To think I used to laugh at the audio capabilities of handheld devices
like the GameBoy way back in the ’90s, when I had a Commodore Amiga
500…
It serves me right.
But I am sure that someone can grab a good old Miggy and put this
gentleman to rout. Got a bet? I’ll meet it.
"Perform This Way" Is The First Single To Be Culled From Al Weird Yankovic's New Album, "ALPOCALYPSE” (out on June 21).
For those who can’t stand Lady GaGa, it doesn’t get much funnier that this…
Weird Al Yankovic has just recorded and uploaded a parody of GaGa’s newest single (“Born This Way”) to his YouTube channel.
This parody is named “Perform This Way”, and it basically pokes fun at Lady GaGa’s flamboyant stage antics. It also puts its finger on the similarities between Gaga’s song and Maddona’s “Express Yourself” – something that will have the nay-sayers frenziedly clapping their hands in approval.
“Perform This Way” is going to be the leadoff single of Weird Al Yankovic’s new album, “ALPOCALYPSE” (out on June 21).
"Espiral" By Miguel Campal
“Espiral” [Spiral] is the debut album of Miguel Campal (download link), a Uruguayan musician and producer who is better-known around this pleasant side of the globe as the guitar player for Grubb.
Obviously, that name might mean nothing to you in the States (in the same way that normal folks here have no idea who Willard Grant Conspiracy or Drive-by Truckers are) so a few quick facts are in order:
1) They play a mixture of rock, funk and soul, and they play it well.
2) They issued an 8-song EP in 2008, including both studio recordings and live cuts.
3) They have just issued their first full-length studio album. It has 11 tracks, and it can be downloaded for free on their website. (The same goes for their debut EP.) Continue reading
Beginning In May, Spotify Will Put Some Serious Limitations On The Free Streaming Of Music
People outside of the US resort to Spotify to satisfy their musical cravings time and again. Which makes just too much sense, really – it is a free streaming service that gives you access to the best music around, right as it surfaces.
However, Spotify recently announced a series of measures that (to all intent and purposes) will translate into the end of the free, limitless service users knew and loved.
Basically, new free users of Spotify will be able to listen to music at no cost for six months only. After that, they will become limited to listening to just 10 hours of free music per month.
People are up in arms over this. It is understandable – who wouldn’t become all angry if he had to begin paying for something he previously had for free? Yet, once one begins putting two and two together it is easy to understand why did this happen. Continue reading
Name: Viral Music List
URL: http://www.viralmusiclist.com
There are two types of music listeners: those who revel in exclusivity (and consume nothing but songs by obscure bands), and the ones who get their kicks only by listening to what lots and lots of people listen to.
If you fall in the former category and live in Uruguay (like I do) you buy compilations of underground/indie/emerging bands from America and Britain, and then drive all your friends off the bend by harping on Okkervil River, Bear In Heaven and The Antlers.
And if the latter group is where you belong, then you turn to a service like Viral Music Lists for approbation.
What this site does is to let you know which songs have gone viral. You can do that by picking one of the three main categories (“Tracks”, “Albums” and “Artists”) and then setting down the time range that applies (the provided options are ”24 Hours”, “7 Days” and “All Time”). And you can also launch an artist-specific search, and see how these musicians you love are doing in terms of online popularity. Continue reading
The Musicians Around The World feature is devoted to chronicling the lives of both Uruguayan who are traveling abroad, and foreign performers who come to Uruguay in order to promote and develop their art.
In the first part of this feature, I had the chance to speak with young Uruguayan singer/composer Florencia Cano. She is going to travel through the US shortly with some friends, and she will take advantage of the time she spends there to try and promote her music in what is undoubtedly the biggest market in the world.
Florencia Cano
Q: First of all thank you so much for your time. I’d like to ask you to introduce yourself to all the readers of MusicKO.
A: Thank you for the chance to do this. My name is Florencia Cano, and I was born in Montevideo (Uruguay). I love singing, and I come from a musicians’ family. My father is a jazz musician, and my mother was part of many different rock bands in the ‘60s. I was always attracted to music, but it was only when I became 20 that I realized how much I liked it, how much I enjoyed singing.
At first I sang pop songs, and the band I was in sort of leaned towards country… it was something that sort of happened whenever we were rehearsing and playing. And that wasn’t really something I enjoyed. Then, I began studying operatic singing. That’s what I really like. It’s what I enjoy signing best. I love fusing it with pop. And since I’m a soprano, I like to take my voice as high as possible, make it explode in high notes and then contrast it with lower passages. I like to take my potential further all the time. I am devoting my life to singing.
Q: I understand that you are developing a style of your very own, that your music is not something that could be labeled in a univocal way. Rather, it could be labeled in multiple ways at once. Can you tell everybody about what you are doing? If possible, could you define it?
A: The thing is, I love music on the whole. I listen to lots of different genres, I appreciate mostly every style that you could listen to. I love tango, and I love rock. I love opera. I’m also fond of Jazz. And I believe I began doing things in a certain way, and that way changed as time went by, simply because I’m in a search process. I like to combine lots of things.
Q: But if you had to pinpoint just a couple of genres, what would they be?
A: Well, nowadays I have a couple of compositions that are a bit reminiscent of Ani DiFranco and Jewel… songs I perform only with my acoustic guitar. These are songs I really enjoy playing, but mostly from a personal point of view. They bring me a lot of calm. They are songs that I like to keep to myself. What I want to share with others are the more operatic numbers, the ones where I combine rock with operatic singing. These are the songs I decorate the most – I love decorating things, making them sparkle… There’s nothing I love best than giving a single song lots and lots of different ambiences.
