I’ve written a couple of times this week about how the internet has changed the way we experience music — big newsflash there, I know.
Today’s clip is another wonderful example.
As a promotion for Bono’s ONE campaign, Elvis Costello teamed up with Mumford & Sons to perform a mash-up of Bruce Springsteen and Woody Guthrie. This may well have happened in a pre-YouTube era, but would I have seen it?
The latest issue of Rolling Stone has a sidebar in which a member of Explosions in the Sky names a handful of songs that inspire him.
Explosions in the Sky is a Texas band that plays instrumental music on guitars and drums. I know them only because of their association with Friday Night Lights (they wrote the film’s soundtrack and scored much of the TV show).
Here’s a fitting follow-up to Monday’s post about viral videos.
I don’t recall exactly how I came across ‘Sail’ by the Los Angeles band AWOLNATION — I assume it was mentioned in a magazine or on a website — but when I looked for it, this is the video I found.
I assumed it was the song’s official video because, well, why wouldn’t it be?
Tears For Fears has released one album in the past 18 years, and that was nine years ago. Now the band is back in the studio working on a new record, so I guess the ‘once every nine years’ pattern is working for them.
This is actually a great time for new Tears For Fears music, assuming it’s as good, and in the same style, as their 80s hits. Today’s pop music is very much influenced by the 80s and I can imagine songs like ‘Shout’ and ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’ succeeding wildly were they released in 2013.
The two hottest viral videos of the moment seem to be the girl who set herself on fire while twerking (watch it here) and today’s SOTD, ‘The Fox,’ by the Norwegian band Ylvis.
Tellingly, both are publicity stunts.
The twerking girl was revealed last week to be a gag planned by Jimmy Kimmel in collaboration with a stunt woman. He quietly uploaded it to YouTube a few weeks ago and waited to see if it would, ahem, catch fire.
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