Today I came across this article when browsing through TechCrunch and I frankly thought it was something worth-sharing with everybody.
For those of you too lazy to click on the link and read the full story, it explains that the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) are insisting that cellphone ringtones should be deemed as public performances of music. Consequently, these “performances” should be accompanied by the paying of a license by the “public”. Continue reading
Name: We Love Festivals
URL: http://www.welovefestivals.com
There are many social networks that are aimed at music lovers, and many are a bit similar for my liking. This particular one, on the other hand, did really catch my glance. Not because the basic premise is revolutionary or anything like that, but only because I found it incredibly useful.
You see, this particular networking site is aimed at festival goers. Here, they can meet up with other people keen on attending such events, chat until they run out of breath, and share media recorded at the festivals they have attended. Continue reading
This is Part 2 of the interview with Kristian Dupont from Minimum Noise. You can read Part 1 right here.
PART II
MUSIC & YOU
When did you become interested in music? What was the first album or single you ever purchased?
I have been a music lover for as long as I can remember. My first purchase was “Into the Dragon” by Bomb the Bass. Vinyl. Great album all over, and, it featured Megablast – the sound track to the video game Xenon 2 by Bitmap Brothers which I absolutely loved as well.
Are you in a band yourself, or have you been in a band in the past? Is there a file on YouTube or elsewhere we could watch?
I played the drums for 7 years and was in a band at one point but it didn’t amount to much. Later, I got into electronic music production when “soundtrackers” started to appear on the PC platform. These days, I toy around with Ableton Live. Continue reading
The Album's Title Is A Play On "Borstal, Here We Come" From Billy Liar
The Smiths’ final studio album is a very graceful way to bow out. Leaving aside the presence of some songs that spoil its second side and which are notoriously glaring, the record adheres to the formula that had worked so well before: self-questioning lyrics over jangly guitars and very solid grooves.
The album’s opener is (in my opinion) the best opener of all their albums. The song is called “A Rush And A Push And The Land Is Ours”, and it has a roaring vocal from Morriseyy while the main melodic instrument is a piano. It is abutted by “I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish”, a song which was released as a single. I agree with that decision – while it doesn’t lead the band into unchartered territories it does play their formula to a hilt, and it plays it well. But I can’t disagree with those who claim “Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before” would have been a better A-side.
The other single, by the way, was “Girlfriend In A Coma”. Again, it incarnates their classic sound. It doesn’t take the listener anywhere he hasn’t gone before, but it lets him enjoy the ride for sure. Continue reading
As you probably recall, last week I reviewed (and was very impressed) by a startup named Minimum Noise. I was lucky enough to interview co-founder Kristian Dupont, and I am extremely grateful for his insight and advice. I have split the interview in two parts, the first is found below and it deals with the company, whereas the second one is the “Music & You” section that you are probably familiar with already if you are a MusicKO regular. It is found here.
Enjoy!
Mr. Kristian Dupont
Full Name: Kristian Dupont
Age: 31
Startup: Minimum Noise
Position: Co-founder
PART I
THE STARTUP
Tell us a little about your startup. How was it conceived? What are its most distinctive features in your opinion?
Sammy (my co-founder) and I have worked with tv-production and video games for many years. We love all things media. Having seen the crowdsourcing model work well for design sites, we wanted to apply this to media production in general. Minimum Noise does this for music. The concept is simple: if you need music production, you post a “project” on Minimum Noise. This project describes your requirements and how much you want to pay. Musicians can then upload mp3’s with sketches of how they would make it. You pick a winner, pay the musician and get the audio material. Continue reading
Check the first part of this review here.
Quadrophenia is a concept album that spans two records and which has 17 songs. It tells the story of a young mod named Jimmy who faces an existential dilemma, aggravated by the fact that he has four different and conflicting personalities, and each one of these reflects the personality of a member of The Who: a fighter, a romantic, a lunatic and a spiritual seeker. That is why there are four songs which are labeled as a member of The Who’s individual theme.
The story is not cohesive enough as it stands here – the movie was to be cohesive and to make sense, but that was to come much later on. In any case, Pete has come up with an emotional setting that is enough to make for any narrative deficiency. The Who are one of the best exponents of music that is internalized and felt, and Quadrophenia does not fail to deliver in that sense.
We get to see Jimmy as he his maturing, and that stands as an excellent analogy of the transition of music from the idealistic ’60s to the somehow starker ’70s. The Who were one of the longest-standing bands at that point, and they had not only the insight but also the right to articulate such issues. Continue reading
The Cover Of The Album
I consider Quadrophenia the biggest cultural contribution The Who ever made. That is a bold statement if we take into account that they also sang “My Generation” and recorded the defining album “Who’s Next“, adding new melodic resources to the world of music as a whole.
When I say that Quadrophenia was (and is) a significant cultural contribution, I take into account the fact that nobody else had taken the time to look back at the mod days and present them in such a representative light. Mod was the one and only aspect of British life in the ’60s that was not absorbed by America. Everything else was. Without Quadrophenia, that knowledge would have been somehow lost. And what was all the more remarkable was that when the album was originally issued the Who’s cohorts were adopting a lyrical posture that was to end up in total disconnection, singing about the dark side of the moon and stairways to heaven. That is, music would begin to lose its immediate link with those that bought it, and that disconnection would end a couple of years down the line in the punk revolution that placed both sides on an equal level. Continue reading
This week MusicKO became 100 posts old, and to commemorate it I am reviewing my favorite album ever: Quadrophenia, by The Who.
I would like to thank all the people who visit MusicKO regularly and all those who have started linking back to it.
If there is anything that you would like me to cover or a feature you would like to see please let me know in the comments!
See you around!
Emilio
Part 1 is found here. It deals with the songs on the original LP.
Like every other XTC album, this was to be reissued in the ’90s. Every single CD comes with additional tracks, and I must tell you that the booklets are uniformly subpar. Upon release, Mummer was quickly (and deservedly) hailed as the XTC album that was bonus-tracked the best.
Six songs have been added. Two are instrumentals from the Homo Safari series, and while they are the weak links they do work. If there is an album where you could throw anything into the mix and get away with it, that is Mummer. The songs would have stood as a sore thumb anywhere else.
The four actual songs that have been added, though, would have worked here, there and everywhere. But in the context of Mummer, they work like a dream. You have two incredibly uplifting numbers in the shape of “Jump” and “Gold”, whereas “Toys” is one of Andy’s most whimsical tunes of the period, but it is absolutely lovable because (unlike the Mummer tracks) he stays more true to the sound that always characterized XTC’s most soaring pop moments. Continue reading
The Cover That Was Accepted By The Record Company. A Cover With The Band In Mummer Regalia Was Rejected.
XTC’s music is characterized by marked twists and turns, both in terms of melody and lyrics. As a new listener of the band, I always knew that any of their albums would be an experience akin to a mystery to be elucidated, and I was ready for anything. I wasn’t, however, ready for Mummer. And the fact that it was one of the last XTC albums I bought makes that all the more significant.
As you probably know, this was the first album to be released after Andy’s nervous breakdown and his decision that the band was to become a studio entity from that point onwards. It was also the first album without Terry – he left the band and moved to Australia with girlfriend Donna (and son Kai), and worked there as a drummer for some time before leaving music behind for good. Also, the ties with manager Ian Reid were to become severed and lead to an exhausting litigation shortly. Continue reading