Sonos Play:1 goes kind of blue for Blue Note Records’ 75th

By Ryan Waniata Published October 25, 2016

In celebration of iconic jazz label Blue Note Records’ 75th anniversary, Sonos has gone blue. A limited edition of the company’s stalwart Play:1 speaker, the entry point to the Sonos empire, now dons a shiny coat of paint that fades from navy to cerulean blue for the occasion. As a bonus, Sonos is also offering an exclusive playlist specially curated by some of today’s seminal jazz artists.

Related: Samsung’s new audio lab creates gorgeous multi-room speaker pods

Recommended Videos

The Play:1’s specially-crafted color shift should be enough to turn some heads on its own. The breakaway from Sonos’ traditional color scheme is meant to be a shout-out to the so-called “blue notes” of jazz, those that venture into melodic micro-tone realms that standard popular music dares not follow.

But more exciting to the jazzers among us will be the new exclusive curated playlist from Blue Note. The iconic label that has been home to jazz legends like Thelonius Monk and John Coltrane will provide the track list for a new Artists Select station, which will proffer tunes hand-picked by current Blue Note artists, including Robert Glasper, Jose James, Terence Blanchard, Ambrose Akinmusire, Lionel Loueke, and Don Was.

The new exclusive station will show up on Sonos’ intuitive centralized app, joining two other Sonos exclusive stations from Blue Note that all Sonos owners landed in October, including Born in Blue and Blue Note 101. But those looking for the hand-picked favorites from the artists above will have to go blue to get them and cough up a $250 asking price, $50 above the normal Play:1 pricing.

If you’ve got an eye for the new Blue Notes Play:1, you’ll have to act fast once the speaker hits the market, as Sonos claims only around 4,000 of these blue bombers will be made. And just to keep your ear a little longer, Sonos has not yet offered a release date, indicating the news will be unveiled in the coming weeks. To be notified when the speakers arrive, you can sign-up for an email notification at Sonos’ website.

This post originally appeared on our brother site Digital Trends.

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Ryan Waniata is an audio engineer, musician, composer, and all-around lover of all things tech, audio, and cinema. Hailing…

Culture

A Tom Hanks dad movie masterpiece is getting a sequel

Hanks is writing the script for the film, and much of the cast is expected to return

Tom Hanks in Greyhound

Tom Hanks has starred in some of the best movies ever made, but he's not an actor who only works on high-brow prestige projects. Thankfully, he's also made plenty of down-the-middle, action-adjacent movies over the course of his career, and one of the finest is Greyhound.

Now, Deadline is reporting that Greyhound is getting a sequel, with Hanks set to return. In the original movie, Hanks plays Navy veteran and first-time captain Ernie Krause who is assigned to lead an Allied convoy across the Atlantic during World War II. As he is tailed by German U-boats, he becomes embroiled in the most significant sea battle of the war, the Battle of the Atlantic.

Culture

The best suspense movies you can watch on Netflix

These titles are sure to leave you on the edge of your seat until the credits roll

Aaron Pierre in Rebel Ridge.

Suspense is not really a genre, at least not on its own terms. And yet, when you're watching a suspenseful movie, you recognize the sensation almost instantly. Netflix, for its part, has a pretty outstanding lineup of suspenseful movies that are all available to you at the click of a button.

While not all of these movies were heavy-hitters with awards bodies, many of them should have been. They're incredibly well made, in addition to being smart and sometimes pulpy genre fare.

Culture

The best true crime shows that you can binge now

From documentaries to drama series, these are the very best true crime shows.

Daisy Edgar Jones in Under the Banner of Heaven

Over the past 20 years, true crime has become one of the defining genres of our time. There are dozens of podcasts, movies, and especially TV series devoted to the topic, so much so that it can be hard to figure out which ones are actually worth your time.

True crime has become so popular that the best shows in this genre have even garnered awards attention, although more shows have been nominated than have actually won major awards.