National Jukebox News

New for 2012!

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 21:06:59 GMT

New playlists, featured artists and songs!

Now Playing -- "Eclectic Acoustic" -- a veritable Victor mash-up of melodies. Hear stirring bands and rousing choruses, delightful vaudeville-style comedy, opera, ragtime, and New Orleans jazz.

New Playlist -- "Comic Affairs of the Heart," offering a lighthearted and somewhat irreverent mix of songs about love, matrimony, and entanglement.

Record of the Week -- Visit the Library of Congress Recorded Sound Reference Center Homepage and check out a new pick each week! Visit http://www.loc.gov/rr/record

In this release we've also corrected the search function to retrieve terms with diacritics.

Latest From the National Jukebox

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 19:41:23 GMT

We've recently added some new content to the National Jukebox:

--an all new Features page that includes a piece on the Stroh Violin and a slide show of Victor advertising from the accoustical era: http://www.loc.gov/jukebox/features

-- a Civil War playlist commemorating the 150th anniversary of the War Between the States:
http://www.loc.gov/jukebox/playlists/detail/id/41

Jukebox On-the-Air ... The Jukebox was the subject of WAMU's "Kojo Nnamdi Show" on October 25, 2011 ... you can hear the archived show "Preserving Music in the Digital Age" at http://thekojonnamdishow.org/

Coming Soon ... The National Jukebox "Record of the Week" selected by our panel of experts. Visit the Homepage of the Library of Congress' Recorded Sound Reference Center to check it out:
http://www.loc.gov/rr/record/

The National Jukebox is a Hit!

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 19:44:54 GMT

Response to the launch of the National Jukebox has been tremendous. In the first three weeks we've had an estimated 2.6 million page views, 356,000 visitors and 738,000 streams of music played. One of the most requested songs on the site to date has been 'Wreck of the Old 97" by Vernon Dalhart (http://www.loc.gov/jukebox/recordings/detail/id/10024)

There has been lots of media coverage of the National Jukebox, and the Twitter traffic has been amazing. We're happy to report that Rachel Maddow featured the National Jukebox on her TV show's May 11th segment of "The Best New Thing In the World Today."

Due to the overwhelming traffic during our first week, the site had a few technical glitches. Most of these have now been fixed, so if you experienced any problems, please try again.

We've also had a flood of e-mails since launch. If you sent an email to jukebox@loc.gov and haven't received a response back, we apologize. We're working our way through the backlog.

For a laugh, checkout this classic monologue from 1908 "No news, or what killed the dog" by the vaudeville comedian Nat M. Wills http://www.loc.gov/jukebox/recordings/detail/id/1539

Stay tuned for more National Jukebox news,

The National Jukebox Team

Debut of the National Jukebox

Mon, 09 May 2011 18:46:10 GMT

We are proud to announce the debut of the National Jukebox, a free, online recording library where you can listen to music and spoken word from some of the first recordings bought by the public.

The Jukebox is launching with over 10,000 recordings made between 1901 and 1925 by the Victor Talking Machine Company. The recordings include instrumental solos, bands and orchestras, popular songs, dramatic readings, opera excerpts, and many more genres.

And that's just the beginning. We'll be adding new recordings all the time, so check back frequently.

Listening to the Jukebox is like eavesdropping on the past, when styles of music, accents and ways of speaking, and even ideas about humor and what is culturally acceptable were different from today. For this reason, you may encounter offensive language. Please read and understand our disclaimer (http://www.loc.gov/jukebox/about/disclaimer).

We invite you to explore the Jukebox, find and play music of the most popular artists of 100 years ago, explore the roots of many of today's musical forms, and create playlists and share them with us and your friends. To help you get started, visit the First Time Here page (http://www.loc.gov/jukebox/first-time-here).

We'll keep you posted,
The National Jukebox Team
at the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation