I hate Radiohead but Flight404 makes it almost listenable with his amazing visualisation, done entirely in Processing. Although he did cheat and do the beat detection manually.
I recommend the 200MB quicktime version but there’s a smaller flash player on the blog post.
UPDATE: Seriously, this song is awful by any reasonable measure. If you think this song doesn’t suck, you’re delusional. “Weird fishes” indeed. Or is that WeIrD F1SH3S.
Mackie, I love you but why are your prices in Australia so unbelievably high?
Check this out. I’d love to pick up a pair of your new MR5s for my home setup (I already have some HR824s, and they’re awesome). So I look at the prices.
USD $150 each at sweetwater
AUD $400 each at online stores here
A current currency conversion: 150 U.S. dollars = 163.51 Australian dollars.
Don’t bother pulling out your calculators, that’s a 245% increase AFTER currency conversion. Someone is making a killing here, and it’s your brand that looks like an absolute rip-off. And don’t say it’s shipping, they’re made in China and Australia is *closer*.
I know the Australian distribution is probably not really your #1 concern but please can someone at least take a look at it? These guys are making off like bandits. I don’t mind paying a little more since we’re a smallish market, but how could anyone pay that much more? Two and a half times as much is insane. If you wonder why you don’t have any customers here, now you know – your local distribution partners are ripping you off blind, and as for the customers – we all know how to find US prices, and we all know the AUD is practically equal to the USD.
Would *you* pay a 245% premium, no matter how much you like Mackie?
Well, anyway, thanks and I just wanted to get this off my chest. Great work on all the products as usual, I love them. Just please fix the pricing situation in Australia : (
thanks a lot!
Sho
I can’t believe I’ve never posted any Dragon Ash to this blog. I’ll remedy that right now with my favourite song off their 2005 album Rio de Emocion, Palmas Rock.
Dragon Ash – Palmas Rock
Wow, Radiohead have a remix competition! You can remix their song, “Nude”, and if you like it you might get a prize! Cool, huh – although I’m not really a fan, I’m all for artists promoting remixing of their own work. So maybe I’ll just grab the song parts, they’re sure to be free, right ..?
Oh no! They’re only available on the iTunes store. There’s 5 separate parts, sold as 5 different tracks. If you want to remix this song, you’ll have to buy all 5.
The greedy fucks. What’s wrong, Thom, not satisfied with the $10m you made from gouging fans for crappy low-bitrate mp3s? Now trying to charge through the nose to make a fan remix of your songs?
What a disgraceful, money-grubbing little shit Thom Yorke is. Want to remix this stupid song? Grab the audio from The Pirate Bay.
By the way, Radiohead sucks. Basically they’re whining British fags who just moan about their shitty lives all the time. I think. Actually, that’s just a guess – I have no idea what Radiohead sing about, I can’t stand them. All those people who say things like they’re the should all be shot.
I’m not saying all Radiohead fans are gay. Just, you know, be careful. Watch you back, if you know what I mean. That’s all.
Oh, and Trent Reznor did it first, did it better, and for free. Fuck you, Radiohead!
New song by X Japan, the best rock band in the history of the world, who are playing live in a reunion concert this weekend. Wish I was going! Why not check out the video as well, which will make you miss Odaiba!
I.V. – X-Japan
Note that the track is ripped from a DVD, no official single is yet available, so segues into another song before cutting off.
UPDATE: I replaced the video file with a better copy I made myself.
Click for lyrics. (more…)
If you want to just float away into karaoke bliss, or alternatively if you have a music-loving friend who is looking for an excuse to commit suicide, I recommend downloading one of my latest “masterpieces”.
She’s An Angel, by They Might Be Giants.
I made an exception to my normal “one take only” rule this time, and did another take and mixed it to the other channel. It sounds even worse!!!
UPDATE: If you like that, you’ll LOVE this rendition of Where Your Eyes Don’t Go.
Stay tuned for the hauntingly beautiful opera solo at the end!
