Inside Nokia Music

Today we’re super pleased to announce the launch of the newest member of the Nokia X Family, the Nokia X3 Touch and Type.

It’s the slimmest phone we’ve ever released – and that’s just the start. The best part of the Nokia X3 is what we’ve called Touch and Type. You get the best of both worlds as it combines a touchscreen with a keypad to make it one of the fastest, easiest to use phones available.

You can click and scroll on the screen with your finger and type with the keypad (keeping all you textaholics happy) This technology means that you can do most things on the phone with just one hand. It even features a dedicated messaging button for easy access to SMS and MMS , AND a 5 megapixel quality camera makes taking great pictures a breeze!

Alongside all of this new technology, lets not forget that this is still a Nokia X series phone, and therefore all about music and entertainment. With its dedicated music key you can get to your music catalogue with just one click, and with Ovi Music Store (http:// musicstore.nokia.com) you can download and discover over 6 million tracks and thousands of new releases every week! Plus use the Ovi Store (http://store.ovi.com/), to get access to thousands of apps, games & mp3s. (Those of you in selected Comes with Music markets will also be able to get the service.)

Combine this with 3G & Wifi, the beautifully slim design, the choice of 5 awesome colours and you have the Nokia X3 Touch and Type.

Watch the video to see the phone in action!

Want one? It’s your lucky day.  The Nokia X3 Touch and Type is available for 125 Euros excluding taxes and subsidies –  And we’ll be giving one away to one of our twitter followers today, just follow us @We_R_NokiaMusic to be in with a chance of getting your hands on one! We mentioned touch and type is the “best of both worlds” – just tell us your ideal musical partnership and tag it #X3touchandtype. E.g: My musical best of both worlds would be My Chemical Romance and Pink #X3touchandtype. The most interesting answer will win a brand spanking new Nokia X3 Touch and Type. Good luck!

Visit us here for more info

A new addition to the Nokia XSeries family comes today with the announcement of the new Nokia X5. Colourfully expressive, musically charged and built with ease of use in mind for social networking & messaging on the move. In a world gone mad for touchscreen phones, the Nokia X5 thinks outside the box and offers a full sliding QWERTY keyboard for those who desire traditional keypads, as well as unique design without compromising on social networking features – Be there, be square!

Social features?

Access to Social Networking sites Facebook, Twitter, Hi5 and Myspace are all covered, all your favourite IM accounts supported, and the ability to log in to multiple email accounts makes it fun and easy to stay connected on the move.

As part of the ongoing XSeries standard, your favourite contacts can be accessed from the home screen, and now includes the new Message Box feature – Just shake the phone to reveal the number of unread messages!

Tell me about the music!

Excellent sound quality? – Check!

Loud speakers? – Check!

Easy access to the device’s music collection? – Check!

Space for all my music? – 2GB memory card for up to 1000 tracks. Upgradable to 32GB

What about special features? – Of course!… Spin your X5 during music playback to select a track at random with the new ‘Surprise Me” application (Your head should be filling up with party game ideas right about now!) and ‘Dance Fabulous’ which lets you use your own music on the device to play the game and create dance moves.

The Nokia X5 will also be available in a ‘Comes With Music’ edition in selected markets – TBA

That’s great, but what about self expression?

We all know that in the decade of the twenty-teens it’s all about the bold and the overstated, and so the Nokia x5 will be available in Pink, Azure, Graphite Black, Yellow Green, and Purple with an estimated retail price of €165 before taxes and subsidies.

For more details check out the Nokia X5 Data Sheet

The Nokia X5 is available soon in the Southeast Asian Peninsula, Eurasia and Latin America

More research into the listening habits of Nokia Ovi Music Store users again, but this time of a more generic nature.

With availability in 36 countries, Ovi Music is in a unique position to observe global music trends. An interesting yet unsurprising result shows that pop powerhouse Lady Gaga’s first Fame Monster single Bad Romance is on course to becoming the most popular single of the year, with the track spending an average of 7 weeks at No.1 in 13 countries including Russia, Brazil and Italy.

With 2 songs making it into the Top 10 list for most downloads between the 1st January and the 15th May 2010, Lady G “has been widely recognized as a critical factor in the rise in digital music sales since 2009, and has helped push the recorded music market into growth for the first time in 6 years” according to music revenue figures from music industry body the British Phonographic Institute (BPI).

Global Top 10 Downloads In 2010 According to Ovi Music

1. Lady Gaga - Bad Romance
2. Ke$ha – TiK ToK
3. Rihanna – Rude Boy
4. The Black Eyed Peas – I Gotta Feeling
5. Iyaz – Replay
6. Owl City – Fireflies
7. The Black Eyed Peas - Meet Me Halfway
8. Lady Gaga – Telephone
9. Jay-Z – Empire State Of Mind (Jay-Z + Alicia Keys)
10. Rihanna – Russian Roulette

Just in case you missed that, Lady Gaga, Ke$ha, Rihanna, The Black Eyed Peas, Iyaz, Owl City, Jay-Z and Alicia Keys are all available to download from the Nokia Music Store/Ovi Music and if you have Comes With Music get them all free.

