Don’t. For confirmation of this, listen to how Steve pronounces the word Don’t in the line ‘You don’t fool me with cynical lies’. That Don’t is completely different from the ‘Jo pull me down, I just want to hear’ line. With that said, let’s dive right into the rest of the lyrical oddities in this song.
The lyrics are just below and this article describes why I believe they are accurate to this song. This song is one of only but a few songs written by Journey for films. This one is called Only Solutions. This song was written for the 1982 Disney movie Tron, a computer animated and live action film about a computer simulation. Clearly, Journey was given this plot information when they were asked to pen this song.
The lines I transcribe in the below lyrics make much more logical sense with the lines that have come before. Let’s start with the first verse (which is already somewhat confusing), the first verse opens with ‘In the Jungle, I run tonight’. It opens stating someone running through a jungle of sorts. The second line is stated to be (on other lyric sites) ‘Find the peace to logical life’. I believe Steve is actually singing ‘Find the beast to logical life’ (See the above update as I’ve changed it to “light“). A ‘beast’ makes more sense in a jungle context and in which a runner might encounter said beast in that jungle. In fact, ‘Find the beast to logical life’ actually seems to be a statement of fact. While running in the jungle, the runner has just now encountered this ‘beast of logical life’ immediately to his left to which he then ‘runs right’. Of course, the beast to logical life in Tron refers to either the MCP or Sark (the MCP’s right hand).
Let’s try to understand the ‘peace’ idea. Why would someone find peace in a jungle? They wouldn’t. In a jungle you would find beasts, not peace.
The third line of this first verse further describes his jungle running escapade and is sometimes written as “No confusion, just wrong or right”. That doesn’t make any sense either. He’s in a jungle running, what does ‘wrong’ or ‘right’ have to do with jungle running and confusion? It doesn’t. However, by running TO the right, if a beast is on your left, this runner can, through no confusion, avoid the aforementioned ‘beast to logical life’. This line also confirms that the second line is a statement of fact at encountering a “beast”. Alternatively, the “just run right” could be a kind of question, like “just run, right?” to which he answers, “Oh yeah”. It’s like he’s saying to himself, “I’ve run into a beast. I should run, right?” (right meaning correct). Instead of running to his right, he’s telling himself to run away. Either meaning works for this line.
This is just the first verse in this song and we’re already confused by the lyrics and, more specifically, Steve’s pronunciation. However, we should no longer be confused about this first verse and we can move on with the rest of the song.
Now we stumble into the second verse which also has more confusion. Some lyric sites believe the lyric of the second line of the second verse to be ‘You don’t fool me with cynical lies’. There’s no other lyrics that discuss having conversations with anyone. However, the line immediately before it states ‘Faces, numbers I recognize’. Since he’s talking about faces, he would then be looking into the face (and the eyes) of that person. Seeing their eyes, he might be able to deduce cynicism. Thus, ‘You don’t fool me with cynical eyes’ seems more appropriate and logical to the line just before. However, with the new clearer and remastered version of Steve’s vocals on a new backing track, I can actually hear the distinction between ‘cynical’ and ‘lies’, so I’ve updated the lyrics to be ‘lies’.
The next pronunciation problem in this song is a little past halfway through in verse seven. There’s a line that many lyric sites claim to be ‘Now that the sun is shining’. Steve sings no phrase even similar to that. If you listen closely to what Steve is singing, the lyric sounds much more like ‘Now that the sun that shines’. But, that line doesn’t make any sense either. There’s nothing before or after talking about light or sunshine or anything similar. In fact, the line which Steve sings is actually ‘Logical Solutions’ or more specifically, he pronounces it ‘Logical Sol-U-Tions’ with small pauses where the dashes are. It’s odd phrasing and inflection at best. It’s the ‘tions’ portion that sounds like ‘shines’. It’s just that Steve so oddly pronounces the word Solutions, it’s easily misheard as something other than Solutions. Anything with the word ‘shines’ makes no sense, but ‘Logical Solutions’ makes perfect sense in the context of a song about solutions, since we’re also talking about logical life, mysteries and considering the song is titled Only Solutions, containing the word ‘Solutions’ in its title.
