Being an avid music listener and sometimes a self proclaimed trendsetter I am always scouring the blogosphere for that next best thing. I realized I must be lacking in that department, as this story only came into my periphery 3 years too late. But nevertheless, I am glad to share this with everyone. Music blog Stereogum has been teaming up with Australian music producer and mashup artist team9, to produce yearly mashup albums of the best tracks from that respective year and a few oldies. As they like to describe them, these ‘bastard pop’ albums are a real treat; free downloadable quality music. Here is a retrospective look at the last 4 years:
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MySplice 3: 2008 Mashed Up 1 “Britney Gets Bloc-ed” (Britney Spears “Womanizer” vs Bloc Party “Mercury”) 2 “B.F. Meets T.I.” (Ben Folds Feat. Regina Spektor “You Don’t Know Me” vs T.I. “U Don’t Know Me”) 3 “Good After Time” (Lykke Li “I’m Good I’m Gone” vs Cyndi Lauper “Time After Time”) 4 “Albert And Katy Sitting In A Tree” (Albert Hammond Jr. “GFC” vs Katy Perry “I Kissed A Girl”) 5 “Debbie Does Montreal” (Blondie “Call me” vs of Montreal “Id Engager”) 6 “Bang On A Milli” (Lil Wayne “A Milli” vs The Breeders “Bang On”) 7 “Lockdown Shelter” (Kanye West “Love Lockdown” Vs. The Rolling Stones “Gimme Shelter”) 8 “Disturbed Youth” (Rihanna “Disturbia” vs Beck “Youthless”) 9 “Killer Mirror” (The Killers “Human” vs Arcade Fire “Black Mirror”) 10 “Crystal Holiday” (Crystal Castles “Magic Spells” vs Naughty By Nature “Holiday”) 11 “The Sound Of Roses” (Human Highway “The Sound” vs Guns N’ Roses “Paradise City” vs Stone Roses “Waterfall” vs Extreme “More than Words”)
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MySplice 2: 2007 Mashed Up 1 “It’s A Sweet Ghost Party” – (Band Of Horses vs. Guns N’ Roses vs. 2 Live Crew) 2 “M.I.A.-Team” – (M.I.A. vs. The A-Team Theme) 3 “Smalltown Apology” – (One Republic vs. Bronski Beat) 4 “Roc Knife” – (Jay-Z vs. Grizzly Bear) 5 “A Forest Prayer” – (Bloc Party vs. The Cure) 6 “Loose Dancing” – (Bangers & Cash vs. The Bee Gees) 7 “My Man My Bomb” – (Feist vs. New Young Pony Club) 8 “Smokey Fire” – (Arcade Fire vs. Smokey Robinson vs. The Gunsmoke Theme) 9 “Countdown To Girls” – (Europe vs. Sean Kingston vs. Calvin Harris) 10 “Ratatat Under Ether” – (Ratatat vs. PJ Harvey)
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MySplice: 2006 Mashed Up 1 “Swan Together” (Thom Yorke vs. The Beatles) 2 “Lets Make Love And Listen To Junior Boys” (CSS vs. Junior Boys) 3 “Daddy And The Thief” (Wolfmother vs. Gnarls Barkley) 4 “Cold War Fiasco” (Cold War Kids vs. Lupe Fiasco vs. Lily Allen) 5 “Silent Saints” (The Knife vs. U2 & Green Day vs. Spank Rock) 6 “Big School” (Hot Chip vs. Peter Gabriel) 7 “When Will My Cheated Heart” (Yeah Yeah Yeahs vs. Diana Ross) 8 “Flaming Clipse” (Flaming Lips vs. Clipse) 9 “Roscoe Eyes” (Midlake vs. Jimi Hendrix) 10 “Young Cats” (Peter Bjorn And John vs. The Cure)
Just in time for last summer, new MGMT video for their single ‘Kids’. Watch as they scare a poor baby with monsters and then explode to a psychedelic animation orchestrated by the likes of Wonder Showzen.
