Want to feel really old today? If you miss the sound your cassettes made, but have MP3s on your computer, you’re in luck. Don’t waste your time hunting down blank cassettes and broken Walkmans on eBay. If you’ve got a browser and a web connection, a simple site called WebCassette will load and degrade your digital music files so the sound quality hearkens back to a time before compact discs hit the market.
The Shazam Of Album Covers Is Now Here
A new app is being billed as “the Shazam of album covers,” and we’re all for it. The new app is called Record Player and it was designed with Glitch by Patrick Weaver.
The app utilizes Google Cloud Vision API and the Spotify API to automatically recognize album cover artwork and direct you to the album on Spotify. The app seems like the perfect tool for avid music fans and regular vinyl crate diggers who may want to preview an album that catches their eye in a store so they can check it out before purchasing it.
Click here to try out the Record Player app and watch a video to see how it works below.
Cool Read This Week – Visualizing The Beatles: A Complete Graphic History of the World’s Favorite Band
Visualizing the Beatles is filled with stunning full-color infographics, a unique, album-by-album visual history of the evolution of the Beatles that examines how their style, their sound, their instruments, their songs, their tours, and the world they inhabited transformed over the course of a decade.
Combining data, colorful artwork, interactive charts, graphs, and timelines, Visualizing the Beatles is a fresh and imaginative look at the world’s most popular band. Meticulously examining the songs on every Beatles’ album from Please Please Me to Let It Be, UK-based graphic artists John Pring and Rob Thomas deconstruct:
- lyrical content
- songwriting credits
- inspiration for the songs
- instruments used
- cover designs
- chart position
- and more . . . .
They also break down the success of Beatles’ singles across the world, their tour dates, venues, and cities, their hairstyles, fashion choices and favorite guitars, and a wealth of other Beatles’ minutiae. Visualizing the Beatles also includes illustrations involving the conspiracy theories of the “Paul is dead” hoax as well as A-to-Z lists of every artist or performer who has ever covered a Beatles’ song.
Comprehensive, entertaining, and packed with fun facts, Visualizing the Beatles is a wonderful introduction for new fans and a must-have for devotees, offering a new way to think about this extraordinary band whose influence continues to shape music.
How People Discover New Music And How This Affects Your PR Strategy
The music industry has dramatically changed over the past 10 years and Music PR companies are striving to get music where people are listening. The new nature of the industry means your music promotion strategy needs to adapt too. But in order for you to create the best strategy for your music to be discovered you need to know exactly how people are discovering new music and how best to reach them. The infographic below highlights that Spotify promotion is becoming one of the most important aspects of your strategy, with 45% of people listening on streaming services alone, with trends showing that Spotify is on track to take over radio in terms of listenership and popularity.
Conan O’Brien’s Human Motorcade
Like North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Conan O’Brien doesn’t go anywhere without his human motorcade.
Great interview with leading music supervisor Sarah Webster on best practices when wanting to place music within film or television
MUBUTV’s Ritch Esra sits down with top Music Supervisor Sarah Webster (Pitch Perfect, Pitch Perfect 2) to discuss the role of Music Supervision today – What it is, how it’s changed over the last few years and how to most effectively get your music heard. various aspects of an artist’s career today from recording contracts to the various other kinds of agreements that artists and bands need to be aware of today.
Sarah Webster has worked on over sixty films and television series since 2003. Most notably Pitch Perfect 1 & 2. Each soundtrack won Top Soundtrack Award at the American Music Awards. (2013 & 2015). The Pitch Perfect 2 soundtrack was nominated for a Grammy for Top Soundtrack Album of 2015 as well as a Billboard Music Award. Pitch Perfect 2 is the highest grossing musical comedy of all time. It was her love of the underground dance music culture that was thriving on the West Coast in the early 1990’s that got Sarah her start in the music business. Somewhere between the Winter Music Conference and MIDEM, licensing house music for a software development company in Vancouver led to a job in business development for an independent record label group in New York City. Sarah’s focus shifted to visual media when she was hired to oversee the film music department for Canada’s
leading & largest music management & booking agency, soon after becoming VP of Music Supervision for S.L. Feldman & Associates.
During her years as an Executive, Sarah oversaw all aspects of music supervision for dozens of projects, from television documentaries to big budget feature films. All the while, acting as agent to numerous award winning score composers. She has supervised countless episodes & seasons of television series that have been broadcast in countries all over the World. In 2009 Sarah left the corporate environment to start her own company, Saraswati Music Supervision. Her credits include Academy Award & Palme d’Or nominated projects, from film festival winners to major box office successes.
Ontario Boosting Support for Music Education in Schools
Ontario is partnering with Canada’s music industry to refurbish and restore musical instruments in schools, and boost music education programming.
Indira Naidoo-Harris, Minister of Education, was at St. Joseph’s College School in Toronto today to announce that the province is investing in Music Canada‘s musical instrument refurbishment program, called The Three R’s Music Program. The funding will improve the inventory of musical instruments available to Ontario’s publicly funded schools through repairs and refurbishments. It will also:
- Increase public engagement in support of music education
- Develop community partnerships across Ontario to increase the capacity and sustainability of music programs
- Raise students’ awareness about different aspects of Canada’s music industry and provide students with access to Canadian artists.
This program is part of the $21 million boost to arts education announced in Ontario’s 2018 Budget. Other programs through this investment will enhance student learning about and through the arts, and will create space to support cultural diversity, including respect for Indigenous peoples’ culture, perspectives, and knowledge.
