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Tags: Hotel Music / Desires Hotels / Douglas Carrillo / Putumayo Music / → All Tags
The Rhythm Is Gonna Get You at Desires Hotels (And You'll Like It)
We know that hotels love their music offerings but not all of us enjoy that monotonous, new age electronica that is on a constant loop in hotel lobbies. Some of us like our music to have a little soul and preferably, an on/off button. But what we wouldn't mind is a musical suggestion here and there. Now at Desires Hotels you can get exactly that.
Last month Desires, a boutique hotel collection that includes The MAve in NYC, The Betsy in South Beach and The Iron Horse Hotel in Milwaukee, launched a new partnership with Putumayo Music Worldwide, a small record label that focuses on culturally authentic music from around the world.
The partnership allows guests who make a reservation online at a Desires Hotel to instantly obtain a free download and a special discount code to buy Putumayo music CDs online. The Putumayo CDs are also for sale at various places in the hotels, depending on the property. Some will feature the CDs in the minibars, others will sell them at the hotel bars or front desks.
We reached out to Douglas Carrillo, Senior Vice President and Director of Marketing for Desires Hotels, to explain why Desires chose Putumayo for this musical relationship. His answer? Putumayo and Desires both celebrate the "traveling spirit of life, music and culture."
Tags: Hotel Music / Tokyo Hotels / Park Hyatt Hotels / Hotel News / Hotel Swag / → All Tags
Tokyo's Park Hyatt Teams Up With Tastemaker For Anniversary CD
Do you know Nigo? If you are a fashion-conscious person living in Asia and clued into what's hot, then you would know that he is the current king of street style, a byproduct of founding and designing the clothing and shoe brand Bape, amongst other projects he has going on. He collects modern art, regularly hangs out with the likes of Kanye West and Pharrell, and is mobbed anywhere he goes. Naturally, a hotel is going to want a piece of this action, and the revered Park Hyatt Tokyo is the lucky recipient of a collaboration with him.
To celebrate their 15th anniversary, the Park Hyatt asked Nigo—who has spent time in the 50th floor's Tokyo Suite—to compile music tracks for a special edition CD that evokes Tokyo's mixed cultures. Hypebeast explains the direction with a bit more detail:
Tags: Hotel Music / Fairmont Hotels / → All Tags
Fairmont Hotels is Now Improving Your iPod Playlist
Where: United States
Fairmont Hotels has joined musical forces with EMI Music to get "in tune" (ha) with guests needs. A newly-launched program provides guests (well, everyone) with access to EMI's digital music catalog via The Fairmont Music Store, an online music boutique that is supposed to entice guests to join Fairmont's loyalty program to score discounts.
If you're still a fan of Coldplay, Moby, Lily Allen, Keith Urban, Katy Perry and The Beach Boys, along with other stars on the EMI label, and if you're one of the dignified few who still pays for music and you love Fairmont, then this is a lovely perk.
Discounts are for Fairmont President's Club members only, though: those in the loyalty program can get a 15% discount on music, as well as "priority access and ticketing privileges for special events and concerts featuring EMI artists." That's right, a 15% discount to listen to Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" while on your business trip or family vacation! Check it all out here.
Tags: Hotel Concerts / Hotel Music / Hotel Indigos / → All Tags
Hotel Indigo to Rock with Rocco DeLuca in Music City
We’ve mentioned our aversion to lame music on hotel websites before, and unfortunately, we all know that lobby muzak is even more prevalent — and worse, since we can’t just hit mute like we can on our computers. That said, we’re intrigued by Hotel Indigo’s new “Artists in the Spotlight” music program, which brings live music to lobby bars.
The program includes music podcasts as well as a series of free “intimate hotel performances” by four emerging artists — one for each season — at boutiquey Hotel Indigos nationwide.
Tags: Hotel Websites / Hotel Music / Vikram Chatwal / VCH Hotels / → All Tags
Finally, Hotel Website Music That Doesn't Suck
You know what's the worst? The music on hotel websites. It's a vicious cross-breed of elevator music, lounge beats and a "grown-up film" soundtrack — and since we spend an inordinate amount of time on hotel websites every day, our patience for said music is, well, thin. Very thin. On more than one occasion, we've left a tab on our browser open to the Thompson site for hours without realizing it — with the sound on — and we're certain that the music both infiltrated our dreams and kick-started a slow descent into crazytown.
