Sunday 8 May 2011

I think it is better like this actually . . . .

One of the wonderous things about the modern media age is the access to information we all have now. This relates to music particularly well. If you can think of a song you can probably find a copy of it on You Tube. If you like it then you can buy it through Itunes or have access to it through spotify and have it on your ipod or pc within about 10 minutes including listening to it.

This has meant the artistic process has become easier. The big losers out of all of this are the record companies, but I am not sure too many people are that upset about this. You can now get whatever you want to get out to a number of people with relative ease. Take this blog for example, I just write it and post it. Without the digital revolution I would have to print flyer's and then hope that people have access to the same music. Which they would not have and so it would be a futile process.

One of the very cool things I have seen on youtube is that people are taking the music they love and putting different pictures to it. That is very cool I think. I think it is great that we can access the band's artistic vision of the pictures they want to go with the music, but it is also cool that we can see what other people have done with it as well.

A perennial favourite for this is the mighty Boards of Canada. I really can not speak highly enough about this Scottish duo. Their music is always fantastic, whether you have it on in the background or you put on some proper headphones ,close your eyes and let the music take you away. Their songs are very emotive and so people have taken it and made their own videos to it. This is still my favourite.


The song 84 Pontiac Dream is taken from the album The Campfire Headphase. Which is my favourite album of theirs, although they have a lot of other good albums as well. Geogaddi in particular is also brilliant.

I am on twitter, please follow me if you are also on it.(Music Ruminations) I follow a few people and to be honest most of it is a little unfathomable to me. But it is perhaps because I am getting older and the new stuff doesn't seem to make as much sense as it should. I hope this is the case. Anyway, before I get into a whole premature mid life crisis diatribe, I will get back to the point. I follow Cage the Elephant and they tweeted this version of their song


There are a couple of things here. Firstly, that is an amazing song. It isn't actually the album version but appears to be a more unplugged version. Secondly , it is very cool that the band have seen what the other person did with their song and have told their fans about it. That's awesome I think. Someone has sat at their PC, cut the images together and sent it to the band. The band have then thrown their weight behind it. It only has 8, 000 hits on you tube, but I hope for every one's sake that it is a little further distributed.

One of the other great things on youtube is that people have taken the lyrics a little too literally as they hear them and have put images to what they have heard. This has been my favourite for a while. The song is a piece of pure aggression by the Mighty Pantera.


The song contains some swearing and so if that offends you perhaps do not listen. I should have put this warning before the song, but well, swearing shouldn't offend really.

If we wanted to be a little more mainstream with this we could also listen to this one.


I am not sure these videos add much to human civilization as such, but they are certainly very diversionary, and if you love the songs in the first place then you do get a lot more out of the whole thing. They are very amusing.


However, rather than just being bored some people use this medium to express themselves. This is not necessarily in an elaborate way. Look at this video



That is a great simple video. A perfect Circle are an interesting band. The lead singer is Maynard from Tool. Yet they have managed to sound very different from Tool. Which is quite a feat. I really like their music. It is perhaps a little more accessible than some of the Tool albums. Perhaps makes it less rewarding in the long run, but hey, we are talking about Tool, who must be one of the most important bands of the past 15 years. I would highly recommend getting some Perfect circle, seriously how good is this version of 3 Libras?


Have you seen, or even made your own video to some music you like? Please send it to me, use the comments field, or via facebook/ twitter. I would love to see it and perhaps get some explanations from you.

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