Check out this fab BBC 4 documentary following a generation of post-punk musicians who went to form successful electronic bands in the 70s and 80s and had a profound impact on present day music. Featuring Vince Clarke, Neil Tennant, Bernard Sumner, Gary Numan, Phil Oakley, Martin Gore, the Eurythmics, and more.
The Luckiest Unluckiest Man Who Ever Lived
Strange but true, this is the story of Frane Selak. Selak’s brushes with death started in January 1962 when he was riding a train through a cold, rainy canyon and the train flipped off the tracks and crashed in a river. Someone pulled Selak to safety, while 17 other unfortunate passengers drowned. Selak suffered a broken arm and hypothermia. The next year, during his first and only plane ride, he was blown out of a malfunctioning plane door and landed in a haystack; the plane crashed, killing 19 people. However, there is no report of any plane crash in Croatia in 1963. Three years after that, in 1966, a bus that he was riding skidded off the road and into a river, drowning four passengers. Selak swam to shore with a few cuts and bruises.
In 1970 his car caught fire as he was driving and he managed to escape before the fuel tank blew up. Three years later, in another driving incident, the engine of his car was doused with hot oil from a malfunctioning fuel pump, causing flames to shoot through the air vents. Selak’s hair was completely singed in this incident, but he was otherwise unharmed. In 1995, he was struck by a bus in Zagreb, but sustained only minor injuries. In 1996 he eluded a head-on collision with a United Nations truck on a mountain curve by swerving into a guardrail, which gave way under the force of his car; he was ejected from the car when the door flew open, (he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt) managed to hold onto a tree, and watched his car plummet down 90 metres (300 ft) into a gorge.
In 2003, two days after his 73rd birthday, Selak won $1,110,000 in the lottery.
First Drafts of Rock: “American Woman” by The Guess Who
Jimmy Fallon’s First Drafts of Rock takes a look at the original version of The Guess Who’s “American Woman” featuring The Bacon Brothers.
Turn Your MP3s Into This Walkman Simulator
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.