This video comes from the award-winning documentary, “Playing For Change: Peace Through Music”. Featured is a cover of the Ben E. King classic “Stand By Me” as musicians around the world add their unique influences to the song as it travels the globe.
p.s. Nope, this blog isn’t quite dead yet. I’m still planning to eventually move it to a new blog platform (WordPress) wrapped in a shiny new template, hoping that will spark my blogging muse a little more often. We’ll see…
This one of course is from my favorite band, Barenaked Ladies. It’s from a new CD called Snacktime just released by the band. However, as you might be able to tell from the song, this CD is intended for a slightly unique audience…
“Our collective kids now outnumber the band more than 2 to 1,” explains vocalist/guitarist Ed Robertson. “We set out to make a record that would be entertaining for themÂ…not strictly a children’s record, but a record that children would really enjoy. Our kids are in to all kinds of music. They love the They Might Be Giants kids records, but they also love The Beatles, Fountains of Wayne, Randy Newman, Black Eyed Peas and Green Day. Making the focus about what our kids like was a truly liberating process and fun for the whole band.”
I believe it when he says it was fun for the whole band. I’ve played the whole disc (24 songs!!) twice now, and I’ve had a ball listening to the lyrics and picking out all of the musical styles that are there to find. There’s one song called “Eraser” that starts with Ska, has a brief flirtation with Pink Floyd and then Queen, and ends up back with Ska again. Where else can you find that kind of variety?
I’m having an 80s flashback! (No, it’s not drug related. )
I’ve been watching MTV circa 1983 (in stereo!) for most of the night. Someone posted three hours worth of MTV on Google Video from the time when they used to actually play music videos and stuff…
I’ve noticed a striking brunette in a number of different commercials lately, but didn’t actually make the connection until tonight that they were all the same brunette…
Her name is Penelope Fortier and in just about each new commercial I’ve seen her in, I’ve thought that she reminds me a little bit of Kate Beckinsale (although not so much in this photo).
However, in addition to her acting/commercial appearances, Penelope is also a talented singer. Check out her MySpace page to hear a selection of her tunes or watch her music video.
I love the internet! It took me about 15 seconds to fulfill my curiosity regarding the video featured in the new iPod Nano commercial. The artist is a Canadian singer-songwriter named Leslie Feist, popularly known simply as Feist. The song is called “1 2 3 4″…
Very cool! I wonder how many takes were required to get that right?
While I didn’t learn the answer to that question, I did find an interesting “Making Of…” clip that shows the filming of the video.
I think this is the start of big things from Feist.
Canon Rock is a rock arrangement of Johann Pachelbel’s Canon in D major by the Taiwanese musician and composer Jerry Chang (JerryC). The song became popular on the internet after a video of JerryC’s playing the song was posted online…
The rendition has since been featured on newspapers, magazines, and television shows.
Pandora is a very interesting service… It is an online music site that asks about your favorite artists and dynamically constructs a custom radio station just for you. In addition to songs from the artists you selected, the site will analyze your choices and deliver tunes from different artists that (hopefully) also fit your taste. You can further guide the playlist by clicking thumbs up or thumbs down for songs you feel strongly about. If you’re an impulse shopper, links are available to iTunes and Amazon to buy the current song or album then and there. Nice.
Unfortunately, Pandora and other online radio stations like it might not be available for our listening (and shopping) pleasure very much longer. The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) has recently released a revised fee schedule for internet radio. For most Webcasters, this new royalty rate represents more than 100% of their total revenues. Left unchanged, these rates will force most independent internet radio sites to shut down. The RIAA has effectively convinced this federal committee to establish rates that make online radio a non-viable business.
A site called SaveTheStreams.org has been created to provide information on this issue and what we might be able to do to reverse this decision. An online petition is available, as well as links to snail and e-mail addresses for your local representatives in Congress.
Maybe together we can prevent big business from limiting our soundscape.
The new Barenaked Ladies video is out for the song “Sound of Your Voice”…
An entertaining video, but I already have so much BNL material in this blog, why include this also, you may ask?
The schtick of the video is that all of those people became “famous” as a result of videos published on YouTube. I consider myself to be a serious Internet geek, and I have to admit that I only recognized about half of the YouTubers featured in this video. So, I thought I might do a little research (i.e. a bunch of YouTube searches) and present for your browsing convenience the comprehensive list of the videos that made these people the pop culture icons that they’ve become. Enjoy!
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