These are the albums the music industry forgot. But at the time of their release, these LPs were quite huge, sometimes selling millions of copies. Created out of a need to capitalize on their TV or movie success, or even just because they wanted to, these celebs didn’t give The Beatles a run for their money in the creative department, but good for these stars for creating something eclectic in their own right.
This touching commercial featuring a dying pet owner and his dog making its rounds on the internet will tear you and consider donating your organs.
https://youtu.be/mz2kDH0MCn4
In September, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made some waves when he hinted Facebook was working on a way to expand its famous Like button — not by adding the much-fabled “dislike” option, but by making it way more empathetic, expressing sadness and other emotions. Today, Facebook is taking the wraps off what form the new Like may take. It is rolling out “Reactions,” a new set of six emoji that will sit alongside the original thumbs-up to let users quickly respond with love, laughter, happiness, shock, sadness and anger.
Facebook tells us that the pop-up feature will first start out as a test in two markets only, Spain and Ireland, before it decides whether to tweak it and/or how to roll it out further.
Via TechCrunch
CBGB, the iconic punk rock venue in New York’s East Village home to such great rock and rollers like The Ramones, Blondie, Richard Hell, and Patti Smith, shut its doors in 2006, but it’s coming back. Kinda. Hyperrealist sculptor Randy Hage created a marvellous 1/12 scale model of the club, and the photos are remarkable. If you’re in the Pasadena, California area, you can check them out at on October 10th, 2015 at Flower Pepper Gallery.
By the way, the full name of the club is CBGB & OMFUG, which stands for “Country, Bluegrass, Blues and Other Music For Uplifting Gormandizers”. Gabba Gabba Hey!
Via Supersonic Art
Glen Hansard won international acclaim for his starring role in the 2007 film Once. The Irish singer-songwriter, who’s spent 25 years leading The Frames, also wrote or co-wrote the film’s music — including “Falling Slowly,” which won an Oscar for Best Original Song. Now, Hansard has released his second solo album, Didn’t He Ramble, which he wrote and recorded in Ireland, France and the U.S.
In this session, Hansard and a six-piece band perform songs from Didn’t He Ramble at World Cafe Live in Philadelphia. Hansard also recounts stories about songwriting and Bruce Springsteen and shares where he keeps his Oscar. Hear the full session at the audio link above and download four web-only songs from the performance below.
There you go, haters. Taylor Swift might just have better taste in music than you do, too. At least she’s all about bring positive.
When NASA launched the two Voyager spacecraft in 1977, set incongruously among the on-board scientific instruments was the Golden Record, a sort of cultural handshake from humankind (or at least a NASA-approved version of it). The disc was optimistically intended for any passing alien to set up and play in order to hear a representative selection of the world’s sounds and music. Hand-etched on its surface were the words ‘To the makers of music – all worlds, all times’.
This un-presented sequence is made up from the music and sounds on the Golden Record, from Bach to Chuck Berry, Stravinsky to Australian aboriginal song; from erupting volcanoes and a small selection of the world’s fauna to heavy industrial machinery and trains, planes and automobiles. Not to mention greetings in fifty-five languages and a personal ‘hello’ from 1977 UN Secretary General, Kurt Waldheim.
‘To the Makers of Music – All Worlds, All Times’ is a chance to imagine yourself as an alien in a distant galaxy in whose back garden a Voyager spacecraft has landed. Somehow, you’ve been able to follow the instructions which come with the Golden Record and, luckily, your auditory sense and your planet’s atmosphere enable you to hear what’s on it. Are you any the wiser about planet earth and its inhabitants? Or perhaps just a little perplexed? Is it time to get back to the gardening, plan an invasion or extend the hand (tentacle) of friendship? You decide.
You can listen to the record here.
Via BBC
When world-renowned author Salman Rushdie came to our studios to talk about his new book, Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, CBC wanted to offer him a sample of Canada’s greatest literary offerings in return. No, not Kim Thúy or Margaret Atwood, but October’s (and Canada’s) very own rapper-in-residence, Drake.
Via CBC
Paste: Is that openness to instinct something that’s always been there for you guys, or has it been more along the lines of a learning process to get there?
Emily Haines: Well, I haven’t ever been good at doing something that I don’t want to do. There’s not necessarily a set list of rules, or a technique rather, in the band. If I can’t sing the vocals for example, it means that it’s something that I don’t feel. It has nothing to do with the notes. So it’s nice to have this built-in sort of threshold. It’s an odd thing to navigate. You push yourself to do something that hasn’t been done, which I definitely did on this record, feeling more as though it was about what does the song want than what’s the predetermined identity of who I’m supposed to be in this project. But, I don’t know, like I said, I don’t really know what I’m doing, except that I know when it feels right, and when I’m excited about it. It’s the same for Jimmy and the guys, and it’s a pretty abstract measure, but it’s the only way that we’ve ever done anything and it hasn’t ever failed us—yet.
Via Paste Magazine
“I don’t know what the ‘big time’ is” – Tom Waits in 1988
“He’s a natural raconteur. A great one. You just get out of the way and let him do his thing, perform. If you can nudge the jokes along, so much the better.” – Chris Roberts on interviewing Tom Waits.
From this glorious interview (recorded on cassette tape) we decided to just dip inside the mind of Tom Waits. So he takes us to church, Stonehenge, the streets of New York and inside a Hawaiian nightmare. The interview was recorded in a London recording studio and you can hear muffled music throughout the conversation.
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Eric Alper is a 6-time nominee for Publicist of the Year during Canadian Music Week and has overseen the publicity campaigns for over 183 JUNO Award-nominated albums (and 16 in 2025), 45 Grammy-nominated albums, including 47 JUNO Award, 58 Canadian Folk Music Award, 126 Maple Blues Award-winning albums and is also truly honoured to work with some of the biggest and most important artists of our time.
Contact me: eric@thatericalper.com
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