The final biggest pronunciation problem is in the final verse. Many lyric sites believe the first two phrases to be ‘People Reason’. I’ve even seen other people interpret it as ‘We fall even’. It’s neither of these two. Those two don’t even make sense in context of the song. The words he sings is ‘Need for reason’. When trying to create an ‘Only Solution’ with ‘Clear Visions’, you would have ‘Need for reason’. Reason and logic go hand in hand and makes much more sense in the context of the lyrics of this song.
Japanese Insert from the 1982 release of the Tron Soundtrack on vinyl
After digging around looking for a vinyl release with lyrics due to a comment, I have found some printed lyrics for this song which were included with the Japanese release of this album in 1982 (Catalog: 25AP 2384). The insert is black and white and bi-fold. It contains a large amount of Japanese writing describing the album and the Tron project. It also contains English lyrics for Only Solutions. This is the only album release I have found by Sony / Columbia to have included any lyrics for this song.
Here is the Japanese vinyl black and white bi-fold insert containing lyrics to Only Solutions:
Unfortunately, it appears that whomever wrote these printed lyrics apparently didn’t get the lyrics directly from the band and/or there’s another explanation (keep reading). Instead, it seems someone at Columbia may have listened to the song and penned what they thought they heard. There are extra words in these lyrics that Steve Perry doesn’t sing. However, it’s also possible that these are the raw penned lyrics that Steve Perry may have used as reference to sing the song and he changed the words as he sang them in the studio.
I always prefer printed lyrics to be accurate to what the singer is singing, not what was originally penned by the band and not used in the song. If you’re really interested in reading these specific lyrics better, I have typed them into one of my comments below. Know that they don’t 100% match what Steve is actually singing. Note also that the ‘?’ in one of the words is because the word is mostly unintelligible in the photographs of this insert.
Corrected Lyrics
With that said, below are the corrected lyrics for Journey’s Only Solutions. If I could get in touch with Steve Perry, I’d love to discuss the idea behind the lyrics of this song with him and determine if these lyrical deductions are actually correct. Only Steve can truly give us the actual lyrics to this song.
Here’s the original 1982 version.
Enjoy!
I have created a remix of the 1982 backing track combined with Steve’s new vocal stem found in the updated version of Only Solutions (at the top of this article). Because Steve’s vocal in this newer track is more crystal clear than the original release, I thought it might help to hear the vocals better. I have also isolated Steve’s vocal from this, which Steve’s isolated vocal is just below this one.
Full Track — Only Solutions (Remix / Remastered Vocals 2023)
Steve’s Isolated Vocal
Only Solutions [last updated 7/25/2023]
by Journey
In the jungle, I run tonight
Find the beast to logical light
No confusion, just run right, oh yeah
Faces, numbers I recognize
You don’t fool me with cynical lies
No problems, no compromise, oh yeah
(Only Solutions) Jo pull me down, I just want to hear
(Only Solutions) Oh, it won’t be long, it won’t take too long
Modern times drivin’ me insane
Explanations I can’t explain
Leave me standin’ in the rain, oh yeah
Solvin’ mysteries with nothin’ to lose
Logic leaves you without any clues
There’s only so much one man can do, oh yeah
(Only Solutions) Jo pull me down, I just want to hear
(Only Solutions) Oh, it won’t be long, it won’t take too long
(Only Solutions) Jo pull me down, I just want to hear
Logical Solutions
Clear Visions
Clear Visions
In the jungle, I run tonight
Find the beast to logical light
No confusion, just run right, oh yeah
Faces, numbers I recognize
You don’t fool me with cynical lies
No problems, no compromise, oh yeah
(Only Solutions) It’s my point of view
(Only Solutions) Oh, clear visions
(Only Solutions) No second thoughts
(Only Solutions) Now, now no contradictions
Need for reason
Need for reason
No escape
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Apple Music on Amazon Echo via Alexa
This one’s a quickie. Let’s explore.
Apple Music and Amazon
Apple has recently begun expanding its reach of Apple Music onto non-Apple devices. First was Android. Now, Apple Music has come to Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant on the Echo, Dot and other Alexa enabled devices. Of course, you’ll also need to subscribe to Apple Music to take advantage. Personally, I find Amazon’s digital music selection a bit lacking when compared to Apple’s catalog… part of the reason I chose to buy into Apple Music instead of Amazon Music Unlimited.
That’s not to say Apple Music is in any way perfect. There are plenty of artists who don’t publish digitally on Apple’s or Amazon’s platforms. For these artists, Apple offers a solution. Amazon doesn’t.
