Author Archive for SandraPage 20 of 30

Radiohead's "House of Cards" Video: A Reflection of Our Digital Lives

published
on July 16, 2008
by
Sandra
in culture, music, technology, and video
. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Radiohead’s “House of Cards” video was made using Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR…or as James Montgomery from MTV News put it, “it was made entirely with lasers and fractals and math and stuff”.

He also mentioned that an associate producer over at MTV news proposed that “the ‘Cards’ clip could actually be Radiohead’s loving acknowledgement to the Grid, the high-speed super-Internet currently being developed by scientists at CERN, a particle physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland”. How very Matrix. I like it.

For the techy, nerdy, science-y, and curious among you, go to the Google Code page and eat your heart out. You can learn about, you know, data visualization and stuff. Otherwise just watch the video:

You almost have to know the story behind the video to be impressed by it. The technology used is indeed very interesting. And very Radiohead.

In fact, when the makers of the video came across research being done at UCLA for real time 3D recording and had the idea for a video, they immediately sent a proposal to Radiohead’s management, figuring that they would be the only band willing to take that kind of a risk – making a music video without cameras. After all, Radiohead has quite firmly established itself as a pioneer in today’s music industry, has it not?

But if you blindly watch, without knowing the story behind the video, it can be a tad… simplistic. Or to quote James Montgomery once again, “a total triumph in technology, but a decidedly underwhelming experience for the viewer.” Kinda like Winamp skins a la 1999. Yet, if you put on your artistic appreciation hat and keep in mind the made-using-data aspect, it’s pretty damn cool.

To further your appreciation of the feat, watch the making of video below:

As director James Frost notes towards the end, “in a weird way [the video] is a direct reflection of where we are in society… everything is data-driven in some shape or form… our lives are digital.”

Silly Music Videos That Cheer Me Up

published
on July 15, 2008
by
Sandra
in music and video
. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , , .

I’m in one of those seriously shitty moods today, but still wanted to write. Did I try to find inspiration and write about something interesting going on in the music industry, an awesome new band, or some useful music 2.0 technology? Not so much. Maybe write a snarky post bitching about something that annoys me just as a way of venting my frustration? I considered making a list of musicians that bug the crap out of me: Mariah Carey, Vanessa Carlton, Sheryl Crow…but, na.

I’m not sufficiently pissed about anything in particular (you know those days where you’re just…blah) so rather than choosing a topic and ranting less-than-passionately, I decided to try and cheer myself up.

One thing that often cheers me up is watching videos on YouTube. You know, like all those funniest cats and laughing baby videos. Not the most prudent use of one’s time to be sure, but rather effective. On that note, here are some silly music videos that always make me smile.

OK Go – “Here It Goes Again”

Liam Sullivan – “Shoes”

Feist – 1 2 3 4

Top 5 Music Discovery Sites

published
on July 9, 2008
by
Sandra
in music, music business, and technology
. 22 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

Update: Read our breakdown of Music Discovery in 2010 here.

Long gone are the days of browsing through record stores to find new music (record stores are still awesome hangouts though), making physical mixtapes for your friends (except for the nostalgic among us), and putting CDs on your Christmas list (iTunes gift cards anyone?). Digital technologies and the seemingly endless supply of online music destinations have forever changed the way we discover the tunes we like.

Record Store

Born out of my own frustration with the retardedly over-crowded “music discovery” space, this post aims to sift through the plethora of sites, many of which are variations of the same concept, and pinpoint the best ones.

Do you prefer to listen to short clips of top downloads on iTunes because it’s easy? (Ya, iTunes is more of a place to buy a song/album that you know you want, but you can definitely discover new stuff by poking around, checking the free download of the week etc). Are you a fan of one of the numerous music social networking sites that let you discover people with similar musical taste, create/share playlists, or track down obscure indie bands? Or do you love Pandora’s almost-no-work-involved recommendation system?

We’re all different when it comes to our preferred methods of music discovery, but the end goal is the same, right? We want to consistently discover new music that resonates with us personally – bands we can go see live, music to download, artists we can relate to. There are so many places to do this now it makes my head spin, so I needed to simplify.