Investing in arts education is part of the government’s plan to support care, create opportunity and make life more affordable during this period of rapid economic change. The plan includes free prescription drugs for everyone under 25, and 65 or over, through the biggest expansion of medicare in a generation, free tuition for hundreds of thousands of students, a higher minimum wage and better working conditions, and free preschool child care from ages 2.5 to kindergarten.
Quick Facts
- Ontario is investing $3 million in Music Canada’s musical instrument refurbishment program, called The Three R’s Music Program.
- The Musical Instrument Refurbishment Program will be implemented equitably across all publicly funded school boards.
- Music Canada will prioritize outreach to at-risk, racialized and Indigenous youth across the province, where the identified need is greatest.
- Ontario is investing an additional $21 million over three years in arts education ($7 million each year for three years), as announced in the 2018 Budget.
- Arts investments are also based on feedback received from the arts education roundtable held in October 2017, co-hosted by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport. The roundtable was attended by 33 organizations, representing educators (subject associations and federations), community arts educators, cultural organizations and cultural industries.
JUKEBOX HERO THE MUSICAL Comes to Canada
Foreigner are back on the road for their 40th anniversary tour – just as a brand new musical based on the timeless hits of the band prepares to open in Canada.
Jukebox Hero – The Musical will be given its world premiere in Alberta this coming August, with dates at the Jubilee theatres in Calgary and Edmonton.
The show will open its North American tour in Toronto in February 2019 at the historic Ed Mirvish Theatre. Ahead of the show’s premiere in Canada, Jukebox Hero has already taken $300,000 in tickets sales.
Plans are already in the pipeline for the show to be staged on Broadway, followed by an international tour with dates including the UK and Europe.
As part of their 40th Anniversary tour and to formally launch Jukebox Hero – The Musical in the UK, Foreigner are performing for the first time ever at London’s iconic Royal Albert Hall later this month. The concert is sold out.
The Jukebox Hero team will be joining the band in the capital to showcase the new stage show.
The team behind Jukebox Hero – a coming of age story written to the music of British American band Foreigner – reads like a roll call of creative talent which is second to none.
Calgary-based Annerin Theatricals and Foreigner have joined forces with the prolific British writing duo Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, who have written the book of this new rock and roll musical.
The creative partnership of Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais is responsible for such TV hits as The Tracey Ullman Show, The Two Ronnies, Lovejoy, Auf Wiedersehen Pet, The Likely Lads and perhaps their biggest TV success, Porridge. Their film credits include The Commitments, Across The Universe, The Bank Job and Still Crazy.
The pair first collaborated on a stage musical in the early 1970s when they turned the Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall play Billy Liar into the hit musical, Billy, starring a young Michael Crawford.
The artistic team is led by Foreigner founder, songwriter and lead guitarist Mick Jones and Foreigner’s managers Phil Carson and Stewart Young, whose career track record includes AC/DC; Emerson, Lake and Palmer; Yes; and Led Zeppelin.
Canadian theatre impresario Jeff Parry from Annerin Theatricals completes the team. Jeff has brought successful productions to the stage in Broadway, Europe and London’s West End, with shows including Let It Be, a celebration of the music of The Beatles.
The North American premiere of Jukebox Hero will be directed by Randy Johnson, known for Broadway’s Tony Award Nominated production of A Night With Janis Joplin; with musical staging and choreography by Tracey Flye (resident director of the Toronto productions of We Will Rock You and Once); and musical direction by Mark Camilleri (musical director for the Toronto engagement of Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax).
Producer Jeff Parry from Annerin Theatricals commented: “Foreigner celebrate 40 years of musical success this year. Their songs have stood the test of time – and Jukebox Hero is the perfect way to introduce new audiences to the band’s catalogue of hit songs.
“This is a very exciting time for Jukebox Hero. The show is generating an incredible amount of interest ahead of its premiere this Summer – and plans are already in the pipeline to bring the show to the UK and Europe, where we know the band have a strong following.
“I am delighted to join Mick Jones, Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais, Phil Carson and Stewart Young in London for the Foreigner concert this month, when we will showcase Jukebox Hero.”
Jukebox Hero is set in Blaydon, Pennsylvania, a rust-belt town dependent on one main industry. The story starts with the closure of its biggest factory and the plight of its now unemployed workforce. The town seeks the help of Blaydon’s most famous son, music superstar Ryan, but returning to Blaydon doesn’t just mean revisiting a town where he’s become a stranger – it means confronting the ghosts of his past.
Jukebox Hero features all 16 of Foreigner’s iconic Top Thirty hit songs including I Want To Know What Love Is, Cold As Ice, Waiting For A Girl Like You, Hot Blooded, Urgent, Head Games, Feels Like The First Time, and the show’s title song, Jukebox Hero.
Fans of the band will be transported back to when it all began with a 40th anniversary concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall on Wednesday 16 May – when they perform at the capital’s landmark venue for the very first time in their four decades of music. The concert is sold out.
Foreigner is Mick Jones (lead guitar), Kelly Hansen (lead vocals), Tom Gimbel (rhythm guitar, sax, vocals), Jeff Pilson (bass, vocals), Michael Bluestein (keyboards), Bruce Watson (guitar) and Chris Frazier (drums).
Musical Genre Challenge with Ariana Grande
Ariana Grande transforms Drake’s “God’s Plan” into an epic ’90s diva hit and Kendrick Lamar’s “HUMBLE.” into Evanescence-style goth-rock in the latest edition of Musical Genre Challenge.