Unlike Amazon, who recently shut down the ability to upload songs into its platform, Apple Music allows iCloud upload for sharing music not found on iTunes between all of Apple’s devices. This means that even if you can’t find the song on Apple Music, you can buy a CD, rip it and then upload it to the iCloud platform for sharing and download on all of your devices. You can even buy it digitally, if you can find it, import it into iTunes and upload it for all of your devices.
I actually liked this feature on Amazon before they shut it down this summer. This is other half of the reason I have chosen Apple Music over Amazon Music Unlimited. I have a number of artists in my personal catalog that do not exist on Amazon or Apple’s platforms. I still want to be able to listen to these songs on all of my devices and have them in my Apple playlists. Apple’s iCloud sharing works perfect for this purpose. Amazon no longer has a solution for its Amazon Music Unlimited platform.
If you have music outside of Amazon Music Unlimited platform, you’ll have to figure out some other way to listen to it. You won’t be able to listen to it via Amazon Music Unlimited or by asking Alexa to play it… though, you can play it on your Echo by using your Echo as a Bluetooth speaker.
Installing Apple Music on Alexa
- It’s really simple to enable this. Launch a browser to alexa.amazon.com (intentionally not linkified, select it, right click and then “Open in a new tab”) and login. You can also perform this setup from the Alexa app on your phone or tablet.
- Once logged in, click Music, Movies and Books from the left panel. It doesn’t matter which device is currently selected as this skill applies to all devices, but make sure the device can play music.
- Scroll down under Music and look for Apple Music and click it.
- If you’re in a browser, a new tab will open and take you to an Apple login & password screen.
- Log in with your Apple ID. Once logged in with your Apple ID, you’ll need to allow linking between Amazon Alexa and Apple Music.
- Done. Time to play some music!
Asking Alexa to play Music
To play music, simply ask Alexa like, “Alexa, play the playlist Fallout 76 Modern Radio on Apple Music” or “Alexa, play the song Pistol Packin’ Mama by Bing Crosby on Apple Music.”
If you leave off the “on Apple Music” statement, Alexa assumes you want to play the song via Amazon’s digital music platform such as Prime Music or Amazon Music Unlimited. Don’t forget to say this.
Alexa will respond by telling you that the song or playlist is playing via Apple Music. Keep in mind that this is a new skill for Alexa from Apple. This means that Apple may not yet have all of the bugs worked out. Expect some problems, particularly if you’re trying to use multiple Dots or Echos to produce stereo. Apple will get all of this worked out, but it may not work perfectly for a while.
Third party Alexa enabled devices, such as Sonos, may not yet support the Apple Music skill. If your device isn’t yet supported, contact your device manufacturer and ask when the skill will be supported. Amazon’s own devices should all work fine.
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Theme Park Music Series: AstroWorld
If you have ever visited the now defunct Six Flags AstroWorld theme park which was located in Houston, Texas until 2005, here is the music that set the ambiance of the park. If you came here by accident seeking Travis Scott’s ASTROWORLD, click here to listen to his music on Apple Music. Now, a little history…
A Short Park History
AstroWorld was a theme park that began its existence in the late 60s and was the brainchild of a former mayor of Houston, Judge Roy Hofheinz. It was located across the 610 freeway from the Astrodome. AstroWorld opened its doors on June 1, 1968 and operated seasonally each year until October 30, 2005 when it ceased operations.
When the park opened in 1968, it featured a unique sled ride called the Alpine Sleighs that wound its way through a constructed mountain. The Alpine Sleighs were located in the Alpine Valley section of the park and had the same thrill value of a roller coaster. A “sleigh” consisted of an electric powered 4 person car with rubber tires, kept on the track by a guide rail. A steel roller coaster, called The Serpent, located in the Oriental Village section of the park, opened in 1969 and was the park’s first steel coaster. Even though The Serpent began as an adult coaster, because of its relative size and tameness, it would eventually be classified as a children’s ride once Dexter Frebish’s Electric Roller Ride opened in 1972.
In 1975, the park was sold to Six Flags corporation. From 1975 to 2005, the park was owned and operated by Six Flags. In that time, Six Flags grew the park with more and more thrill rides including many large and wild roller coasters.