With that, here are my top 5:

Pandora
I’ve been a fan of Pandora for a long time. The internet radio station, with its robust recommendation system based on the work of 50 analysts who break songs down into musical attributes, is surprisingly good at finding music that suits your tastes. And with the thumbs-up/thumbs-down rating system, the more you use it the smarter it gets. Their Facebook app is certainly convenient too.

iLike
If you can put up with 30 second clips, iLike is great for discovery. The fact that it can be plugged into Facebook, iTunes, MySpace, Bebo and others makes it a versatile social platform and is probably why they have so many registered users making profiles, sharing playlists and the like. And you can get lots of free music from new artists.

Fuzz
“Music Uprising…Connecting people who create and love music”. Other than having pretty good music discovery tools, I like Fuzz because I like the Fuzz Manifesto. This is the kind of mentality that I think everyone in the music industry needs to adopt, and soon, in order to survive and thrive in the exciting new frontier that is developing. Open, participatory, fair etc…

Grooveshark
In addition to letting you listen to any song in its entirety, Grooveshark rewards you for sharing music with people by giving you credits for free music. It also serves as an online library so you can store your music and access it from anywhere. There is a tagging/ranking system to help you find what you want as well as playlist creation/sharing.

Last.fm
Easily one of the most dominant players in the social music discovery space, Last.fm has a powerful recommendation engine based on data from the user community (unlike Pandora’s engine which matches similar musical attributes). Worth noting here is that Last.fm is now paying royalties to unsigned artists – and thus providing an alternative for artists who are not part of SoundExchange.

If this list is too short for you, check Mashable’s Music News Toolbox: 50+ Links for Discovering New Music to read about sites like iJigg, MOG, Goombah, Music Nation, and many more. Or leave us a comment with your favorite ones.

And of course, soon you will be able to discover kick-ass new music at MixMatchMusic. Stay tuned.

Weezer + YouTube = A New Era of Collaboration

published
on July 2, 2008
by
Sandra
in collaboration, culture, music, and video
. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Weezer seems to be having a love affair with YouTube lately. As I was rewatching “Pork and Beans” today, I started thinking about how the video is a testament to the fact that user-generated content has become ubiquitous. Ordinary people have become viral celebrities (or ceWEBrities, as some are calling them). So much so that real celebrities are collaborating with them.

P&B was “written by Rivers Cuomo as a reaction to a meeting with Geffen where the band was told it needed to record more-commercial material. Cuomo remarked, ‘I came out of it pretty angry. But ironically, it inspired me to write another song.'” [Wikipedia] Reminds me of Sara Bareilles and her “Love Song” inspiration that we mentioned in another post…

Other than being a catchy song with the “familiar, self-assured lameness” of Weezer’s glory days (as Marc Hogan of Pitchfork Media put it), the cast of the music video is peppered with many of the oddball YouTube celebrities that we love to hate/hate to love. For those of you who aren’t so addicted to YouTube that you recognize all the characters, here’s a helpful version of the video with clickable annotations.

Their making a video like this (whether it was just a fun idea or a clever viral marketing ploy) coupled with Cuomo’s mission to make a song together with YouTube users is, to me, indicative of a new era of collaboration that is rapidly gaining traction – one in which fans want to interact with their favorite artists in new ways, musicians are willing to be more accessible to their fans, and where ordinary people have many more opportunities to do creative things, share them, and possibly achieve more than just their 15 minutes of fame.

Jack Johnson Goes Green

published
on July 1, 2008
by
Sandra
in activism, culture, music, and technology
. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Jack Johnson

A headline on the cover of Fast Company caught my attention today: “Jack Johnson‘s Green Music Machine”. The “surf crooner” as they call him in the article – who I can kind of say was once my boss…indirectly…back when I used to work with these guys – is way ahead of most of his musical peers when it comes to the green movement. He is not only setting a good example for his fans, but also encouraging them to take immediate action and providing them with opportunities to do so.

Whether you like his music or not, it’s hard not to applaud him for the impact he’s making by insisting on environmentally responsible behavior from his people and his fans. Here are some examples that I found in various places:

– Recorded his new album, Sleep Through The Static, using solar energy and printed on 100% post-consumer waste recycled paper- Part of 1% For The Planet

– Mandates that his concert promoters recycle and buy carbon offsets

– Launched All At Once, a “social action network” where his fans can support environmental nonprofits

– Runs his buses on biodiesel

– Matches audience contributions up to $2,500 per charity

– Sets up a Village Green at every show

– Leftover food donated to local food banks

– VIP parking for hybrid cars

– Water stations for people who bring refillable water bottles

Sara Snow, from TreeHugger, got a closer look at what Village Green is like on the inside and how it all works. Check out the video at the end of her article.