Where To Buy The Tron: Legacy OST Online

French Musicians Daft Punk Have Taken Care Of Composing The OST To Tron: Legacy

French Musicians Daft Punk Have Taken Care Of Composing The OST To Tron: Legacy

Tron: Legacy is the sequel to 1982’s immensely popular sci-fi title. This time around, the plot revolves around Sam (the son of Jeff Bridges’ original character, played by Garrett Hedlund) entering the digital world in search of his father (and eventually playing in the field against him).

The movie is one of the first ever set to be released in RealD 3D. Hey, is there any single title that would lend itself best to such technology?

And Tron: Legacy’s OST (by French musicians Daft Punk) can already be ordered from this website. You can either buy it in MP3 format for $ 10, or as a physical CD for $ 35. In the second case, you are also getting a Daft Punk poster as part of the package. Continue reading

The First Street Musician Who Uses An iPad (Video)

If You Thought iPads Were Prohibitive Pieces Of Hardware For Street Musicians To Use, The Video Attached Below Will Come As Surprising.

If You Thought iPads Were Prohibitive Pieces Of Hardware For Street Musicians To Use, The Video Attached Below Will Come As Surprising.

The girl featured on this video has the distinction of having become the first busker ever who uses an iPad caught on tape.

The video (which is shot in Moscow) may be short, but  it just highlights how times change. Gone are the days in which busking was a matter of sheer grit. Provided it is not a publicity stunt, of course.

Chris Rea (General Introduction)

Chris Rea Was Born In 1951 in Middlesbrough.

Chris Rea Was Born In 1951 in Middlesbrough.

There are only two guitar players that make me stop whatever I am doing and listen as if each note they are playing were nothing short of irreproducible both technically and sentimentally by anybody else.

As you already know, Richard Thompson is one of them. And now I’d like to introduce you to the other one. Like Thompson, he is also from England. But their styles couldn’t be more different.

Chris Rea is a slide guitar player that spent the first part of his career playing rock & roll until a miraculous recovery from pancreatitis made him decide to devote the rest of his studio life to the blues.

And unlike Richard Thompson, Chris Rea did have hits. His 1989’s album “The Road To Hell” brought him out of cult obscurity across the whole of Europe. “The Road To Hell” will always stand as one of the most meaningful works in a decade that was not that remarkable otherwise. The album offered a razor-sharp study of the stray ways of modern life without ever stooping to the gratuitousness of other contemporary acts.

And the commencement of Rea’s career in 1978 was actually quite auspicious: the song “Fool (If You Think It’s Over)” almost cracked the Top 10 in the US, and remains his most popular song in America to this day. Both that album (named “Whatever Happened to Benny Santini?”) and its follow-up were produced by no other than Gus Dudgeon. Rea has always bemoaned that Dudgeon’s approach was unsuitable for his blues-derived material. The truth is that Dudgeon made one thinly-disguised attempt after the other to have Rea sound like pop acts that had given him worldwide recognition such as Elton John. Chris was to eventually record some of those songs anew later on. Continue reading

MTV Beats Vevo As The Online Destination For Watching Music Videos

MTV Becomes The Premier Destination For Watching Music Videos Once Again

MTV Becomes The Premier Destination For Watching Music Videos Once Again

People my age (IE, 30-somethings) mostly remember MTV as the place to tune into when you wanted to watch music videos and discover new bands, not to watch an endless succession of reality shows and similar “hip” content.

Everybody agrees that the Internet drove the final nail in the coffin for MTV, stealing what audience it had left and creating a whole new hierarchy for the discovery of new talent.

The irony is that now MTV.com has become the premier destination for people wanting to watch music videos, well ahead of Vevo. A recent survey by comScore shows that MTV had over 53 million unique visitors in August, whereas Vevo came in second with 49 million. Continue reading

Google Instant Meets Bob Dylan & Billy Joel

The launch event for Google Instant

The launch event for Google Instant

Google unveiled its new search technology two weeks ago. Named “Google Instant”, it lets you see results as you type. This means you don’t have to input a query and hit return any longer. The results materialize automatically at the bottom of the page as you are typing away.

And Google hit the nail on the head when they used Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” to show off this new technology. The ad (embedded below) was featured at the launch event for Google Instant. They couldn’t have found a better song had they tried.

Or could they? Nay-sayers (because people always oppose to changes) and pranksters immediately came up with their own musical protests and parodies. This is one of my favorites, set to Billy Joel’s number one hit “We Didn’t Start The Fire”.

Again – it is a fast paced tune, and it is as suitable as Dylan’s song was for the “official” ad. And in any case, “We Didn’t Start The Fire” must be one of the most parodied songs ever. Just look it up on YouTube and see what crops up – “We Didn’t Start The Star Wars”, “We Didn’t Start The Crisis”, “We Still Didn’t Start The Fire”…

Shuffler.fm – The Pandora.fm Of Music Blogs

Shuffler

Name: Shuffler.fm
URL: http://www.shuffler.fm

Shuffler.fm is a site that redefines the way in which Internet radio has always been approached. In a nutshell, it’s like Pandora for music blogs. The site aggregates all the music-related content that surfaces on the blogosphere, and has it arranged by genre on its homepage for you to listen.

Each genre has got its very own channel, and you can jump from one to the other at will. You can also skip songs that start as energetically as Stephen Bishop on downers and find something that can at least make you tap the table and hum along.

