While we're geeking out about all things Magnetic Fields… did you all hear about the Project Song piece that Stephin Merritt did?

The NPR folks asked him to write a song in 48 hours and up'd the challenge by giving him with a few things the song had to have (certain words or images). From there dear Stephin wrote and recorded a song and NPR has the whole thing up on the NPR site for us to see and hear what happened. It is amazing!

Project Song is a cool component of a major announcement NPR made yesterday. NPR has pulled together with other great non-profit radio stations (KEXP, KPLU and ten other acclaimed radio stations) to launch NPR Music, a new, free, comprehensive multimedia music discovery Web site at www.NPR.org/music. The collective project will feature on-air and online content pulled from KEXP, KPLU, NPR and all participating stations, as well as original materials such as interviews, reviews, blogs and live performances.

KEXP's exclusive Studio Sessions, live concerts and music lists will be featured on the NPR Music site. NPR Music also offers original video and audio features.  Some of the other new elements include:

Project Song – a video feature challenging songwriters to write and record an original song in two days at the NPR studios.  The first participant is songwriter Stephin Merritt, to be followed by indie band Georgie James

Studio Sessions – in-studio audio and video performances recorded at NPR and Member stations

Discover Songs – audio stories about, and recommendations for, individual songs

Music Lists – five-song listening sets curated by musicians and public radio music personalities

Coinciding with the launch of NPR Music. It is a media player exclusive to NPR that allows users to create a playlist for audio or video (dating from 2004 to present) on the site and makes recommendations for related content depending on a user’s selections.  It's like having a record store clerk right there on your computer pointing you in the right direction.