Acetio | Blogma

DJ Earworm http://www.youtube.com/user/djearworm creates musical mashups that make other mashups look like kindergarteners made them (although some are pretty awesome: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfadLhw14l8&feature=related)

The best are in the "United State of Pop" series, in which the top 25 pop songs (based on Billboard rankings) are combined into a new mix.
I like pop music but I'm not as aware of what's new as I was when I was younger, and I had never heard some of the songs used in the mixes (while other songs, such as "Single Ladies", I've probably heard, literally, a thousand times) - yet, I found myelf listening to these mashups several times each.

They are a marvelous technical achievement and are also a singularly cogent distillation of the American music zeitgeist.

When I was a kid, MTV was criticized for exacerbating the general societal attention-deficit disorder, but that was nothing compared to these mixes.
Back then the videos had only one song with rapid cutting of the visuals. These have 25 songs mixed together, usually with 3 or 4 going simultaneously.
This seems like it hits the limit to human perception. I'm curious what music videos and mashups will look like in 2020.

It's also interesting to see the racial breakdown of the singers in the videos. Of the 75 songs featured in the videos for 2007, 2008, & 2009 black men, black women, and blond white women seem to have roughly equal representation. White men and brunette women are under-represented. And Asians and hispanics are not represented.

2008: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ESZEUXyyb4
2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls7yJmxAF9Y

A lot of corny jokes, but a lot of truth too

Sweet Child O' Mine (Swing Version) by plamere

swing by antireality

The Swinger is python code that time-stretches the first half of each beat and time-shrinks the second half, giving any song a "swing" rhythm.

http://musicmachinery.com/2010/05/21/the-swinger/

more:
http://soundcloud.com/plamere
http://gizmodo.com/5547876/a-python-code-that-makes-any-song-swing

I heard of this duo on NPR and checked out their YouTube channel. They make "videosongs" where they show all the tracks used in their songs. It's a good way to see how songs are produced.

I can't stop watching this one. The song is absurdly catchy (being almost a nursery rhyme in simplicity) and the woman singing has a really pretty voice.

Watching this makes me want to make music.

I actually bought Stephan Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science" when it came out. It now sits, all five and a half pounds of it, right next to Hofstadter's "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid". They look impressive together, but it's a little embarrassing to have a whole shelf devoted to books I once meant to finish but long ago stopped pretending that I ever would.

Wolfram's book was a big deal when it came out in 2002 or so and I remember being excited by some of the ideas, although I'm not sure all the hype is/was warranted. One problem I had was that it wasn't clear enough what the practical applications could be. But Stephen has been busy and one of many sites devoted to the theories in the book is tones.wolfram.com which uses algorithms to generate music. It's a comprehensive tool and it's possible to get actually good music from it. Play around for a few minutes and you'll get some crud, some tolerable pieces, and one or two impressive little songs.

from Mike C.

"The Barbican today unveiled its latest art commission, which has seen one of its gallery spaces transformed into a walk-through aviary by French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot. He has strategically placed plugged in electric guitars as perches and cymbals containing water and seeds as feeders. As the birds fly around and land on the instruments, or even wipe their beaks on the strings, the visitor will hear the amplified results."

The "concept" in this kind of art-piece seldom interests me. If someone makes a piece involving music (or what they call music) then it has to sound good, or at least interesting. This guy seems to have succeeded. You can hear the audio here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/interactive/2010/feb/26/culture-barbic...

Can you believe that the Homestar Runner guys have been making their Flash cartoons for ten years, and they're still as hilarious as ever?

They sometimes collaborate with They Might Be Giants, and this week's cartoon is one of their group efforts.

One regret I have is that I never saw them play live when I was living in the Atlanta area.

This blew my mind

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

I really enjoyed the first season of Flight of the Conchords, although the last episode had me wondering if perhaps they had run out of songs. Season 2 confirmed that they had.

Season 1 had over 20 songs that had been polished and perfected by being performed in front of live audiences over several years. Season 2 was mostly original material that had been written hurriedly just for the show, and it's evident in the quality, which is a shame.

There were a few gems, however, that reminded me of the first season. For whatever reason, the songs I liked the most were in just two episodes: #2 and #5. They are all, or mostly, original songs that weren't in season 1.

Sugalumps

This song sounds like several song ideas stitched together, with a pattern something like: abcdaefg.
But it works and it's very catchy.

Youtube has an HD version:

The construction worker is oddly graceful.

You Don't Have to Be a Prostitute

It's like a parody, but not of any one song in particular. I couldn't get the tune out of my head for days.

Carol Brown

Like most of their best songs, the melody stands on its own and the lyrics are icing on the cake. The arrangement of this song is much nicer than the stage version which has just the male voices. Michel Gondry directed the video, which is also pretty cool.