Zune Insider

Hola, Zune Nation!  Ready for another week of all that’s new and cool in the Marketplace?  Here we go…

MUSIC

Our Artist of the Week is Game with ‘The R.E.D. Album‘.  It includes collaborations with Justin Timberlake, Lil Wayne, Busta Rhymes, Nelly Furtado and others.  What do you think of it?

The Pistol Annies are a new project from Miranda Lambert, Angaleena Presley and Ashley Monroe – the group formed earlier this year during an Academy of Country Music special.  If you like female country singers with attitude, be sure to give ‘Hell on Heels‘ a listen!

Don’t forget to put that Zune Pass to good use and download the ‘Hot This Week‘ playlist – all the best in one click.

The Ready Set is actually just Jordan Witzigreuter – he chose the name because he wasn’t sure people would be able to pronounce his last name. Check out his new single, “Hollywood Dream“, off his upcoming EP that’s due out in October.

MTV’s ‘Unplugged’ has seen a lot of artists go acoustic over the years, and 30 Seconds to Mars recently joined that illustrious roster.  They’ve now released an EP of four songs from that performance, including a beautiful cover of “Where the Streets Have No Name” with backing vocals by a gospel choir.

We’ve got another FREE two-fer this week! First, get “That Fire” by  Black Tide, who can currently be seen on the Rockstar UPROAR tour.  Second, get “Stealing Sun Chips” from D. Gookin, who describes his sound as “upbeat electronic pop”. Enjoy!

Florence + the Machine are back with their latest single, “What the Water Gave Me“, the first song off their second album which will be released in November.  Are you looking forward to new album?

Even if you (or your kids) aren’t heading back to school, you should still have a look at our ‘Back to School‘ collection – we’ve got playlists, albums on sale and more!

‘Trending Up’ this week is Katy Perry as she ties the record held by Michael Jackson for the most number one singles from the same album – five from ‘Teenage Dream‘!  Jackson set the record with his album ‘Bad’ back in 1988, and Perry is now the only living artist to hold the record as well as the first woman.

‘You Are All I See‘ is the debut album from Active Child, otherwise known as Pat Grossi.  A former choir boy, he describes his musical genre as “hymntronic” – you’ll need to listen and see what that means!

In the Artist Spotlight this week is Lil Wayne – get excited for his new album that’s coming out next week with playlists, videos and albums!

Who doesn’t love The Muppets?  We know that Weezer, Haley Williams, OK Go, Amy Lee and more do, because they’re all performing classic Muppets songs on ‘Muppets: The Green Album‘.  If you enjoy that, be sure to catch OK Go performing with the Muppets on the Tonight Show on the 8/31.

The new single from Kaskade is called “Eyes” and you can catch him on tour with Identity Festival right now as he headlines their main stage.

Other new releases this week: ‘The Blackbird Diaries‘ by Dave Stewart; ‘What Matters Most‘ from Barbra Streisand; and Trevor Hall’s ‘Everything Everytime Everywhere‘.

VIDEO

Check out Kate Hudson, Ginnifer Goodwin and John Krasinski in ‘Something Borrowed‘, the romantic comedy based on the bestselling novel by Emily Giffin.

If you’re into cars, crazy stunts and epic road trips and you haven’t seen ‘Top Gear (UK)‘ yet, you’re missing out!  Season 17 just started, so you’ve got a lot to see.

‘Your Highness‘ stars Danny McBride, James Franco, Natalie Portman and Zooey Deschanel in a hilarious action-comedy about two princes and a warrior who go on a quest to free a princess from an evil wizard… but don’t expect your typical fairy tale here!

On sale right now is the series ‘Royal Pains‘ about a doctor who escapes NYC to the Hamptons with his younger brother and inadvertently finds himself the Hamptons’ newest on-call doctor.

Last but far from least – we’re well into season 5 of ‘The Guild‘, so we decided to give away a limited edition 120 GB ‘The Guild’ Zune to celebrate!  Be sure to enter before next Tuesday – and good luck!

Leave us a comment about your favorite new release this week!

Hey Zune Nation! We’ve got two awesome things that you need to know.

• If you live in Southern California, come out to the #MSMVP event at the Microsoft Store at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa this Saturday. Learn all about Microsoft technologies such as Zune, Xbox, Windows Phone and more – plus, there’ll be a raffle of awesome swag – and who doesn’t love swag? There’ll be lots of goodies and cool MVPs to chat with, so if you’re in the area, please come out and say hi!  Click HERE to register and get all the info.  We hope to see you out there, but if you can’t make it, we’ll be posting from the event via Twitter.
• There’s currently an awesome deal available from Zune, Windows Phone and AT&T. If you buy a Windows Phone from AT&T, you get a FREE 3 month Zune Pass! To celebrate that, we’re going to be running a contest over on Twitter for the next few weeks, and – wait for it – we’re giving away a few YEAR Zune Passes.  You read that right - YEAR ZUNE PASSES!  So if you want a chance to win, we suggest you get over to Twitter immediately… if not sooner.

Have a great weekend!

We meet again, Zune Nation!  Here are the goodies for the week of May 3rd – May 9th.

MUSIC

Artist of the Week: The one and only Jennifer Lopez is back with her first album in four years!  Can ‘Love?‘ live up to the expectations?  Have a listen and see what you think.