In 1976, The Texas Cyclone opened. This wooden roller coaster was located in the Coney Island section and was designed to mimic the feel of the original Cyclone located Coney Island in New York, but it did not mimic the track layout. It would be the only wooden coaster in the park. All other coasters built would be steel coasters.
A number of rides cycled in and out of the park from 1968 through to its closure in 2005, but the sections pretty much remained intact with only the occasional rename. Not many were renamed or rethemed. In fact, only one section would actually be rethemed in all of that time, Country Fair became Nottingham Village going from a midway carnival atmosphere to a renaissance fair look and feel including a Biergarten sporting Octoberfest style food all year round. In fact, with the introduction of Nottingham Village, they also introduced alcohol into the park through that same Biergarten.
The park was host to a number of themed sections including:
- Americana Square (front gate)
- Modville => International Plaza => USA
- Coney Island
- Alpine Valley
- European Village
- Western Junction
- Plaza de Fiesta => Mexicana
- Fun Island
- Children’s World => Enchanted Kingdom => Looney Toons Town
- Pioneer
- Oriental Village
- Country Fair => Nottingham Village
Unfortunately, Fun Island would be the only section that wouldn’t last beyond the 80s. In fact, that land would eventually become home to a roller coaster. Also, the Children’s World section would be moved from its original location to a new location near the Alpine mountain after the Alpine Sleighs ride was retired. Children’s World was renamed Enchanted Kingdom, then later renamed again to Looney Toons Town. The Pioneer section housed only one ride, Thunder River. For this reason, Pioneer never had a separate section marker on the map.
As with any park, every year brought new changes, new additions and new removals. The park also underwent several logo changes. The first logo included 4 globe icons using two different typefaces. The next logo included the word AstroWorld stylized with stars above it (see below). This was my personal favorite logo. A modified version of the stars logo with the stars removed was used for a short period on maps. The final logo included a blocky italicized typeface and six small flags to obviously signify the park was owned by Six Flags. A special logo was used on only on the 1976 map to commemorate the Bicentennial.
Park Maps
Here are various park maps from 1968 to 2004 for you to see how the park changed up until 2004. The 2004 image is actually an aerial view of the park from Google Earth.
Demise
The park ultimately succumbed to a contract dispute between the Astrodome / Reliant Stadium parking lot owners and Six Flags. AstroWorld did not have its own parking lot. Instead, it leased parking from the Reliant land owners. Because AstroWorld was dependent on that parking lot for its attendees, when the contract dispute erupted and ultimately broke down, Six Flags evaluated the situation and the current land values of the ~72 acres of AstroWorld property. Instead of renewing the parking lease, Six Flags decided to cease AstroWorld’s operations, dismantle the park and sell the land.
After all of the dust settled, Six Flags had actually lost money on the deal because they couldn’t get the land prices they expected and demolishing the park cost a lot more than predicted. 120 full time employees lost their jobs and the 1200 seasonal workers hired each year would be lost. It was a sad demise to one of Six Flags’s better theme park properties. Today, that land still sits vacant and is only used as overflow parking for Reliant Stadium.
The then Six Flags CEO, Kieran Burke, was ousted just two months after AstroWorld closed because of his cluster of an idea to close AstroWorld had backfired on Six Flags and failed.
Anyway, let’s get into what you’ve really been waiting for …
The Music
To set the tone of each of the sections above, the park had loud speakers throughout the park playing music. Some were hidden in shrubs or under fake rocks, others were horn speakers affixed to buildings. Over the years, the music changed and updated as the audio systems improved, but many tracks remained the same.
During the 80s, the system used tapes. In the 90s and 00s, I’m sure the system was switched to first CDs, then computer based systems. In the updated systems, some new music was introduced into various sections.
Apple Music Playlists
You might remember hearing a few of these tracks while wandering through the park. Note, you will need an Apple Music account to play the music, but you can see the track names and artists and play short samples even if you don’t have a subscription.
The below playlists include music in use during the 80s, 90s and 00s. Note that I don’t have the playlists for the Country Fair, Modville or Fun Island sections. There was also Looney Toons Town section, but this music is not available on Apple Music that I have been able to find. There was also some incidental music used on rides such as the Dentzel Carousel and The River of No Return / River Adventure Ride that also don’t have playlists. There are also some additional Mexicana tracks which are not on Apple Music, but can be found in this playlist on SoundCloud.
