July 01, 2008
What if you surveyed people about aspects of music that they might like or dislike? What if you explicitly wrote a song to embody as many of those qualities as you could? You'd get The Most Wanted and Most Unwanted Songs ever written. The Most Unwanted Song contains themes of cowboys, holidays, and advertising. The singers are opera sopranos (rapping! no less) and kids and the instruments are heavily focused on bagpipe and accordion. There are constant tonal and tempo changes and it is way too long. In other words, Mike Patton could have written it and it sounds like something that zieglerfe would listen to on purpose. Listen to the songs on this edition of Crap From the Past (most wanted ends segment 'b' and most unwanted is most of segment 'c').
[more inside]
May 20, 2008
Klosterman has a neat article about how and why certain musicians have such fanatical fanbases with particular attention to the subset that dress to look similar to or just like their idols. Accompanying is this completely sweet quiz which asks you to identify the artist the fans are going to see.
May 18, 2008
The iPhone now has a (hacked) P2P file sharing application. The end of the world is nigh.
May 13, 2008
I feel like we've discussed crazy rock band tour riders before (though I can't find it). Anyway, the Foo Fighters do ask for some crazy stuff but don't take themselves too seriously while they do it.
May 01, 2008
zOMG Alert teh Javelinas!!!!!!11bang1!1!oneoneone - it's Mister Disc! A "personal portable phonograph system". For, y'know, all the times back in 1983 you really wanted to take some tunes and all of your 12" LPs with you. [via starcade via kottke]
April 21, 2008
Eff Emm You has a writeup on a really cool electronic music gadget named Tenori-On. It encompasses lots and lots of sounds in a neat little touchscreen package that looks like a Lite Brite. The Youtube videos on the page really sold me on its potential.
March 26, 2008
The latest from the Web 2.0 world: Muxtape. With just an email as a signup, make yourself a personalized 12 song mixtape. The nerdy types are excited/impressed/befuddled that Muxtape harnesses the power of Amazon S3 to store and serve the songs you upload. Make yourself a mix-tape now before RIAA finds the site and shuts it down! Or all those Amazon S3 fees catch up to the creators! Or the site's popularity spirals so out of control that it isn't scaleable!
I know that three complete setlists already exist; post yours in the comments once you've compiled it!
March 25, 2008
And Great Lyrics Quiz Rock Roll The - did you think the rock lyrics quiz thing was played out? Friend if my so very were wrong you. Identify these universally-known rock songs by their alphabetized lyrics...
(After the jump: my own attempt at a hip-hop version.) [more inside]
March 10, 2008
Nice interview with Bruce Springsteen - who among other things will go to Rage Against the Machine concerts with his son (though leaving him in charge of mosh pit duties).
February 24, 2008
SxSW Music Torrent - there's for some reason no official torrent of SxSW artists' mp3s this year, so someone took the legal, redistributable mp3s from the SxSW site and packaged this unofficial torrent.
February 16, 2008
I need a teammate who will compete with me for SxSW passes, ACL wristbands and a trip to Coachella. [more inside]
February 08, 2008
February 06, 2008
Auto Tuner Abuse in Pop Music - with examples.
January 21, 2008
Journey's "Separate ways" - shot-by-shot remake of Journey's "Separate ways". [more inside]
December 12, 2007
The Moby Quotient - 'determines the degree to which artists besmirch their reputations when they lend their music to hawk products or companies.' Complete with gratuitous pi, a nice visual depiction of the equation and an MQ calculator applet.
By my estimate, "This is oooouuuur Country" came out a 15. If Dead Kennedys had licensed 'Holiday in Cambodia' to Levis I think it would have come out about a 155 (8/10/10/8/2/6). [thx kottke] [more inside]
December 10, 2007
Dear Rocker, - Paying back musicians, five bucks at a time.
December 05, 2007
What a wonderful world - Satchmo like you never seen him before
November 11, 2007
Moskau with subtitles - in which the pantheon-level Dschengis Khan hit "Moskau" is given the scholarly translation it deserves. We've linked to similar translations before, but apparently this is blowing up the meme-o-nets now that someone realized he could use youtube for this... Language Log breaks it down for you and supplies a wealth of historical links.
October 25, 2007
October 16, 2007
September 26, 2007
You can find plenty of YouTube videos of famous guitar gods shredding some sweet licks. But none are as hot as this series all posted by one guy. Don't miss the angry/confused comments on every page. If you can't settle on one might I recommend Carlos Santana shreds which features the awesome "instruments only play when on screen" technique.
September 01, 2007
August 28, 2007
Adventures in Sound! Here's one website's Top 10 Incredible Recordings including "highest note", "Russian exorcism", and "real castrati." Perhaps even more interesting is 10 Recording Bloopers that Made the Album. That Clapton pow-power is just egregious.