Tag: music

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Traditionally Beating It

If it’s one thing I can never get enough of, it’s incredible alternative covers of Michael Jackson’s Beat It. This time around we get a rendition using a traditional Chinese Guzheng. The sounds this instrument make is instantly recognizable not just for the similarities to traditional Chinese music we’ve heard over the years, but then how it morphs into a song that is legendary. The song is performed by 墨韵 Moyun Official and I am so, so impressed with how fantastic it sounds. If you’re a fan of the track, it’s well worth a watch.

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4K Nirvana

One of the most influential bands of the 90s, Nirvana has endured through its short span of existence. The band had incredible hits and musicians. The unfortunate suicide of Kurt Cobain marked the end of the band, but their music lives on. I recently stumbled upon this 4K 60FPS video of Nirvana performing on Saturday Night Live in 1992. The video is clear, the sound is great, and it’s incredible to see Cobain in full high definition. You can even see how his hair is a different color. It’s nine minutes of pure nostalgia, but it opens with the legendary…

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We Didn’t Start the Fire: Updated

The iconic Billy Joel song We Didn’t Start the Fire was a major hit in 1989. In only four and a half minutes, Joel took us through important and notable events covering most of the 20th century. It was catchy, educational, and one of the last hits Joel had before moving to classical compositions. 34 years later we now have a cover of ‘Fire’ from Fall Out Boy. The song looks to cover the gap from then until now. I gave it a listen and while it sounds similar to the original I feel it’s not that great. Personally, some…

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Tiny Desk, Big U2

The NPR series “Tiny Desk” is really fun. The small space made to look like a busy cubicle is set up for big-name musical acts to perform. It’s an intimate setting and one that Bono surely isn’t used to. He and The Edge recently recorded a session of Tiny Desk and it’s amazing. The 20-minute video has the duo go through four songs, each with an incredible flair and intimacy. If you’re not a fan of U2, there’s not much here for you unless you want to view the numerous acts that have graced NPR with their presence. If this…

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Remix That Ringtone

A fun gem I found where musician Tony Ann has taken the iconic ringtone we all know from the iPhone and turned it into a complete song. It’s not the first time I’ve seen a massive amount of musical talent to write about, but this one is surely up there with the greats. The video is below and this is a direct link to view it as well.

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Vinyl’s Revival Rolls On

As a music lover and record collector since the late 90s, I have loved the fact that records have made an incredible comeback. What was once thought to be a dead format has had a resurgence like no other. More exciting to me is the news that vinyl records have officially outsold CDs in the US. Jess Weatherbed from The Verge has more about this great news. According to the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) annual revenue report, vinyl records outsold CDs in the US last year for the first time since 1987, selling 41 million units against 33…

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Rapper’s Delight

The roots of rap and hip hop are intertwined with past music. From the earliest releases to the latest hits, so many songs use samples of prior music. Puff Daddy made mega-hits of songs in the 90s based off 80s samples. So have Dr. Dre, The Fugees, and Eminem. The list goes on and on. Now, with the release of De La Soul’s 3 Feet High And Rising on streaming, we learn more of what needs to be addressed: the legality of sampling. Dan Charnas at Slate discusses the struggle of the legendary hip-hop group to legally release their music…

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Pinball Wizard Music

Video game music is an art form. Composers finally have their own category at the Grammy awards. But watching the music get composed for pinball in the 80s is where some real magic happens. Composer Suzanne Ciani is the main composer in this documentary video showing how she creates music and digitizes speech for Xenon. The table features her voice and original music for all aspects of play. It’s an incredible piece of archival footage; mainly because Ciani talks you through the process every step of the way. From drawings of how the table will look to enthusiastic talk about…

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Pressing Vinyl

The saying goes “what’s old is new again” and that really applies to vinyl records. The music format went from the only game in town to a decline with cassettes and CDs to death’s door in less than two decades. The late 90s to early aughts were a time when getting an album on vinyl was near-impossible. Funny enough, it’s also the time when records produced during those days are highly collectible due to the low production runs. The resurgence of records crept in slowly, aided by Record Store Day and a growing interest in the format from people who…

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SEGA Shamone

One oddity of 90s video gaming is Sega’s clandestine work with Michael Jackson. It was rumored for many years that Jackson composed the music for Sonic The Hedgehog 3 along with Sonic & Knuckles. Even more incredible is recently-found footage of Jackson’s work with an unknown Sega simulator game where all the footage has been found. Matt Gardner at Forbes has more. Previously unseen footage of Jackson as the lead actor in the largely unknown Advanced System-1 (AS-1) motion simulator game Scramble Training has finally been made public by a pair of Sega enthusiasts, following the chance discovery of a seemingly forgotten…