However! One of us was on Vikram Chatwal's VCH Hotels' website the other day and, inexplicably, caught herself doin' a little head-bop to the music. Another one of us visited the same site this morning and, upon further discussion we both agreed that, um, we seem to have stumbled upon some hotel website music that doesn't suck. After some major Google sleuthing, we found out that the jam we're diggin' at the VCH site is a song by The Incredible Moses Leroy called "1983."
Tags: Hotel Contests / GEM Hotels / Manhattan Hotels / Hotel Music / → All Tags
GEM Hotels, Not the Holograms, Are Searching for Rockstars
Got a band and dreams of fame and grandeur? Are you looking forward to the day you can walk into a hotel lobby and hear the sweet sound of your own voice and the twang of your buddy's guitar echoing softly off the walls? Hanson gets played in Aloft lobbies (well, one Aloft lobby anyway) — isn't it time that local NYC band you've been playing in for a couple years got its moment in the sun? Yes. It is. It's time.
Get this: the GEM Hotels in NYC want to check out your band's demo (or your solo demo!). Since GEM's brand philosophy is all about reflecting the individuality of the neighborhoods surrounding each property, the hotels want local music playing in the lobbies.
To make it all happen, they've launched their "Rooms for Tunes" program, a sort of open casting call for NYC bands and solo artists who live or regularly perform in either Chelsea, Midtown and SoHo to drop off their CDs at the closest GEM property. Staffers will judge the jams through March 31, 2009, and if they like what they hear, your music will be featured on a rotating playlist in the hotel lobby and you'll score a free room night.
Drop off your CD at GEM Chelsea, GEM SoHo or GEM Midtown — and sit back and wait for the fan mail come pouring in. Or maybe wait for the hotel to call you and tell you whether you got a free room or not.
Tags: Lists / Hotels with Recording Studios / Hotel Music / Five Best Hotels / Hotel Concerts / Rock Hotels / Hotel News / → All Tags
The Five Best Hotels With Recording Studios
Imagine you are a jet-setting rock star and your label is being really pushy about getting you to lay down some new tracks for your album. But all you really want to do is be big pimpin' all over the world. Is there a way to do both? Actually there is.
A few hotels offer recording studios inside their properties, making it possible for rock stars and pop stars to take a working vacation.
Of course, you don't need to be a big time rock and pop star to book these hotel studios, you just need plenty of cash.
That means any monied up schmo can throw down a hack version of Chocolate Rain, upload it somewhere, dream of going viral, then end up on VH1's The Best Week Ever. Ah, the wonders of the new millenium.
Tags: Design Hotels / Hotel Openings / Hotel Restaurants / Hotel Music / → All Tags
Design Hotels Pet Favorite: The Hotel Screen's Different Rooms Gives Guests Different Experiences
Dipping into the new members of the design hotels group again, a new hotel in Japan has caught our attention. Opening on December 13, the Hotel Screen in historic Kyoto, north of Osaka, is a 13-room hotel that sounds pretty unique.
Hotel Screen is designed around the concept that "no two guests will have the same experience on any given night". That means that each room was designed by a different designer so you could, theoretically, spend almost two weeks getting a completely different experience each night.
As well as the varying rooms, guests can experience the open-air sky lounge (kind of a fancy name for a garden with seats, we suppose) and buy the hotel's very own soundtrack CD.
Once a week, in a nod to the environment, the restaurant in Screen has "Candle Night" to save electricity, although presumably the kitchen still operates in full light. They turn out "Kyoto nouvelle cuisine" which is a mix of traditional Kyoto-style food and French cuisine.
It's probably pretty tasty, but you just won't be able to to see it so well if you happen to eat there on Candle Night.
Related Stories:
· Way to Go Jeronimos 8 [HotelChatter]
· Hotels in Kyoto [HotelChatter]
· Screen Out Loud [iTraveliShop]
Tags: Hotel News / Starwood Hotels / Hotel Music / Hotel Technology / → All Tags
Starwood Inks Deal With Sony BMG for In-Room Music Playlists
Soon, only Sony BMG artists will be playing from these Starwood-owned iPods.
iTunes may have a monopoly selling music online, but other music execs, and their crafty marketing people have plenty of tricks up their sleeves like targeting hotel guests.