It’s important to make it clear that the music featured here is not aggregated from just any old blog. In fact, the music is culled from a curated list of blogs in order to ensure a minimum of quality. And an effort is also made not to present users with duplicate songs. Continue reading

Where Does The Name “Joy Division” Come From? Was It Chosen By The Band Because Of Nazi Sympathies?

Some People Think That The Names “Joy Division” And “New Order” Were Picked Because The Band Had Some Kind Of Nazi Sympathies. That Is A Misconception.

During the Second World War, Nazi officers stationed at concentration camps used the expression “Joy Division” in reference to the younger women imprisoned there – women that they frequently raped.

Ian Curtis, Stephen Morris, Peter Hook and Bernard Sumner settled for that name because all their fathers had fought in World War II. They just wanted a name that had some kind of connection to that armed conflict, as a way of referencing its true weight and how it had touched the lives of their parents.

The fact that the band rechristened itself “New Order” after Curtis died sometimes makes people think that the band had some kind of Nazi affinity – the concept of “New Order” was actively featured in Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”. But that is a mistake. There were no Nazy sympathies of any kind at play. As a matter of fact, the band didn’t even pick the name “New Order” themselves. It was chosen by Rob Gretton, the band’s manager at the time after reading an article on a newspaper about Kampuchea and “the new order” of people living there.

Un Accidente Feliz (Lucas Meyer) – Uruguayan Independent Artist

  “Un Accidente Feliz” [A Happy Accident] Was Released By Esquizodelia Records In 2009.

“Un Accidente Feliz” By Lucas Meyer (2009)

It is often said (and accepted either willingly or tacitly, but accepted for good) that these works we love the most are the ones we feel we could have created ourselves. Any work of art strikes a true chord when the story that is narrated is one we feel we could have expressed ourselves, using the very same codes and nuances. It applies to books. It applies to movies. It applies to paintings. And it applies to music, the most direct art of them all. The saddest and the most uplifting conveyances are shaped there.

Still, some say that happiness doesn’t really lead to great works. And there is more than an inkling of truth to that. If anything, it explains the sheer number of albums available where the performer pours his despondency in every word and note. The fact remains that ever since singer-songwriters like Joni Mitchell began articulating personal turmoil in a context that vanished all barriers separating a performer from its public, recording albums that bristled and crackled with disillusionment has become a truly common practice.

More than a few listeners might complain there is a superabundance of such albums. But that is tantamount to saying that there is a set limit of possible answers to the questions posed by sentimental relationships. That is why these albums keep on being produced and released. Some will speak more directly to specific listeners than others. Some answers will hold truer poignancy than others.

And I have just found one that says all I’d have liked to say just a couple of years ago, when I wrote my first book, “Once”. It is by Uruguayan musician Lucas Meyer, and it has been issued by independent label Esquizodelia Records. The name of the album is “Un Accidente Feliz” [A Happy Accident], and like every other record released by the label you can download it for free.

Simply put, it is an album that deals with a romantic rupture. Yet, the corresponding rapture is never far away from the singer’s cinematic focus. It’s as if at the edge of the screen something were happening just outside of the camera’s reach. We never get to see it. But we manage to intuit it, and fill in the major gaps ourselves.

The relationship is revised in retrospect through a voice that is equally capable of expressing “La próxima vez/Voy a involucrarme un poco más/Para tener/Algo para recordar” [Next time/I’ll try to get a little more involved/So that I’ll have/Something to remember] and “Con vos/Va a ser mejor/No hablar/De amor/Va a ser mejor/Demostrártelo” [With you/It’ll be preferable/Not to talk/About love/It’ll be better/Just to show it].

And songs like “Estrella Muerta” [Dead Star] and “Palabras De Desprecio” [Words Of Contempt] deal with the incendiary feelings of dismissal that go with any separation. There’s just no way to “Encontrar La Explicación” [Find The Explanation]. But that’s never a deterrent when the damage has already been done.

On a personal note, I really appreciate the album’s economy. It is obvious that Lucas had enough songs to fill 4 discs if he wanted. He decided to keep everything concise. More than a couple of songs clock at little more than one minute. When reviewing Mateo Moreno’s debut a couple of months ago I found myself remarking that less is often more. “Un Accidente Feliz” is a good example of that. Continue reading

Preview & Preorder Trent Reznor’s “The Social Network” OST

You Can Now Preview Trent Reznor’s “The Social Network” OST For Free, And Preorder The Full Album For $ 2.99.

You Can Now Preview Trent Reznor’s “The Social Network” OST For Free, And Preorder The Full Album For $ 2.99.

“The Social Network” (an unofficial account of Facebook’s early days) has got everybody interested on the strength of the industry names involved (both David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin are involved). The movie’s soundtrack has been composed by Trent Reznor (best known as the founder of industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails) and producer Atticus Ross (a close associate of Reznor).

The OST (which goes on sale digitally on Tuesday, September 28th) can now be sampled for free. Five tracks can be downloaded here, and you can also preorder the album. Continue reading

Audition For The Next Season Of American Idol Via MySpace

Now You Can Audition For American Idol Via MySpace

Now You Can Audition For American Idol Via MySpace

Are you the kind who grinds his teeth when watching American Idol, and slur “Heck, I could sing much better than that one! If only I had had the chance…”. Well, if you aren’t on the upcoming season there will be no excuses. From now on, American Idol will let people audition via the Internet.

All that you have to do is to record a short video (no longer than 40 seconds) and submit it via MySpace. The song has to be chosen from an approved online list, and you will have to perform it entirely a capella. Continue reading