Win a Sony GIGA JUKE in our competition!

Domestic bliss: check out Time Out's suggestions for some mood-themed playlists.

Tune for your mood

Have you ever been getting ready to go out for the evening, listening to a slick slice of northern soul, only to have someone march into the room and switch the CD to a spot of rocking Fall Out Boy? Apart from the lipstick ’n’ shaving foam fight that might possibly ensue, it just ruins the mood, doesn’t it?

Fear not, because all those ‘your music/my music’ arguments can now be resolved without anyone having to resort to headphones, and this domestic peace treaty comes in the form of the Sony GIGA JUKE digital music player.

These days most of us are pretty savvy about sorting our music digitally, but being able to play different tracks on different speakers, all simultaneously coming from one main unit turns the leisure pursuit of listening to music into a twenty-first century pleasure. And if you’re the person who can never decide how you want your music to be filed, the 27 different ways in which your music can be organised can even turn that pleasure into ecstasy!

Sony’s GIGA JUKE is much more than a digital music player. It spreads music throughout the home and acts as the hub for all your music
– and you don’t even need a computer to make the system work (although it will play your PC’s music files too).

The main unit has an 80GB hard drive built in, which can store up to 40,000 MP3 tracks. And as the device can rip CDs at a speed of up to 16x, converting your library to digital needn’t take an age. What’s more, the machine links up to the music database GraceNote and automatically labels all your albums as you rip them.

Where you put the main unit is up to you. Because it’s a multi-room system, it can play the same music through more than one set of speakers – so if you want to wander between living room and bedroom, no problem. Because it’s digital, the GIGA JUKE can supply different music to speakers in up to five different rooms at the same time. And since wi-fi is built into the server and the speaker station, it transmits the music wirelessly, substantially reducing the spaghetti quotient. As well as tracks from the hard drive, the main server can also play CDs, has an FM/AM/DAB radio tuner and an iPod dock.

The system is easy to set up and use, with a large, 4.3 inch colour screen to guide you through your music. You can opt to play music by a particular artist, from a special year or choose a mood for a bunch of songs with the same feel. Or you can use the xDJ program to create playlists for you.

As you’d expect from Sony, the audio quality through the digital amplifier is exceptional and the unit’s styling is sleek and sexy. Unlike some music servers, this is one you’d be happy to have in your living room.

Now the only problem will be deciding what to listen to!

www.sony.co.uk/gigajuke

Win!

Win a Sony GIGA JUKE in our competition!

I’ve been dumped

Kate Hutchinson

Kelis ‘Caught Out There’
The ultimate in empowering, post-dump R&B ranting. Perfect to throw plates to.

Azure Ray ‘Safe And Sound’
Hushed, almost choked vocals from the Nebraskan dream-pop duo, who reveal that ‘Love is how it’s lost, not how it’s found’. Sob.

The Black Ghosts ‘Some Way Through This’ (Plastician & Skream remix)
Post-Simian duo get a sub-bassline overhaul from two of dubstep’s big players.

Elbow ‘Grounds For Divorce’
Nobody drowns their sorrows (in hard Irish liquor, preferably) better than Guy Garvey and co.

Elliott Smith ‘Everything Reminds Me Of Her’
Move over Leonard Cohen – here’s the real king of sorrow plucking a true ode to loss.

I’m hungover

Sharon O’Connell

The Offspring ‘The Worst Hangover Ever’
‘And by my seventh shot I was invincible,’ yells Dexter Holland in this all-too-recognisable tale.

Huey Lewis And The News ‘I Want A New Drug’
Sometimes, paracetamol simply isn’t strong enough.

Dixie Chicks ‘Bloody Mary Morning’
Whatever your tipple, this tale of drowned sorrows will strike a familiar chord.

Annie Lennox ‘Through The Glass Darkly’
Even Buddhist vegetarians once found solace in booze, it seems.

Republic Of Loose ‘Sweet Cola Of Mercy’
These Irish boozers know that sugar and caffeine can work a treat.

I wanna chill out

Chris Parkin

Tangerine Dream ‘Phaedra’
Just under 20 minutes of beanbag-friendly music from the hairy Teutonic synth masters.

Bon Iver ‘Skinny Love’
Drift into a better, much sweeter world with the finest country-soul falsetto there is right now.

Brian Eno ‘1/2’
Ambient lullaby from the master of cerebral sound textures. Café Del Mar this ain’t.

Jamie T ‘Calm Down Dearest’
A loping, strings-augmented paean to giving your troubled, worrisome mind a rest for five minutes.

Fuck Buttons ‘Sweet Love For Planet Earth’
Let their foreboding drones and Lynchian mutterings plunge you into nightmare, or their blissful, river-clear melodies lift you up.

I’m in love

Bella Todd

Van Morrison ‘The Way That Young Lovers Do’
A skittering off-beat, party horns and drunken vocal capture all the dizzy intoxication of young love.

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds ‘I Let Love In’
The peerless prober of disturbing passions cowers in a corner as Love comes knocking.

Adem ‘Love And Other Planets’
Adem gets all metaphysical to the warm drone of a harmonium.

The Smiths ‘Hand In Glove’
The sun shines out of Morrissey’s behind on this legendary debut as he expresses the smugness of reciprocal love.

Kylie Minogue ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’
Does exactly what it says on the tin.

I want to party

Jonathan Lennie

‘Carmina Burana’
Carl Orff’s 1930s take on the Middle Ages – more ‘The Omen’ than Old Spice – comprises songs of eating, drinking, fornicating and being held hostage to fortune.

‘Ode To Joy’
The finale to Beethoven’s ninth and final symphony, where he broke the rules and introduced singing. It brought down the Berlin Wall and continues to unite the European Union.

‘Tannhäuser’ Overture
If you aren’t throwing shapes when the horns start pumping in this introduction to Richard Wagner’s opera, then you just don’t have it on loud enough.

'The Blue Danube’
Strauss’s waltz has had them dancing in Vienna for 150 years.

‘Jerusalem’
Elgar’s arrangement of Parry’s suffragette anthem has caused rowdy behaviour at the Last Night of the Proms since the ’20s.

Win!