Without further adieu, let’s have a listen to the music that played every operating day at AstroWorld.
Enjoy!
As always, if you enjoy what you’ve just read on Randocity or heard on Apple Music, please like, subscribe and comment. If you would like to read more about AstroWorld, please leave a comment below and I will consider writing a longer segment about this theme park.
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Remix Time: I Don’t Think About You (Dazed Mix)
Every once in a while, I like to remix tracks. Here’s my Dazed Mix of I Don’t Think About You by Kelly Clarkson. This is dance pop mix of her track of the same name. Credits: A capella vocal by Kelly Clarkson, backing music track by Klearnote.
The original song is on her 2017 album, Meaning of Life. This is a very good album by Kelly. The original mix of I Don’t Think About You has relaxed piano backing track. On this album, there are also a number of other very good tracks including Love So Soft, Medicine and Would You Call That Love.
Pick up your copy of Kelly Clarkson’s Meaning of Life at iTunes or Amazon.
Amazon Echo: What is it?
What is Amazon Echo?
It’s an approximately 10″ flat black cylinder with reasonable quality speakers, an led ring around the top, a voice recognition system and a remote. While that may seem a little simple, these are the fundamental pieces that matter.
If you’ve ever used a Roku, a smart TV, Amazon Fire TV or an Apple TV, then you pretty much know what Amazon Echo is (minus the speakers). Except, Amazon Echo is intended to be used with audio programs (i.e., news radio, podcasts, music, prime music, weather radio, audiobooks, speech synthesis for reading articles, etc). Anything you can imagine with audio, the Amazon Echo would be the perfect companion. What Apple TV is to movies, Amazon Echo is to audio programs.
In addition to the Alexa audio assistant (like Siri), with a web, tablet or phone app, you can completely control your Echo with the Echo companion app. There is so much that is required by the app, you really can’t get along without it. In fact, you need the app to hook up the Echo to the WiFi which also asks a series of questions about how it will be used. So, if you don’t have a phone, tablet or computer browser, good luck setting up your Echo.
And no, you don’t need to own an Amazon tablet. You can use an iPhone, iPad or any other Android tablet or phone. In fact, you can even use your computer’s browser. Because the Amazon Echo is hooked to the Amazon eco-system, you will also need an Amazon login and password. But, you likely already have this since you purchased the Echo with it. But, if you’re planning on giving it as a gift, the person you are giving it to will also be required to have all of the above. So, Amazon Echo is probably not the best gift idea for those who are not computer savvy or those who choose not to be connected. Remember that this is first and foremost a cloud player device. The faster the speed of the internet connection, the better Echo will work.
Is the Amazon Echo useful?
That’s a good question. If you’re someone who listens to radio programs or other audio programs like podcasts, then perhaps. Though, keep in mind there are some severe limitations in what you can do with the Amazon Echo. For example, the partners Amazon has chosen for its ‘audio channels’ are limited to Pandora, iHeartRadio, TuneIn and Audible. So, like Apple TV has limited video channels, Amazon Echo also has severely limited audio channels. Because of the audio partner limits, you really get a very small selection of content. For example, if Amazon had partnered with Sirius radio, there would be a whole lot more programming choices. Or, for that matter, partnering with Muzak, Soundcloud, Rhapsody, YouTube audio, Last.fm or other audio partners, I would say there would be much more choices in audio. Until then, Echo is nice but somewhat a novelty.
Alexa vs Siri
Alexa clearly has a better voice than Siri. But, other than the voice choice, the functionality is about the same. Like Siri, Alexa has easter eggs, knows what she knows, but what she knows is very very limited. So, don’t expect to be able to ask Alexa complex questions. To activate Alexa, you simply say the key word ‘Alexa’, suffixed quickly by what you want her to do. For example, ‘Alexa, set volume to 5’. Alexa is always listening for the keyword. Once you say the keyword, Alexa will begin listening for your command.
Wording matters with your sentences or Alexa gets quickly confused as to what you’re asking. For example, there’s a difference between asking ‘Alexa, play Frank Sinatra Songs for Swingin Lovers’ or ‘Alexa, play Songs for Swingin Lovers by Frank Sinatra’ or ‘Alexa, play the album Songs for Swingin Lovers by Frank Sinatra’. The shorter you tend to phrase your request, the more likely Alexa is to do the wrong thing or become confused and do nothing. Echo sometimes hears a phantom keyword and activates.