Perhaps they should have just given the kid this monster head kiddie car, this is one scare you can’t get away from.
Remember those days of watching scrambled porn and under-buffered online videos? Well, those days are over. But you can still relive them with Kanye West’s new video for “Welcome to Heartbreak”
Can’t get enough of this vid. Wonder how much production went into this (or how little).
One of my favorite sites, Last.fm is getting ready to roll out a new redesigned website. The new beta version of the site is looking very fresh. Imagine if Facebook and Last.fm got married and had kids, that is what the new site looks like. There is more emphasis in the music player and sharing of music with friends. All the information is more neatly organized and easier to find. The shoutbox has also been made bigger and placed at the bottom of all your charts, very similar to Facebook. And how can I forget the news feed ala Facebook style too.
Last.fm’s blog stated:
“Three main concepts driving the UI and feature development for this next-generation Last.fm are: play music, share music, and add music. We’ve focused on making these three things easier for everyone to enjoy, even your mum. You’ve probably noticed the robust new player at the top of every page—hopefully no more digging around for play buttons and radio stations, and music pages are re-positioned for sharing that music with a friend, or saving it to your library.”
The new design is looking very promising. It is still on its early stages and will go through many changes before it is released. Last.fm is also looking for user’s input to make it better, so make sure to check out the beta version once you log in to your account.
You’ve heard right. Music pioneers, Radiohead are at it again. This time they’re not giving away free albums but making music videos without the use of video cameras. Their newest video for “House of Card’s” from the album “In Rainbows” was captured utilizing new multimedia technologies, Geometric Informatics and Velodyne Lidar. Geowhat?! That’s what I was asking myself. Apparently:
The Geometric Informatics scanning system employs structured light to capture detailed 3D images at close proximity, and was used to render the performances of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, the female lead, and several partygoers. The Velodyne Lidar system uses multiple lasers to capture large environments in 3D, in this case 64 lasers rotating and shooting in a 360 degree radius 900 times per minute, capturing all of the exterior scenes and wide party shots.
Please pick up your jaw at this moment and proceed to scratch head. Yeah, pretty geeky if you ask me but extremely awesome. What does this translate to? A very atmospheric, trippy and dream like animation. Check out the video here:
Radiohead – House of Cards
Click here to watch behind the scenes on how the video was made.
We are truly living in an exciting period. We are about to experience a major transition that will shake the very foundation of all music labels, music consumers and sharers around the globe. I am talking about the dawn of Music 2.0 as coined by Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey. Music 2.0 refers to the transition from conventional business models to new not yet proven models based revolving around the internet and most importantly file sharing. Only until now have music executives started to realize that file sharing is actually beneficial to the industry. They have yet to implement a working model where sharing of files is possible while still making a revenue.
That is exactly where Sony BMG, Warner Music and Universal have stepped in to make it possible. They have partnered with MySpace to create the MySpace Music service, yet another iTunes killer. It will offer DRM-free downloads, paid for videos, free music streaming and a host of music-related activities like tickets sales and music merchandise. Shaaaweet!
The internet is where the future lies for the music industry. Guess who the biggest dealer of music in the nation is? It’s not Tower Records or Sam Goody (both defunct). It’s not Target, Amazon, or Wal-Mart. Not anymore. The number one is Apple’s own online store, iTunes.
EMI, one of the top music labels took a bold step on Thursday and hired Douglas Merrill, Google’s former Chief of Information, to run the label’s digital unit. Mr. Merrill has no prior experience with the music industry but he understands the internet and the role it will play in the upcoming years.
According to CNet “record companies are going to have to morph into smaller entities that represent fewer acts and then oversee their total output: music, video, concerts, and merchandise.”
Record companies will still play a big role in the game but only if they play their cards right. We have seen several artists breaking away from their labels and embrace the power of the internet to distribute their music.
In the words of Greg Sandoval from CNet: Long live Music 2.0!
