The best radio station on the planet, 89.3 The Current, has a new Song of the Day podcast. You get a fancy new song delivered to you each every day. Sweet.

Today’s song, “The Sons of Cain” by Ted Leo and the Pharmacists from their forthcoming album is killer. Go download it now, before it’s gone (songs remain available for five days).

If you subscribe to the podcast with iTunes (like I did), getting the song into your music library isn’t exactly obvious (Yes, there’s a difference between your podcasts and your music library. If you want “The Sons of Cain” to show up with your other Ted Leo songs, it needs to be in your music library.) Here’s how you do it: Just right click on the song and click “Convert Selection to AAC”. It’ll convert it for you and put it into your music library.

Mmm… free music. Go the Current.

For those keeping score at home, indie musician Shaun Groves did not topple Amy Grant as the FreeMusicFriday.com queen. Apparently Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith still proudly hold that title, though Shaun Groves, Sara Groves (no relation) and Jake Smith managed to bring in the third most visits to FreeMusicFriday.com. There’s just no beating Amy Grant and Smitty. They’re unstoppable.

But Shaun is still cool.

His blog offers a lovely little peek behind the curtain of the contemporary Christian music world (which is something you may not want to see). His series of entries “The Jesus You Never Heard” is a great example. Basically a controversial lyric in one of his songs was causing problems for a Christian bookstore buyer and was going to be yanked from the CD. But then he does an interview for an article about it and only the inflamatory comments make it into the story, stripped of their context. And now Shaun is turning it into a separate exploration of Christian radio. Good stuff. (Be sure to catch part 4, it’s not linked from the first three parts)

Speaking of new music, you might want to check out Justin McRoberts’ version of “Amazing Grace”–you can listen to it at MySpace or buy it from iTunes.

There are a only a few songs I’m willing to listen to multiple versions of–U2’s “One” is one of them and “Amazing Grace” is another one (my dad has a CD with nothing but different versions of “Amazing Grace”–that’s a little overboard for my taste).

Justin’s version is backed with the Lily of the Valley Gospel Choir (read more about how the song came together). I got to hear it a few months back when Justin played a rare Green Bay show and we happened to be in Green Bay. He played it off his laptop for me and my first reaction was “It reminds me of ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ from Rattle & Hum.” Justin smiled.

The song is also helping to abolish modern-day slavery in a partnership with The Amazing Change. In conjunction with the new movie Amazing Grace there’s a call to become an abolitionist. Sounds like a familiar idea.

OK, so those are my words not his, but indie artist Shaun Groves (who was recently dropped from Rocketown records, basically thanks to music piracy–it’s a longer story than that, but it would take me too long to find the link–scour around at Shaun’s blog if you like, he’s got lots of insightful stuff) wants to get more downloads at MyFreeMusicFriday.com than legend Amy Grant. The song is a free mp3 download–no sign ups, no giving them your e-mail address, no nothing. Just scroll down to Shaun Groves (he’s the third artist, there at the bottom) and click on “Click here to download ‘Miss Texas'”.

And it’s only available today. So get moving.

Continue reading Shaun Groves Wants to Kick Amy Grant’s Ass →