There are many times when you ask Alexa to do something that instead of responding with ‘Okay’ or some affirmative voice response, the led ring at the top flashes in a ‘special way’. So, we’re left to try and decode the R2D2 led responses from the Echo. Instead, I personally believe Alexa should affirmatively or negatively respond to every voice command. Unfortunately, she doesn’t.
Oh, and no, there is not yet a way to change the voice to a male or some other alternative voice. Though, you can change the wake-up word. So, it doesn’t have to be ‘Alexa’.
Alarms, ToDo Lists and Shopping
It is to be expected that you can shop for music through the Echo. So, if you ask Echo to play something that leads to samples, you can buy the song that’s playing. This will then be put into your library for future playback.
You can set up to 1 alarm and up to 1 timer. This means you can set an alarm for wakeup, but you can’t have two alarms. So, if you have a spouse or partner, you can’t have your own alarm and they have one set for a separate time. That won’t work, yet. If you want to time down two different things (important while cooking), you can’t do this either. It supports only one timer.
When the alarm or timer goes off, the audio noise it makes is limited to an internal sound only. Even though you have access to Prime music and radio, you cannot set the timer to use one of those audio sources. So… limited. There are also other limits.
There is a ToDo and Shopping list that you can ask Alexa to manage. You can say, ‘Alexa, add bananas to my shopping list’. When you open the Echo app, you will have your shopping list with you in the store. You can also remote control the Echo app as long as you have Internet on your phone. So, if you have a cat and you like to leave music playing, you can set up playlists, turn the volume up or down, change the music or shut it off.
Music
This is probably where the Echo shines its brightest. With its two speaker system, the audio is bright and vibrant. Not quite as nice as the Bose Soundlink Mini, but the sound is acceptably full and rich for the cylinder design. Unfortunately, it also has no stereo and it needs it. Amazon needs to offer a companion cylinder connected by bluetooth to offer full rich stereo sound. In fact, it could offer several BT connected cylinders to offer 5.1 or 7.1.
Beyond the sound quality issues, having access to Prime music is a necessity here. If you aren’t a Prime member, you really can’t take advantage of what Echo offers. If you do have Prime, then you get access to not only whatever you’ve purchased or uploaded to Amazon’s cloud player, you also get access to the full Prime music library. Still, Amazon’s Prime library is limited. It seems to have a lot of classic rock choices, but not all of it. So, while it has Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles, it doesn’t have Supertramp, for example.
Though, Autorip is your friend with Echo. If you buy a CD with Autorip, it automatically becomes available on the Echo as soon as you’ve paid. However, if you purchase a CD at Target and rip it, you’re limited to 250 uploaded songs unless you pay Amazon an additional $25 a year for 250,000 song uploads.
Audiobooks
If you are a big Audible.com consumer, then you have a distinct advantage with the Echo. You can listen to all of your audio books right on the Echo. If your library is vast, you’ll immediately have a lot of content available to you. In hindsight, I should have been buying audio books when offered with my Kindle purchases, but I never really had any way to play them. With Echo, that’s changed. I will definitely consider audio books in the future.
Kindle Support?
In short, no. There is no support for Alexa to read back Kindle book content using Alexa. Alexa would be the perfect companion to the Kindles that do not offer audio voice playback. Considering this is an Amazon product and would be the perfect companion for the Kindle, the integration between Kindle and Echo is non-existent.
Audiophile Quality?
Definitely not. You’re playing streaming music here, in mono no less. So, while the Echo is great for podcasts, news and incidental background music, don’t give up your audiophile gear. Much of the music streamed from Amazon prime has the telltale mpeg haziness. Echo never skips or stutters while playing Prime or library music, so its streaming IO seems quite robust, but it just doesn’t sound high quality. This is definitely not to be considered an HD quality device as it clearly isn’t. So, don’t go into an Amazon Echo thinking you’ll be getting a high quality music experience. The music does sound decent, but it’s not anywhere near perfect.
Though, for news, podcasts and other spoken word programs, the Amazon Echo is perfect for this use.
