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Popularity: 4% [?]

I remember the scene in Forest Gump where Forest meets the President of the USA. He shakes hands, moves around the room and has his picture taken. It was probably one of the most technically difficult shots in the film. American Idol have done that, live, in 3D, in front of an audience, BETTER. I looked at this film twice and I’m still very impressed. It’s a tech masterpiece.
Now that’s entertainment.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC2K_fgy8Nc]

 Thanks to Robyn for this awesome find. 

Popularity: 5% [?]

This month’s David Byrne Radio play list is nearly at an end. But not ended yet and it’s damn interesting. He writes a little essay on the theme for the month as well:

Vox Humana

This is the Latin phrase for the human voice, for a stop on pipe organs and is [I believe] the title of a play by Cocteau that features a distraught woman talking to her lover on a telephone. I’ve recently stumbled on a bunch of wonderful recent recordings that feature spoken word or the human voice manipulated in various ways — it almost makes me think this might be a time when this vague genre might be flourishing. Really exciting and sometimes funny stuff. Not quite singing, most of the time, but definitely musical.

Your ears will thank you and your friends will be impressed by your knowledge of this odd musical genre. My problem is where to get most of the stuff on this play list . Who stocks Casino Lost by Philip Bimstein? (eMusic seem to have some of it.)

Go here, hit play, copy the playlist.

ps. David Byrne is definitely worth checking out. As a musician and as a thinker.

Popularity: 3% [?]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g-yrjh58ms]

Read more about Keepon the dancing robot on the Engadget blog.

Popularity: 8% [?]

I just read Brian Cain’s Year Zero blog post down at Campfire, and I liked it so much I completely stole and reproduced it below. I was happy to note that Brian uncovered 42 Entertainment as the force behind some of these very creative and media-blurring ideas.

Nine Inch Nails have a nice arg style campaign going on currently to support the new album “Year Zero” that will be released on April 16th.

It’s well done by the folks over at 42 Entertainment and, more importantly, goes along with our entire motto of blurring the line between marketing and entertainment.

As Trent Reznor puts it, “What you are now starting to experience IS ‘year zero’. It’s not some kind of gimmick to get you to buy a record - it IS the art form…”

That’s the secret guys…eyeballs are no longer captive to forcefed taglines and images of shiny products in the noon day sun. If you wanna connect with your audience you have to approach them with something they want to see.

It’s working for Year Zero in a big way. And even more interesting is the fan made materials that are starting to appear. This homemade clip for one of the new songs off the album holds just as much power as the official video that was released a few days ago.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dcOiKASXyk]

- stolen from Brain Cain’s Year Zero post at Campfire.

Popularity: 3% [?]

cold_elf wants you to share pretty things you’ve made at The Bruise.

the bruise is a magazine.
the bruise = sound + image + word.
the bruise likes you.
the bruise seeks your input.
the bruise will never hurt.
the bruise believes in art as a powerful and unifying tool for mutual support.

The Bruise is an interdisciplinary, collaborative research and production environment that will explore the intersections between art, sound, interactivity, intermedia and virtual space. The Bruise is your friendly contusion, your fibrous abundant quota. We go 50-50 with you. We seek to share, support and exchange ideas, images, sounds in the spirit of the FREE CULTURE - The mission of the Free Culture movement is to build a bottom-up, participatory structure to society and culture, rather than a top-down, closed, proprietary structure. A good example is the current “open source” development. What is posted on The Bruise will never be for sale or valued monetarily within the planned economy. The Bruise wants your to participate and help establish in a different paradigm - New World Economy, one that supports the nurturing of a sustainable ecology, human rights, and a culture not rooted in domination, egotism, and competition.

Popularity: 2% [?]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsyWlcQAy-Q]

1,287 hits. That’s how many people have viewed this abc news footage of a bald Britney Spears entering a Tattoo parlor in Southern California. Now normally I don’t care much about Ms. Spears, but I am interested in viral videos. I am curious how long it will take from now (10:30am EST, Feb 17) for this video to get over a million hits, and then jump into the top 10. It happened Friday night, which may slow it down a bit, but by Monday (at the latest) this is going to catch fire. Actually, she looks kinda cool with a shaved head.