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The HomePod Comes Home

In what is surely one of the most out-of-left-field announcements from Apple in a long time, they have done something I have never seen them do: They resurrected a product. Specifically, the HomePod smart speaker is back and in its Version 2 form, it is very much similar to the HomePod that was discontinued in 2021. A quick rewind. In 2017 Apple announced a rich-sounding speaker that had Siri built in. The HomePod was designed in the opposite way of Alexa / Amazon Echo where it was for music first and an assistant second. Most of the demo focused on…

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iPhone Karaoke

Apple Music has been in fierce competition with Spotify since the launch of Cupertino’s service. Aside from Spotify Wrapped (which Apple greatly improved their version in ’22), there are few differences in services. It really comes down to personal taste and preference rather than which is ‘better’. Because both are damn good. Apple is looking to up its game with the rollout of its new Sing feature, which is essentially karaoke for your devices. The best part? It’s included with an Apple Music subscription and all you need is a supported device. Here’s more from Apple’s Newsroom announcement. What Apple…

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Library: The Streaming Service

One of the greatest achievements in the past decade has been the ability of local public libraries ability to shift to offering more and more digital items. In a world where many of our books, movies, music, and other things are digital they have kept up. Now in a very cool twist, some libraries have launched their own music streaming service for patrons. Claire Woodcock at Vice has more. Over a dozen public libraries in the U.S. and Canada have begun offering their own music streaming services to patrons, with the goal of boosting artists and local music scenes. The…

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Finally, Apple Competes With Spotify Wrapped

You know we’re firmly in December when you begin seeing the plethora of people sharing their year-end Spotify Wrapped. This compilation of listening stats has been awesome to see but has always made me, an Apple Music subscriber, a bit sad that I haven’t had anything similar. Apple has finally fixed this egregious error by completely revamping its year-end Replay feature. And it’s awesome. Hartley Charlton at MacRumors has more. The overhauled experience puts the new highlight reel feature at the forefront of the Replay webpage, which users are encouraged to interact with before delving into more detailed information and…

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I’m Sorry I Got Caught

Autographs and original works of art are always collectible. For fans of Bob Dylan, his new book The Philosophy of Modern Song had a special edition: For $600 you could buy an autographed copy complete with a certificate of authenticity from the publisher Simon & Schuster. So imagine people’s ire when they found the autographs were not signed by Dylan but by an Autopen machine. Yeah, I’d be pissed too. Daniel Kreps at Rolling Stone has more. After initially rejecting requests for a refund, earlier this week, publishers Simon & Schuster said in a statement that they learned “the limited edition…

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That’s Miss Jackson, if You’re Crashy

Leave it to a mega star like Janet Jackson to create a cyber security situation back in the mid-2000s. The pop singer of yesteryear released a song called Rhythm Nation which happened to emit some frequencies that would legit crash a nearby computer. Rob Thubron at Techspot has more of this odd tale. Jackson’s track would crash certain models of laptops when it was played within proximity of the device. It was discovered that the effect could be replicated on other laptops from multiple manufacturers, all of which shared a common feature; the same 5,400 RPM hard disk drive was…

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Yell Poop, Make Money

Leave it to kids and a weird set of circumstances to become an income stream for musicians out there. A fascinating story from Katie Notopoulos at Buzz Feed wherein people who make silly songs are earning streaming income by kids yelling “Poop” at Alexa. With the proliferation of Echo devices putting Alexa in many homes, kids will yell silly things at it. Of course, kids think this stuff is funny, but when they issue this command, Alexa translates it into a request to play a song. With Amazon Music set as the default music service, it serves up songs like…

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Alternate Eating

Weird Al is one of those national treasures of incredible talent. The man has been making parody music for over four decades and he hasn’t stopped. Most musical eras contain clever parodies of his and original music that easily gets stuck in your head. Recently, there’s a video has hit YouTube with an entire alternate take of his Eat It music video. The three-and-a-half-minute song is here in full, but you can see the camera work is a continuous take. It is obvious that this film would be cut and spliced with other takes and scenes used in the music…

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Four Guys and Billie Jean

There are musicians and then there are musicians. Leave it to the Barcelona Guitar Trio to do something truly spectacular. This group of four men uses a single guitar to play Michael Jackson’s famous song, Billie Jean. It’s truly a sight to watch and listen to them play. The song sounds great and I could only imagine the immense practice they went through to put this performance together. You can watch the video here and if they allow it to be watched on other sites sometime in the future, you will be able to watch it directly below.

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What’s Your Vecna Song?

Stranger Things is all the hype once more. Season 4 has dropped, bringing the next chapter to completion. Two episodes clocking in at 4-hours is certainly a lot of Hawkins kids to watch. However, one thing that makes a great season even better is the incorporation of music this time around. The Duffer Brothers have not shied away from bringing iconic 80’s music into the Stranger Things universe. It’s always been prominent. But, Season 4 took it to a new level. Without giving anything away, music is a means of survival. To help celebrate this deep interweaving of music into…

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Man Absolutely Kills It Playing Everlong On Piano

Pianist Glaucio Cristelo, who goes by the name “Piano Rock” worked some magic on a piano at a Brazilian shopping mall. With over half a million views, his rendition of the Foo Fighters song Everlong is amazing to hear and watch. His channel is chock full of great songs. I highly recommend checking them out!

