E3 09: Last.fm to Come to Xbox 360

/gamer:

“If you are a fan of Music and you have an Xbox Live Gold Account you will be in luck. The popular online streaming music website, Last.fm will be teaming up with Microsoft to put the music service on the Xbox 360.

From Engadget’s live blog of Microsoft’s E3 Press Conference: “Schappert: ‘Today I’m proud to announce that music is coming to Xbox Live” thanks to a partnership with Last.fm. And best of all Last.fm will be available to Xbox Live gold members later this year for no additional charge.’”

The Tarantino Mixtape

Awesome remix, with awesome video to boot. Language from movie clips is NSFW…

/Film: “Webby Award nominated media artist Eclectic Method has thrown all of Quentin Tarantino’s movies in a blender and created “the TARANTINO mixtape.”

Prince Talks About Guitar Hero, Turned Down an Offer to be in the Game

/gamer:

“Prince is considered to be one of the greatest musicians of our time. Honestly, even if for some reason you can’t stand him, it’s hard to argue his greatness, just look at his achievements. The artist has won seven Grammy Awards, one Golden Globe and even an Academy Award for his work on Purple Rain.

Even with his legendary work, comes controversy. Without me getting to much into it, just go to his Wikipedia page and look under ‘controversy.’ With that said, PBS asked Prince on his thoughts about Guitar Hero. Although he didn’t necessarily criticizes the rhythm game, he just doesn’t think it should be a substitute for playing an actual guitar.

“Well, I ain’t mad at them. I hear it made, like, $2 billion and they came to us and offered us a very small portion of that. But I just think it’s more important that kids learn how to actually play the guitar. It’s a tough instrument — it’s not easy. It took me a long time, and it was frustrating at first. And you just have to stick with it, and it’s cool for people who don’t have time to learn the chords or ain’t interested in it, but to play music is one of the greatest things. To create something from nothing is one of the greatest feelings, and I would — I don’t know, I wish it upon everybody. It’s heaven.”

Now, I agree with Prince about playing music. Actually, creating music, or anything else for that matter, is far better than just copying something. But one thing I don’t think he seems to understand, along with this older generation, is that Guitar Hero is NOT going to stir people away from playing a real guitar. I believe that if anything, kids are more inclined to pick up an instrument and learn how to play, and with that could lean how to become a musician. The game is more of a stepping stone rather than a replacement.”

via

Canadian music pirates of 1897

Boing Boing:

“This NYT article from 1897 about Canadian music piracy is awfully familiar sounding — search-and-replace “Canadian” with “Swedish” and “post office” with “ISP” and you get… The Long War: Music Piracy in 1897 (NYTimes) “

Anvil: The True Story

This is not a farce…it’s a real band, true story…can’t wait to see this!

U2’s manager wants the power to cut off your Internet connection

Boing Boing:

“JZ sez,

The Guardian looks at the French Three Strikes law, whose final discussion will happen today in both chambers of the French parliament. I thought you might be interested into making a reply to it. It’s pure mantra and doesn’t talk about the most disturbing points:

– it gives the entertainment industries the power to police the internet by themselves

– the whole procedure is based on immaterial, unverifiable, unopposable proofs (IP address listings)

– you cannot claim your innocence before the sanction is ordered.

Innocents will inevitably be disconnected.

As the NYT reported today: “Nonetheless, Internet advocates call the French proposal legally unsound on the ground that there are inadequate the provisions for challenging an action, and because it gives industry groups the power to police the Internet. Others question whether the law would unfairly penalize those whose wireless broadband accounts are misused by others. The French law tries to anticipate this by making it a civil infraction for citizens to fail to ’secure’ their broadband accounts by using approved filtering technology.”

The Guardian piece consists of U2’s manager talking about how it would be great if private corporations — phone companies and music labels — got the power to take away your Internet connection on the basis of unproven accusations of copyright infringement.

I’ve written about this subject rather a lot here (see below), but I think this is the most cogent response:

In the past week, I’ve only used the internet to contact my employers around the world, my MP in the UK, to participate in a European Commission expert proceeding, to find out why my infant daughter has broken out in tiny pink polka-dots, to communicate with a government whistle-blower who wants to know if I can help publish evidence of official corruption, to provide references for one former student (and follow-up advice to another), book my plane tickets, access my banking records, navigate the new Home Office immigration rules governing my visa, wire money to help pay for the headstone for my great uncle’s grave in Russia, and to send several Father’s Day cards (and receive some of my own).

The internet is only that wire that delivers freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of the press in a single connection. It’s only vital to the livelihood, social lives, health, civic engagement, education and leisure of hundreds of millions of people (and growing every day).

This trivial bit of kit is so unimportant that it’s only natural that we equip the companies that brought us Police Academy 11, Windows Vista, Milli Vanilli and Celebrity Dancing With the Stars with wire-cutters that allow them to disconnect anyone in the country on their own say-so, without proving a solitary act of wrongdoing.”

Why France has the solution to online piracy

ThruYou, an album made entirely from YouTube clips, far greater than the sum of its parts

This is amazing…at the least, watch “I M You” all the way through…

Boing Boing Gadgets:

“ThruYou is a seven-track dub and breakbeat album created entirely using samples from user-contributed YouTube videos. It’s the coolest thing you’ll see today, and not just because of the remix nature of it, but how it takes these amateur contributions and by contextualizing them draws out their best elements. Not so much the little clips cut into rhythm hits, but the solos. Check out the third track, “I M New“: Not only is the rap break almost entirely uncut, the coda matches a cut up piano performance perfectly with one girl looking into her computer’s webcam and singing what she hopes will someday be a song on her professionally produced album. And now it is.