Update: 284,613 in less than 90 minutes!

Update: 3:00pm Sunday February 18th, this video is well over a million hits. It is also the number one viral video on the ViralVideoChart, and Vidmeter. How long will it take to reach 10 million?
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Popularity: 4% [?]

I subscribed to eMusic.com a couple of weeks ago. They’re running a promotion where, if you sign up, you get 25 free songs to try the system out and if you cancel you don’t pay a cent. If you do decide to hand over your hard earned cash you pay 33 cents a song. Not the 99 cents at another certain i-Site. There are a lot of pluses and one or two minuses to this site.

On the plus. NO DRM (digital rights management). Yes, we get treated like people and not thieves at this site. You can put the songs on all your machines, on your iPod and back them up without going through hell. Surprisingly I haven’t shared one song I’ve bought from the site. For 33 cents you can get it yourself you cheapo.

They have a massive library of albums. The charts stretch down to about 7000 albums (over 1 million songs). Which is fairly amazing and incredibly daunting if you have no way of searching through it. Most people know a few bands they like and typically want more of that style. So if you find your band, emusic has a small, yet powerful, list of related bands on the right. Who came before, who is their contemporary and who followed them. Very important when you can buy albums back to the 1930’s. Who influenced who is incredibly important in the fresh music search. It’s all cross referenced.

Then you have the typical “what other people who liked this album liked”. This links into a brilliant Neighbours and Friends system that tracks people with a statistically similar taste to you which helps you stumble over more treasure.

They have an Emusic Magazine which highlights interesting stuff in the vaults as well as an eMusic Dozen section. This is where journalists and people who spend more time with music than I ever will collect twelve great songs or albums, explain why they’re interesting and how they’re linked and, again, kick up some really interesting finds.
The site has a simple app that you download to your machine that handles the file transfers. Fast and clean in my experience.

You can obviously preview all the music. This is where I find the system a bit crap. I run a mac so it may just be my problem. But it insists on downloading a streaming Quicktime file before I can listen to the clips. I’ve found that using Songbird to surf eMusic gets rid of this. That’s because Songbird can play all sorts of media files through the browser instead of using separate apps. Very convenient.

They don’t seem to get all the pop music releases right away. Which is fine. iTunes can do that and if I need it I’ll get it there. eMusic makes the history of music available to me and that is incredibly decent of them. Especially since I’ve stopped listening to the radio and being a teenager. Anything older than a year or as “obscure” as Bloc Party can be found pretty damn easily. And the hip hop and electronic sections are (probably because they have modern distribution plans) very cool.

I’ve barely mentioned all the ways that eMusic helps you expand your musical horizons. Interviews, history, profiles etc etc etc. I recommend the site for audiophiles (name a genre you obscure bastard, I dare you) of all sorts and people who like a cool track.

I’ve found Deerhoof “Friend Opportunity”, The Black Keys “ThickFreakness”, Dudley Perkins “Whassup World” off “Chrome Children” and I have a few new ones I’m thinking about. I dare you to try the same blind music hunt on iTunes.

eMusic

Popularity: 6% [?]

This is my favourite movie of recent memory: a documentary about a crazy genius. The rise and fall and leveling out of a creative soul who suffered greatly with mental illness, struggled with demons, and created reams of fantastic raw music, art, animation, and film because he had no other alternative. I’ve been a Daniel Johnston fan since 1993, when Kurt Cobain was wearing his “Hi, How Are You” t-shirt to every Nirvana photoshoot, and I never fully realized how messed up and mythological Dan’s life really was. He joined a carnival, he crashed an airplane, he sneaked onto MTV. Amazing.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qtFPOxDMs4]
Now go buy it or rent it. You can also find a lot of Daniel’s music DRM free at eMusic.

Popularity: 2% [?]

A haven for long-forgotten (and perhaps best-left forgotten) music videos from the 1980s… everything from punk to new wave to metal to Ricky Gervais. My oh my, how far we’ve come. Gerry Todd would be so proud!

Popularity: 33% [?]