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A Farewell to iPod

It’s hard to imagine Apple without the iPod. In the Steve Jobs era, the iPod was the device that took them from “doing okay” to becoming a monumental success of a company. Even if you weren’t (or aren’t) an Apple fan, you had or were surrounded by iPods in the early aughts. And now that era is over. On May 10th Apple put out a press release stating what we all knew was coming at some point: the iPod Touch was being fully discontinued. Since its introduction over 20 years ago, iPod has captivated users all over the world who love the…

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The Longform

The Discman was amazing. The Discman was awful.

When it comes to music in the “before times” prior to the iPod, there was a huge boon when Sony introduced its Walkman portable cassette player. It was the first time someone could go anywhere and hear their music without carrying a giant boombox. It was the first time you could use headphones on the go to listen to whatever you wanted. Technology carried on and soon the Discman, and products like it came to replace the Walkman. And that is where things became… difficult. The idea of the Discman was insanely basic: do what the Walkman / portable cassette…

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Grunge Is Old

Get ready Xennials and older folks because I’m about to say something that will make you shudder: Gen Z has deemed Grunge music as Oldies. 😱 I know, right? But there is a big plus to this admission of age: rediscovery. When it comes to Nirvana, songs the band put out are reaching 20 years old. But, because of TikTok and videos talking about “songs you should know”, these tracks are making some big moves. Richie Assaly at the Toronto Star has more. As of this week, “Something In The Way” has been used to soundtrack nearly 200,000 TikTok videos.…

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Danny Elfman Live

Musical mastermind Danny Elfman performed at Coachella this year. And boy did he go all in with some amazing pieces. Bill Pearis at Brooklyn Vegan has more about his legendary set. On the Oingo Boingo front, Danny’s set included “Insects” (which he reimagined for his 2021 solo album Big Mess), “Nothing to Fear,” “Just Another Day,” “Insanity,” “Only a Lad,” “Dead Man’s Party,” and “Who Do You Want to Be?” which closed out his Coachella set. He and the orchestra also performed a medley of The Nightmare Before Christmas songs, the themes from Batman, Spider-Man, and The Simpson’s, as well…

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Little Prince

Prince is one of the greatest modern musicians. His influence was huge and certainly, he left this planet way too early. But something that can bring a smile to music-lovers faces is this happy accident courtesy of WCCO’s archives. While viewing archive material to find teacher strike footage, a reporter’s eye was caught at the sight of a boy interviewed. It only takes a moment to know who this boy is. And then the magic happens. I can say more, but the story is so heartwarming that I don’t want to ruin it for anyone. Just sit back and enjoy.

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The Lime Is Back

In the heydey of the aughts, it was extremely common to find music downloading software running on every college kid’s computer. Music piracy was rampant. After the downfall of Napster, one service became king: LimeWire. It was sued into oblivion by the RIAA in 2010. Now, it returns but in the most 2022 way possible: an NFT marketplace. Meera Navlakha at Mashable has more. The defunct platform is getting a crypto makeover, thanks to a pair of entrepreneurs in Austria who have just bought the rights to LimeWire. Paul and Julian Zehetmayr will be relaunching under a new company, LimeWire…

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No Chorus, No Problem

Generally, music follows a structure. A song will have some verses, a chorus, a bridge, then more chorus. That key and repeating part of the song is usually what sticks the most. Now, enter this video from David Bennett that goes over famous songs without a chorus. The chorus is also a big way in which we identify a song. There are so many “I didn’t know what song this was until the chorus” situations that have crossed my mind over the years. However, Bennett talks about specific songs that are mega-hits. None of them have a chorus. But a…

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Campnite

In “I definitely didn’t have this on my 2022 BINGO card” news, is this weird acquisition. Fortnite’s maker Epic Games has gone ahead and purchased the music website/service platform Bandcamp. Todd Spangler at Variety has more. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. “Fair and open platforms are critical to the future of the creator economy,” Epic Games, best known as the company behind battle-royale game “Fortnite,” said in announcing the pact. “Epic and Bandcamp share a mission of building the most artist-friendly platform that enables creators to keep the majority of their hard-earned money.” Variety Bandcamp has been a go-to…

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Doo-Wop With The Sickness

In a world where people are pretty gifted, leave it to the YouTube channel There I Ruined It to take a hard-hitting Disturbed song and completely change it. The channel posted this gem last week showcasing Disturbed’s hit song Down With The Sickness and morphed it into a doo-wop 50’s style song. It’s really good and this person is immensely talented. So have a listen for yourself and good luck getting this version out of your head.