The latest trick is an exclusive partnership between Sony BMG Entertainment and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide. Under the agreement, Sony BMG will produce song playlists tailored to individual properties, digital music stores, $20 compilation albums, live and VIP performances and, oh, a free in-room VH1-esque TV channel.
The first brands in the Starwood Empire to receive musical royal treatment are stateside Sheratons, W Hotels, Westins, Four Points, Le Meridiens, St. Regis and Luxury Collection brands. If all goes well, the program will go global later this year.
Related Stories:
· Sony BMG, Starwood Hotels in harmony on music pact [Reuters]
Tags: Party Dispatch / Hotel Parties / Hotel Music / Hotel Bands / → All Tags
Party Dispatch: Ben Watt at the Hudson Hotel
[Ed. Note: Contributing Editor PBB has been very busy lately...partying. Here's the first of two Party Dispatches for us.]
Went by the Hudson Hotel on Monday to check out a set by Ben Watt, who's half of Everything but the Girl. It was super loud--which is a good thing--and had quite a club vibe for a sunset show. Pretty good crowd, too.
Rumor is that another show in the hotel's Private Park is coming up in two weeks, but don't see anything on the Giant Step website about it.
Related Stories:
· Party Dispatch :: Johnny Utah's Opens at the Rockefeller Center Hotel [HotelChatter]
Tags: Hotel Technology / Hyatt Hotels / Hotel Music / → All Tags
Hyatt's iPod Docks Not Music to Guests' Ears
The FlyerTalk.com message forums are not just for flying talk: there are plenty of threads on hotels. This can be the perfect place to find out, for instance, what others think about the latest hotel tech item, like Hyatt Hotel's "aren't we hip" iPod docks. (Never mind those XM radios that were going to be in all rooms starting in 2005.)
The iPod docks are also the alarm clocks, which you know is going to be trouble for people who just want to wake up in time for their flight. Sure enough, here are a few choice comments from this thread.
· "It appears that my 3rd gen iPod isn't fully compatible. It stops playing after one song, and I can't control the iPod through the dials on the clock.
· "Didn't use it, sound quality sucked."
·"Where did your husband find the dimmer control? I stayed at the Greenwich property last week, and, after 15 minutes of trying every conceivable option (or so I thought), called the operator, who said they receive loads of complaints every night. I declined her offer to send "engineering" to my room to sort it out. Miserable excuse for an alarm clock."
Even if it worked really well though, it could still be trouble in hotels with thin walls. As one poster commented, "Oh Joy, I get to hear 'Frampton Comes alive - remastered' coming from my neighbor's room while he takes a shower."
Your experience may differ. If it does and you really love it, you can buy one from Hyatt for $99.
Tags: Hotel Music / Hotel Staff / Manhattan Hotels / → All Tags
Hotel Pianists Have Feelings, and Blogs Too
[Update 2.8.07: The blog has been removed from Blogspot, so we have removed the now broken link.]
We stumbled across a lovely little blog called the Hotel Pianist, written from the perspective of a female pianist in her early 30s who makes a living playing a baby grand in the small lobby bar of an NYC hotel. She doesn't reveal her locale, but with just the tiniest bit of Web research we were able to figure out her not-so-secret venue--Hotel Giraffe.
It's not easy being a hotel pianist. You are usually invisible, but if you are seen at all, it's usually as an object of ridicule. And in one of life's great ironies, a musician is often paid more to play music that people don't listen to than music they do.
There's a wealth of stories here about crappy guests, weirdos who wander in everyday and people with annoying requests. Even staff members--clueless bartenders and bellhops who keep the door open so cold air blows in--get on this pianist's nerves. Posts to look forward to are the "Comment of the Night" posts like this one: "'Look, someone's actually going to play that thing,' said one particularly enlightened guest when I sat down on the piano bench after a break." And personnel changes where she details which clueless bartender was hired and which annoying bellhop was fired.
Of course, after reading nearly every blog post posted over the past year, we were desperate to figure out what hotel this pianist was playing at. Suffice to say, there is a way of determining the hotel based on a post she made last summer. So the next time you are strollling down Park Ave South or hitting up dinner at Dos Caminos, pop into the Hotel Giraffe and show some appreciation for this hotel pianist. She deserves it after dealing with Trumpet Nose and requests from the musical "Annie."
Related Stories:
· Hotel Giraffe review [TripAdvisor]
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