Speech Synthesis and Browsing
The voice for Alexa sounds great most of the time. However, when reading back a synopsis Wikipedia article, she doesn’t always do a great job. While music is Echo’s strongest area, the article reading is easily one of Echo’s weakest. Instead, of becoming an audio web browser (which is what Echo should become), Alexa only offers page snippets of articles and then encourages you to crack open a browser or tablet and finish reading there. If Echo is going to do this, why bother using Alexa at all? If I can get better results by reading it myself, then Alexa is pointless for this purpose.
Instead, Alexa should provide full 100% article reading. Read me news, wiki articles or, indeed, any other page on the web. If I ask Alexa to browse to Yahoo News, Alexa needs to be able to read article headlines and let me choose which article to read back. Literally, Echo should become an audio based web browser. Echo should set the standard for audio web browsing so much so that Yahoo and Google optimize their pages for audio browsers much like they are now doing for mobile devices.
Kitchen Use?
Echo would be the perfect companion in the kitchen. Tablets and other touch devices are no where near the perfect device in the kitchen. They get dirty and must be touched by dirty or wet hands. Echo, on the other hand, is the perfect hands-free kitchen companion. ‘Alexa, how do I make Beef Stroganoff’. Seems like a simple recipe request, but no. Alexa has no knowledge of cooking, recipes or anything else to do with kitchen chores. This seems like a no-brainer, but Amazon made no effort here.
Problems and Crashing
After having unboxed Amazon Echo, it had already crashed within 10 minutes of using it. Not the app, but the actual Echo. The app lost connectivity to the Echo until it had rebooted. Though, I have also had the app crash. So, this first incarnation of the Echo is a little beta still. I’m guessing that’s why they cut the 50% off deal with those who were invited to pick them up for testing. Though, when the Echo works, it does work well.
Improvements
The Amazon Echo could benefit from a number of improvements including:
- Battery backup
- Full audio web browsing
- Games (i.e., chess, checkers, etc)
- Better interactive integration between Echo and its companion app
- Satellite interfaces (to use Echo in every room)
- Stereo audio / Multichannel audio (using multiple cylinders)
- Audio playback to stereo BT devices (i.e., headphones and speakers)
- Speakerphone
- Remote control of Amazon devices
- Check status of Amazon orders
- Recipes and general kitchen helper
- Alexa reading Kindle books
- More audio channels such as:
- Sirius Radio
- Police Scanners
- Custom podcast URLs
- SoundCloud and similar sites
- YouTube Audio
- Last.fm
- Spotify
- MySpace Music
- Amie Street
- A much bigger selection of Internet radio stations
- Archives of pre-recorded news broadcasts
Limitations
This first incarnation of Amazon Echo is quite limited. Echo has about 1/10th of the feature set you would expect to offer a complete experience. For example, it should become an audio web browser. Audio is the next evolution in browsers. Sitting at a computer watching a screen is time consuming. But, using an audio web browser, you could browse the web and work on other things. It’s easy to listen and still focus on other tasks. We do it all the time.
In fact, Alexa needs to be imported into every Amazon device including the Fire phone, Fire tablet line and every other interactive device it makes. While Alexa needs to be on every Amazon device, the use case of Echo and all of the audio channels should still be limited to the Echo.
So, while Alexa exists and works as well as Siri, Alexa is simply the input and output device on the Echo out of necessity. The functionality of the Echo needs to firmly focus on all aspects of audio communication including podcasts, dictation, news programs, web browsing, audio books, cooking, music and more. Alexa shouldn’t be overlooked as the home helper, but not strictly on the Echo. I know that Amazon is planning on expanding the Echo to supporting home automation through such phrases as ‘Alexa, turn on the light’. But, that requires a home automation system that interfaces with the Echo. There are probably other uses just waiting to be explored.
In fact, if Amazon were to put Alexa on every device, you could have a unified Alexa system throughout your home. So, each device could learn the types of things you do regularly and share that among all of the Alexa systems. So, if you frequently ask for a specific type of music, Alexa could offer recommendations for new playlists.
Overall, it’s currently an okay device. Out of 10 stars, I’d give it 4 stars. Amazon compromised just a little too much in all aspects of this device to make it truly outstanding. In fact, Alexa should have had white LED lights on the unit so that it could illuminate the room. It also needs a battery backup so you can still use some of Alexa’s basic functions, like the alarm clock, if the power goes out. The next incarnation of the Echo will likely make up for its current shortcomings.
Favorite song of the week: Nuclear by Mike Oldfield
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