The band have just officially confirmed a slot on what they referred to as the “Main Stage” on Saturday 26 June – Assuming they mean the Pyramid Stage (get with the program guys) they’ll either open Saturday’s proceedings, or fill the as-yet-unconfirmed slot between Seasick Steve and the poorly placed Shakira (hmmm!).

Album number 2 Sea Of Cowards is carded for release on the 10th May with first single Die By The Drop already making it’s rounds in the realm of the music video.

A leak of the song Gasoline also made it’s way onto You Tube and if these 2 tracks are a sign of what the album has in store for us, then The Dead Weather will most certainly make it into my end-of-year list this year again.

Here are both…

The Dead Weather are available to download at Nokia Music Store or if you’ve got Comes With Music get all their records for free!

Yes, we’re stoked to announce that as of yesterday China joined Brazil, Russia, Indonesia and over 15 other countries when Nokia Comes With Music became available!

As usual you can check out all of the global stores from the drop down menu here

At launch, the handset line up is as follows: Nokia X6 32GB, Nokia X6 16GB, Nokia 5230, Nokia 5330, Nokia 5800w, Nokia 6700s, Nokia E52 and Nokia E72i.

The service will be know locally as Yue Sui Xiang and include releases from Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI Music as well as local indies Huayi Brothers Media Group and Taihe Rye to ensure that the service offers the best range for local consumers.

Hey Rihanna fans, there’s an “Incoming Message On Your Nokia!”

Anyone remember the cute way Rihanna pronounces Nokia? Now you can get the free Rihanna theme for your compatible Nokia Smartphone, and Ri-Ri will tell you whenever you have an incoming call or message.

Don’t forget, you can still watch all the videos from the Rated R album launch party in glorious High Definition at Nokia’s Now Playing: Rihanna website.

Tweet this post and leave a comment with your twitter username and We’ll give one lucky winner 20 tracks from the Nokia Music Store (Nokia Ovi Player) to download the Nokia exclusive version of Rated R with 2 bonus tracks!

Important Things To Note

• Competition is only open to Australia and the United Kindgdom as we’ve only got pin codes for these Countries at present (sorry, we promise to get these codes for all the Nokia Music supported countries for future prize draws).
• You’ll need to download the Nokia Ovi Player and register to redeem tracks.
• Nokia Music is currently only PC compatible, here are the system requirements

Application requirements:

* Operating system: Microsoft Windows Vista or Windows XP (32-bit) with SP2 (Mac, Linux and Windows versions before XP with SP2 not supported)
* Processor: 1.5 GHz (recommended: 2.5 GHz, or 1.5 GHz dual core)
* Memory: 512 MB (recommended: 2 GB)
* Free disk space: 500 MB (recommended: 40 GB)
* Graphics: 32 MB integrated (recommended: 128 MB dedicated)
* Screen resolution: 1024×768 pixels
* Audio: Sound card and required drivers, connected speakers or headphones
* Internet: connection for buying and streaming music (recommended: broadband connection)
* Additional recommended hardware: CD-RW drive for burning CDs

…According to research from Nokia Music into the listening habits of music fans in 15 countries between December 2008 and January 2010.

TOP 10 GLOBALLY DOWNLOADED MOVIE SOUNDTRACKS

1. Twilight (Original motion picture soundtrack: International Version)

2. AVATAR

3. Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds

4. Mamma Mia!

5. The Twilight Saga: New Moon (Mexican version)**

6. Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen

7. Alvin And The Chipmunks 2

8. Slumdog Millionaire

9. The Twilight Saga: New Moon (Original motion picture soundtrack)

10. Watchmen

Notice how it occurred 3 times on the list?… but sadly it doesn’t qualify for the “Best Original Score” category according to the rules of the 82nd annual Academy Awards…

Leave a comment telling us your favourite film scores or soundtracks and we’ll give 1 lucky reader 50 tracks from the Nokia Music Store. Terms and Conditions

Competition is now closed!

From James Horner’s mysterious AVATAR score to the thrilling melodies of Sherlock Holmes or the eclectic mix of Nine, check out Nokia’s movie soundtrack selection

If you’re a fan of the music behind the latest movie releases Nokia Comes With Music is the place to download all the music you’ve ever wanted, for free, and to keep forever.

So pretty in pink

We’re all über-excited here at Inside Nokia Music about being the first to announce an addition to the Nokia Xseries family with the arrival of the new X6 / 16GB model, the device we’ve come to lovingly refer to as the little brother to the X6 / 32GB model.

