Trent Reznor has written a very intelligent, thoughtful piece on marketing your band. If you want to make it in this relatively new world of rampant digital piracy, you have to approach the market in a different way.
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Caution: none of these links are safe for work. One has a photo of RuPaul. Be safe.
Christian Bale recently got, um, peeved, when the DP ruined another scene on the set of Terminator 4 by walking through it. Not one to waste such great material from a talented artist, music producer Lucian Piane turns lemons into lemonade. By which I mean he turns profanity into a club hit.
You can download the Bale Out MP3 here.
Tags: christian bale, music video
This weekend I watched Meet Bill and Cashback on Netflix downloads. Meet Bill has a great cast, but they’re tied to a messy plot with an unfulfilling ending. It’s also a bit gayer than was strictly necessary. I would have been better off watching American Beauty for the seventh time. Cashback has some hot naked chicks, and while I can relate with the protagonist’s (and director’s, I’m sure) obsession with the beauty of the female form, there wasn’t a lot of there, there. Here, I should have rewatched Art School Confidential. Neither are terrible films, but you can find better. Even on Netflix downloads.1
But coincidentally, both films included Royksopp’s What Else Is There? in their soundtracks. This is a great mid-tempo electronic song with ethereal vocals, so I include it here for your enjoyment:
- Netflix’s download selection is notoriously subpar, especially if you discount the classics. Illustrating this, one commenter on IMDB, complaining about Meet Bill, wrote “now I know why it was available for download”. [↩]
Tags: cashback, meet bill, music video, netflix, royksopp, soundtracks
Killing Joke’s tourdates appear to be firmed up finally for the US. Stops are as follows:
10/9: House of Blues, LA (8pm)
10/11 and 10/12: Fillmore East (the venue formerly known as Irving Plaza), NYC (9pm)
10/14: House of Blues, Chicago (7:30pm)
Tickets available via TicketBastardMaster.
(nb.: Tickets for the Irving Plaza show are SRO, and are priced $25; not sure about the others, as I don’t live within striking distance of Chicago or LA)
Tags: concerts, Killing Joke, tours
ZBalance got me thinking. In a recent comment thread, he lamented that he hated top 20 radio, but was concerned his kids wouldn’t.
I find that the older get, the more stuff I like. But top 20? My first thought was, “hell, no”, but I figured I’d better check. So I headed over to Billboard Top 100 and had a look-see.
There was nothing in the top 10 I liked, which satisfied the music snob in me. It’s almost entirely R&B, which is not really my thing. But I continued on and, damnit, I found stuff I didn’t hate:
12. Rihanna – Don’t Stop The Music
Standard club hit, and to be honest, I’ve always liked good house music and club hits. Henry Rollins described industrial dance as house music done right. Obviously I prefer industrial, but I know catchy when I hear it.
13. OneRepublic – Stop And Stare
14. Timbaland Featuring OneRepublic – Apologize
OneRepublic is what I call “Smallville music”. Smallville uses a lot of catchy pop music and has even released two albums. Much of it is stuff I hadn’t heard before, and some of it blows up later. I’m not the only one who has been paying attention; KryptonSite has taken the time to list everything played on Smallville, by season.
OneRepublic, however, has the dubious distinction of being on the most commercialized Smallville episode ever. The entire episode was a commercial for Stride gum and OneRepublic itself – to the point where OneRepublic is shown giving multiple concerts in an abandoned Stride gum factory. I think it was a pretty shameful day for everyone involved.
15. Alicia Keys – No One
After just explaining how I’m not into R&B, I find myself liking this track. What can I say? It grabs you with a solid beat and fantastic vocals.
16. Lupe Fiasco Featuring Matthew Santos – Superstar
This is lush, slickly produced hip hop along the lines of Kanye and Jay-Z, and I do enjoy some of their stuff. Superstar doesn’t quite reach that level, but does have a great hook.
There you have it. I actually like 25% of the top 20. This was certainly a surprise to me. All I can say in my defense was that I did not like the track from “Webbie, Lil’ Phat & Lil’ Boosie”. I cannot tell you how relieved I am to write that.
However, something still isn’t settled. ZB thinks he’s old because he doesn’t like modern music. I understand this; I distinctly remember thinking that if I liked modern music when I aged, it would mean I was still cool. Now, though, it feels like I only appreciate this stuff because I’m getting old. Perhaps it’s time to remind myself that even in my younger days, I could go from Ministry to George Michael without skipping a beat.
Tags: smallville
I recently posted a rap video about proper web design and coding, and now here’s a bunch of electro songs from CSS. This time, we’re not talking about cascading style sheets.
You’ve probably heard Brazil’s CSS without having any idea who they were. I had a couple “oh, THAT’s who does this” moments while listening to them. Hopefully, you’ll be as happy as I was to solve the mystery.
The vocals of lead singer Lovefoxxx have a fantastic, Bjork-like cuteness to them, down to the occasional rasp. When that Portuguese accent comes out, she’s downright dangerous. And she curses! A triple threat. CSS is an abbreviation of Cansei de Ser Sexy, which is Portuguese for “tired of being sexy”. While they mean it in jest (it was a Beyonce Knowles quote), there’s a definite sexiness to their sound and lyrics.
Here are a few tracks I really liked, starting with the ones you probably heard already:
Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex
Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above
Alala
Off the Hook (I think you can hear the Bjork-ness best here)
Tags: music video, video
The Poetic Prophet, AKA Moserious, raps at ya about designing and coding your site. Yes, your web site. And yes. It is awesome.
Ironically, going to his site triggered a Quicktime update message that crashed Firefox. The message noted that the latest Quicktime fixes many serious bugs. Indeed. But even though I was in the middle of writing this very post, Firefox restored this edit page with all my text in tact. Oh Mozilla, is there anything you can’t do? (Other than not crash in the first place?)
Tip of the hat to Ray and Or.
Tags: design, firefox, music video, software, video
This (or something very like it) came to the Hollywood Bowl. It’s an orchestral soundtrack to classic video games.
Tip of the hat to Or.
Tags: soundtracks, video, video games
I was pretty blown away when I first heard M.I.A.‘s (Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam’s) debut album Arular. The Sri Lankan supercutie creates a mix of ragga and electro funk, so it’s like a dancey, electronic reggae (and I’m not a big reggae fan). The lyrics are nonsensical (or in some dialect of slang I’m ignorant of), but that doesn’t reduce the likeability. Her award winning follow-up Kala has more of a traditional electronic dance, clubby feel. It also includes a cover of the Pixies’ Where Is My Mind? (which samples New Order to boot).
Instead of continuing this awkward description, why don’t you just check out some videos? Like I said, she’s easy on the eyes…
Galang (from Arular)
Bucky Done Gun (from Arular)
Boyz (from Kala)
20 Dollar (from Kala)
Note: fake video, real song
Tags: music video
I thought this was hilarious. It reminded me of when MST3K provided translated lyrics for the Jet Jaguar theme song. And in looking for the lyrics for that, I found the original. Ain’t YouTube great? Here’s both:
Tags: music video, video