People have told me that the songs I write are a bit like movies. I begin dealing with something specific, but I end up creating a whole world. My characters are the kind everybody ends up relating to.
Q: So, as a composer you have that gift which someone like Joni Mitchell had of narrating what is personal in a universally-relatable way. Is that the right way to put it?
A: Yes, I like that concept, I like to think we are one and all the same. We all have the very same feelings at some point or other in our lives. That is why there are songs that everybody loves, no matter where they are or which language they speak. Continue reading
Name: LyricsGaps
URL: http://www.lyricsgaps.com
“Music is the doctor of my soul”. That’s what the Doobie Brothers once sang. And it’s something that is more or less carved in stone. Yet, music can take on other professional roles. Preeminently among them is the role of teacher. I mean, just look at the number of people who have learned English by listening to songs. OK, maybe the word “learn” is too much. Nobody becomes a fountain of knowledge by listening to songs by contemporary musicians. But there’s no denying that he will build up a more than respectable vocabulary, and revise his existing word lists that much easier.
Well, he certainly will as long as he has a site like this one at hand. LyricsGaps lets anybody pick up new words by listening to music. The idea is that people choose a language from the many that are offered (including English, Spanish, Italian and French) and pick new vocabulary up by completing blanks in the lyrics of songs in such languages. Continue reading
…things would have been a bed of roses for the music industry. Well, that is what most major labels think. They presented a graph in the recent litigation against LimeWire that drove the point home.
Napster Killed The Radio Star...
This is open to endless debate and speculation, of course. Did sales fall by the wayside because music was being pirated, or because the music that many artists were pumping out was substandard? Speak your mind in the “Comments” box below – let it all out…
If used correctly, social media can break you into the music industry not only faster but also far more notoriously. Rebecca Black is the latest example of Internet stardom, and when you know the full facts and how much money it actually took her to get the video for “Friday” together ($ 4000 – her mother paid for it) then the one conclusion to be reached is that just anybody can do it.
And Rebecca Black is also a perfectly illustrative example if only because she has fallen prey to the derision that always besets such artists, with her “hit” quickly becoming the most-hated song on the Internet (it has almost 2 million “dislikes”, as opposed to 250,000 “likes”)
So, how could these pitfalls be avoided? How can a social presence be established and nurtured in the healthiest way of all?
I think that a basic analysis would let us agree on the following points:
1) Make sure you are picking the right social site.
Should you go for MySpace or Facebook in order to begin promoting your art? Up until now, MySpace used to be the social site of choice for musicians. Yet, the network has recently withstood one blow after the other – its userbase has been dwindling (owing in no small part to the proliferation of platforms like Bandcamp and ReverbNation), and key staff has been rotating to the point it’s downright difficult to keep track of all comings and goings. The coup d’ grace came last week, as owner Rupert Murdoch announced that he was putting the site for sale (and for a pittance of its real value at that).
When pressed to make a choice, Internet artists like Lady Gaga have always gone for Facebook. Just compare Gaga’s 1.5 million friends on MySpace to the more than 31 million “likes” she has on Facebook. And Gaga actually makes extensive use of her Twitter account, just like Justin Bieber does. Doing cross over content is an integral part of the game, and micro-sharing platforms like Twitter are always used in tandem with social networking sites to truly connect with audiences.
2) Know how to market your music intelligently.
Upload tracks for your fans to listen at no cost. If you are an unknown, not many would be willing to pay for the privilege of listening to your songs. By letting them listen to what you do for free, you will be giving people the impression that all you really want to do is spread your message, regardless of monetary considerations. And that’s all the encouragement many would need to try your music out. Continue reading
Casablancas are Martin Rela (vocals & rhythm guitar), Syd J. Gerones (lead guitar & backing vocals), Nacho Lorenzelli (bass guitar), Freddy Suarez (keyboards) and Seba Moro (drums & percussion).
It’s a little known fact, but it’s absolutely true. H.G Wells (one of the founding fathers of science fiction) did spend some time in Uruguay. He was in the country during the summer of 1879 – 1880, in the seaside town of La Pedrera. Accounts of his stay there are unanimous, if only because the population of La Pedrera back then consisted only of 8 people, 3 dogs and 1 dalek.
We reportedly know that Wells used to wake at 7 in the morning every single day, walk through the beach until dusk and then come back to his little cabin. He did that the whole summer.
Then, on the final day of his stay there he clenched his fist, pointed it to the balmy sky and screamed at the top of his lungs, “SHIT, ISN’T EVER ANYTHING TO DO IN THIS COUNTRY???”.
He then had a kind of mystic experience. It is said he saw something blazing in the sky. If he had been Caetano Veloso he would have written the lyric that goes “and my eyes/go looking for flying saucers in the sky”. Instead, he dreamed up the story of the Martians landing on Earth that you can read on his seminal work “The War Of The Worlds” (1898). He turned the joyous dunes of La Pedrera into Horsell Common, and he came with a killer virus that sent the poor old Martians to kingdom come simply because he caught some scorching disease while he was in Uruguay, and he had to go to the toilet six times per day for three years afterwards.
A Tripod From "The War Of The Worlds" Raising Havoc
This history is little-known because there has always been a kind of multinational conspiracy to keep Uruguay off fictionalized works. Powers too evil and too daunting collude to keep the effervescent South American country from raising its head in the world of literature.
And in a certain sense, some things have remained the same in Uruguay ever since Wells paid us that veiled visit. There’s still people who scream at the sky out of sheer boredom, and lament their lack of prospects. They vent their frustration in different ways. Some play soccer and marry Argentinean models, some have music blogs where they write about anything that comes into their minds, and some others pick up their guitars and play good old rock and roll, paying a direct homage to the best British and American music that ever existed. Continue reading