In fact, we’re so excited about the release of the X6 / 16 ‘Gig’ model that we’re giving away pairs of tickets to 16 gigs (see what we did there?) throughout the UK & North America

Though smaller in storage capacity it may be, the new X6 / 16GB certainly doesn’t fall short on functionality and social networking capabilities. At a fraction of the cost of big bro (it’ll retail at around EUR 299 without taxes & subsidies), the Nokia X6 / 16GB offers a full-blown entertainment experience

• Enjoy the over 9 millions tracks in the Nokia Music Store direct to the device or via the Nokia Ovi Player PC client
• 
  
• Playlist DJ: create playlists of your music on the phone – based on moods or based on a preselected song
• 
  
• Manage your entertainment & social life directly from the homescreen using Contacts bar featuring thumbnail images for up to 20 close friends and Media bar and direct access to Facebook
• 
  
• Challenge yourself and friends on three pre-installed games – Spore from EA, DJ Mix Tour and Asphalt 4 from Gameloft
• 
  
• Download numerous premium games and applications through the Ovi Store in over 180 countries worldwide & over 3000 games & apps available today, and store them along with videos, photos and music on the 16GB of onboard storage.

You can also feast your eyes on the new colour range, including white/pink, white/yellow & black/black (maybe one for the Emo kids).

You can also get more info on the X6 / 16GB here:

http://www.nokia.com/x6

http://www.nokia.com/press

We’re announcing the UK gig tickets we have available today, & then North America tomorrow.  So if you’re based in the UK, check out the list below and leave us a comment telling us which gig you’d like to attend and why you think you’re the most deserving.  We’ll pick who we think wants it the most and, Bob’s your uncle, a pair of tickets.  There are some basic T&Cs, so read these first! UK & US

Update!

As we’re still waiting on most of the tickets to arrive, We’ve decided to announce winners as and when they do. Apologies for any inconvenience, but this is due to the fact that it has come to our attention that some of the participants have intentions of intercontinental-travel to make it to their chosen gig… should they win. This is a precautionary measure we’ve put in place just in case the tickets arrive with minimal days to spare. Sincerest apologies.

Here are the listings

UK Gigs

Noisettes – Manchester Academy  2nd March 2010

50 Cent – LG Arena, Birmingham  19th March 2010

LCD Soundsystem – O2 Academy Brixton, London  23rd April 2010

Deadmau5 – Liverpool Su Mountford Hall  6th May 2010

Rihanna – SECC Glasgow  20th May 2010

Snow Patrol – Ward Park, Northern Ireland  5th June 2010

Green Day – Wembley Stadium, London  19th June 2010

P!nk – RDS Arena Dublin  19th June 2010

North American Gigs

US

Muse - Madison Square Gardens New York, NY  5th March 2010

Jay-Z – United Centre Chicago, IL  18th March 2010

Alicia Keys - Agganis Arena Boston, MA  22nd March 2010

Air - The Fox Theatre Oakland, CA   26th March 2010

Black Eyed Peas - Staples Center  Los Angeles, CA   29th March 2010

U2 - New Meadowlands Stadium East Rutherford, NJ  19th July 2010 (Postponed)

Canada

Billy Talent + special guests Alexisonfire & Against Me - Air Canada Centre, Toronto, ON  28th March 2010

Hot Chip - Kool Haus Toronto, ON 20th April 2010

Nokia and King’s College London Department Of Twin Research (yes, really!) conducted a study on the musical preferences of nearly 4000 twins (pairs…?) and concluded that nearly 50% of it is genetically predetermined (something I’ve always attributed to brainwave variations so don’t find the least bit surprising).

They said: “Nature’s influence is said to be strongest on the appreciation of pop, classical and hip-hop music, and weakest when it comes to country”

I say that’s because Country Music is all about loneliness!

We are very excited to announce a global music partnership with Island Def Jam Music Group and Universal Music Group International to bring exclusive content to music fans around the world. The partnership will launch global superstar Rihanna’s highly anticipated fourth album Rated R with an online live streamed launch party performance from a secret London location with simultaneous listening parties happening around the globe on 16th November.

Register at www.nokia.com/rihanna soon to ensure you don’t miss out on this historic event. The event also coincides with the release of the Nokia X6 mobile phone which is also available in a ‘Comes With Music‘ edition.

Rihanna’s coming-of-age album Rated R comes to the Nokia Music Store the following week on 23rd November with exclusive cover shots, a remix and an exclusive track. Nokia ‘Comes With Music’ customers will also be able to download an exclusive Rihanna application, footage from the London live album launch in the Ovi store and in selected territories an exclusive window to the track Wait Your Turn from Rated R before it’s release.

I had the honour of interviewing Rihanna yesterday in LA.

Stay close, it will be published soon

Gaz.