This week on our interview series ‘5 Minutes with Fame‘, we’ve got Jimmy Eat World!  Check out this Zune and Xbox exclusive and find out what each band member wishes he could take from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The Beastie Boys return after being away for 7 years, and to celebrate the release of ‘Hot Sauce Committee, Part 2‘, we’ve got a contest!  Go HERE to enter now!

Hard rockers Shinedown are back with a live album, ‘Somewhere in the Stratosphere‘!  You can listen and get that concert experience at home or in your car – just without five thousand or so of your closest friends.

Are you ready to fiesta on Cinco de Mayo?  You will be if you download our FREE playlist.  Just add chips, salsa and margaritas and you’re good to go!  We’ve also got music from a lot of great Mexican artists on sale, so check those out, too.

International sensation Shakira is our Trending Up Artist this week.  She’s got a new song out called “Rabiosa” – a collaboration with rapper Pitbull.  She also has a Spanish version featuring El Cata so you get a choice!

Our FREE song this week is by a brother and sister duo who hail from Southern California.  Try “Sweet Louise” from the Belle Brigade – if you enjoy folk rock, you’ll love them.

Critically acclaimed Seattle band Fleet Foxes have returned with their second full length album.  Give ‘Helplessness Blues‘ a listen now.

If you want to know what’s ‘Hot This Week‘, all you have to do is get our playlist.  We gather the hottest new releases and the songs that are climbing the charts, and it’s yours with Zune Pass in one quick download.

Country superstars Lady Antebellum have a new single out – “Just a Kiss“.  Will this be another big hit for them?

Sixx A.M. – the other project of Motley Crue’s Nikki Sixx – is out with their new album, ‘This Is Gonna Hurt‘.  Nikki has also just released a book of the same title and is currently on a book tour, so if you’ve ever wanted to meet him, this could be your chance!  Check his website for details.

Last but definitely not least – Happy Mother’s Day to all the Moms out there!  We’ve got playlists and sales just for you, and we hope you get to have a nice, relaxing day.

VIDEO

Vince Vaughn and Kevin James star in ‘The Dilemma‘ – a buddy comedy where secrets cause all kinds of mayhem.

Daleks, the Tardis, and the Doctor – oh my!  The 6th season of ‘Doctor Who‘ is here – get the new episodes or go back to other incarnations of the Doctor.

What was your favorite new music and/or video release this week?  Tell us in the comments and we’ll pick one lucky person to win a free month of Zune Pass! P.S. Be sure to come back and check next week to see if you’ve won.

Our friends at Inside the Circle are currently holding a contest and inviting owners of a KIN phone to do what they do best: share. Two winners be selected and will win a swag bag of goodies thanks to the KIN team. So how do you enter this particular contest? The steps are quite simple:

• Take a picture with your KIN (of which two winners will be selected based on a pic taken with a KIN One and KIN Two phone)
• Email the picture to: kinphotos.2010@twitpic.com and kinphotos@live.com
• In the tweet that accompanies your Twitpic, include either the #KINOne or #KinTwo hashtag
• Enjoy as your picture gets shared with the twitter-using world.

This contest will run until June 18th, so those of you with a KIN who are attending E3 can share plenty from the show floor. There’s no minimum amount of entries (share as many pictures as you wish, but make sure that they’re at max PG-13). For more details, rules and regulations about the contest, visit Inside the Circle.

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Welcome to Zune Insider podcast #29 with your always awesome hosts Matt Akers (skipdeez) and Jessica Zahn (jetherealz)! This week we sit down with our man from Zune business development Dave McLauchlan (AussieDaveMS) and talk Zune accessories, Ford Sync, processes for 3rd party partners, and answer some forum questions from anythingbutipod.com. Very insightful interview, check it! Of course we also talk music and videos where I call out some recent music that has been sent to me by our listeners, and other bits of total randomness including me eating dogfood. Get this episode as a download in the Zune Marketplace software - here or listen now from the Zune Insider Podcast page at Zune.net

We also have an extra-special-one-of-a-kind contest for our listeners… it’s the Name a Zune Background contest!

As you know we have multiple cool backgrounds for the Zune software client, and in the upcoming fall release, we will have a few new ones! Here is the exciting part, one of our listeners will get to name one of the backgrounds! Yes, that’s right, you can make a lasting impact on the Zune software by naming a background! Be the envy of all your friends and family!

Here’s how it’s going to work…

You think of a cool name for a background. As you know, we currently have some cool backgrounds with whimsical names like diaphanous, meridian, and neuxe (To see current backgrounds, go to settings > software > display in the Zune software). You won’t get to actually see the background, which will allow for complete creativity and imagination on your part. It can be a nickname, pet name, etc. Just don’t use blatantly trademarked names or anything that could be offensive (refer to submission form below). Use good judgement, yo!

So, copy the entire submission form below, answer each one of the questions to the best of your knowledge, and submit a comment to this post with the complete form and your answers. We will take submissions throughout the next week and will announce when the contest is closed. We will then aggregate all of your entries and pick the winner! When the 4.0 software is released in the fall, the winning name will be used for the background! Let’s see what you got!

Submission Form:

1. What is the name you are suggesting?

2. Please explain the meaning of this name.

3. Please indicate if this name is the property of third parties, or if it is currently being used by any other person or business (example: a trademark or a brand)?

By submitting this form, you confirm the information above is accurate and you authorize Microsoft to use the content of your submission in the Zune services at its sole discretion. Furthermore, you waive any rights you may on the content of your submission with respect to any use by Microsoft. Please do not submit any names that are offensive, obscene, or violate any party’s rights.

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