Also worth noting: A ton of interesting synths and oscillators on display in track four, “Babylon Band“, a track I would embed except that the artist Kutiman actually uses a custom Flash page, not a standard YouTube interface. Still, lots of good stuff here for synth nerds.

Did I mention the songs are great? They are.”

Prince On a Magical Segway Ride

Nerd Approved:

“From Fashionably Geek: Let’s face it—Prince is getting older. He’s already 50 and he has a bum hip. Maintaining independence is crucial, but a guy like Prince can’t be caught riding a Rascal. So, according to this shirt he has chosen the lesser of two evils—a Segway. Although, I have to admit—picturing Prince on a Segway is like picturing grandma riding a chopper.”

Product Page: ($23 pre-order for March 8 release)

Microsoft SongSmith Produces Comedy Gold

Microsoft research group created a piece of software called SongSmith that lets you sing into it and then the application creates music based on your singing. The project got dumped, but that didn’t stop the research team from making this horribly hilarious commercial (also note that the girl is singing into a not-so-disguised Mac laptop!):

They eventually released the software, and now the interwebs have taken over. People are taking the vocal tracks from popular songs, inputting them into SongSmith, and letting Songsmith generate the background music, with hilarious results. Here are some of the best ones:

Creep by Radiohead

Wonderwall by Oasis

Roxanne by The Police

Sgt Pepper’s Lonely
Hearts Club Band by The Beatles

Eye of the Tiger by
Survivor

Runnin’ with the Devil
by Van Halen

Just What I Needed by
The Cars

White Wedding by Billy
Idol

Watchmen Soundtrack and Score Details Revealed

/Film:

In a press release today, Warner has revealed that they “will
release both the soundtrack and original score to the feature film
Watchmen on March 3rd — three days before the March 6th release of the
highly anticipated feature film.” Bizarrely, when you head on over to
the soundtracks’ main site, http://www.watchmenmusic.com,
the date very clearly says February 24, 2009. For now I’ll assume that
the website is correct, since it can be easily corrected and press
releases are forever (this post will be corrected later if that turns
out not to be the case).

From the press release:

Music From The Motion Picture Watchmen , the film’s
official soundtrack, includes My Chemical Romance’s powerful
reinterpretation of Bob Dylan’s “Desolation Row,” recorded exclusively
for the film. The soundtrack also features a collection of classic
songs by such artists as Nat King Cole, Simon & Garfunkel, and
Janis Joplin, which, once heard in the context of the film, will never
be thought of the same way again.

Watchmen Original Motion Picture Score features music by recording
artist, composer, and music producer Tyler Bates, who was asked to
score the film by Watchmen director Zack Snyder…Music From The Motion
Picture Watchmen and Watchmen Original Motion Picture Score will be
released in multiple fan-friendly configurations: The physical CD, and
a digital album will be available on March 3rd, and a vinyl edition of
the soundtrack will be released on March 17th.

Watchmen Music Collectors Edition 7″ Box Set will be released on
March 24th. The box set contains 7 double-sided 7″ picture discs of
each Watchmen character on one side, and images in the likeness of the
graphic novel on the other. The Watchmen Music Collectors Edition 7″
Box Set will include My Chemical Romance’s “Desolation Row,” along with
13 tracks by Tyler Bates.

Sounds like there will be some pretty sexy and geektastic ways to
own these soundtracks. The press release also points out that Bates
scored Tales from the Black Freighter, which will appear on the DVD, a sign of Warner’s commitment
to delivering us as much of the story as possible, even if it’s only in
a home video format. I’m still not sold on Bates involvement yet (go here for his filmography) but I’m willing to give him a chance and see if he’ll produce something truly memorable this time around.

Hit the jump for the full track listings of both the soundtrack and
the score. Beware that minor spoilers are contained in the track titles
as usual, so if you aren’t familiar with the Watchmen graphic novel, go out, buy it and read it first.

Music From The Motion Picture Watchmen track-listing is as follows:

1. Desolation Row – My Chemical Romance
2. Unforgettable – Nat King Cole
3. The Times They Are A-Changin’ – Bob Dylan
4. The Sound Of Silence – Simon & Garfunkel
5. Me & Bobby McGee – Janis Joplin
6. I’m Your Boogie Man – KC & The Sunshine Band
7. You’re My Thrill – Billie Holiday
8. Pruit Igoe & Prophecies – The Philip Glass Ensemble
9. Hallelujah – Leonard Cohen
10. All Along The Watchtower – Jimi Hendrix
11. Ride of the Valkyries – Budapest Symphony Orchestra
12. Pirate Jenny – Nina Simone*

* – used in the end credits of the “Tales From The Black Freighter” DVD.

Watchmen Original Motion Picture Score track-listing is as follows

1. Rescue Mission
2. Don’t Get Too Misty Eyed
3. Tonight The Comedian Died
4. Silk Spectre
5. We’ll Live Longer
6. You Quit!
7. Only Two Names Remain
8. The American Dream
9. Edward Blake – The Comedian
10. The Last Laugh
11. Prison Fight
12. Just Look Around You
13. Dan’s Apocalyptic Dream
14. Who Murdered Hollis Mason?
15. What About Janie Slater?
16. I’ll Tell You About Rorschach
17. Countdown
18. It Was Me
19. All That Is Good
20. Requiem (Excerpted from Mozart’s Requiem)
21. I Love You Mom

Source: BusinessWire