Sonne, by Rammstein. One needs a heavy metal soundtrack to one’s detailed fantasies about walking through the Macintosh Business Unit and shooting everyone in there to pieces, and what better heavy metal is there than Rammstein?
Another old rip, by the way, continuing the recent trend.
New from Shael Riley’s band The Grammar Club (well, December anyway): Balloon Flight.
Previously known for Miss Information with its fucking awesome lyrics. Lol .. I used to play that loud at a guesthouse I lived in in Japan, hoping someone would comment on the lyrics! Sadly, no-one ever did…
I take a liking to this style of music. There’s an unfathomable ocean of amateur hobby music out there, most of it utter shit – so much so that I generally avoid the whole genre like the plague. I like “nerdcore” though – it’s got a real good-natured, sincere feel that really shines through. Good shit.
The whole album is available free for download, but this song is the pick of the bunch IMO. If you really liked it, you might want to check out the rest.
Balloon Flight MP3 3.9M
Lyrics: (more…)
Song of the week is two songs from the the Korean drama Dae Jang Geum (대장금).
First is Onara (오나라), the famous theme song from the drama. Sung in (old) korean. Has a wikipedia page here if you want more information.
Unaccountably, although I heard this song every saturday night for a year, I never liked it coming from the TV speaker. It was only after I finally heard it on proper speakers that I fell in love with it, several years late! This despite my general liking of korean music, especially drama theme songs, as detailed here before…
Second is The Legend Becomes History, the ending theme, sung in English. Lyrics after the break.
If you like Kanno Yoko or other highly melodic drama soundtracks, you should certainly check the soundtrack out. It’s Kanno-class – what higher praise is there?
Ready for a blast from the past? All files can be played in VLC.
SWIV – probably my favourite Amiga game music ever. Was really blown away at the time ..!
Xenon 2
Magic Pockets
R-Type
Bitmap Brothers sure kicked ass.
Next: Commodore 64 music. Stay a while … stay .. forever!!!
I have a pair of the fantastic Mackie HR824 MKI monitor speakers. They’re great, easily the best midprice monitor speaker on the market, in my opinion.
So naturally I was interested when the MKII was announced, especially since my MKIs are sitting thousands of kilometres away! And with the , surely the price would be reasonable, right?
WRONG!
Price in America: USD$599 = AUD$625.23 each = AUD$1,350.46 for a pair.
Price in Australia: AUD$2,999 for a pair.
The speakers are identical save the localised power cable. Voltage is switchable on the back. The Australian price is 220% of the American for the exact same fucking thing.
Fuck you, Australian distributors. The only way I’d pay you more than double the proper market price for a pair of these is if it included a free kick right in your useless, greedy faces.
UPDATE: annoyingly, on the mk2 the voltage is NOT switchable on the back, locking us into the Euro or AU model. I don’t know any good EU online stores but the list price is EUR€599, about AUD$995 each. I wonder what they cost in China – where all this stuff is made.
Anyway, the price difference with the US model would easily cover a huge stepdown transformer.
It infuriates me that these power compatibility issues even exist! It all just gets turned into DC internally anyway. Why isn’t there a range of standard interchangeable transformer modules on all electronics? Then they could just make the same thing a million times, and slot the module in as required. Methinks the savings gained by doing that would be outweighed by the arbitrage-style profits lost by being able to segment the markets, DVD Region style.
This is a very sad day – the best filesharing site in history shut down, the admin arrested. For anyone who knows the site, you’ll know it’s an incalculable loss for anyone who loves music. There was simply no better place to find rare, obscure music, with a great community, high quality standards and always fast speed.
Apparently there was 180,000 users. It’d be a fair guess that those were a good portion of the top hundred thousand or so technically competent, quality aware, and passionate music lovers in the world – all of whom are now presumably furious at the record companies responsible for the takedown. This feels exactly like Napster, where the idiot record companies, instead of making a deal and legitimising a better service than they can possibly offer, just shut it down – pissing off hundreds of thousands of what should be their best customers.
Anyway. Let’s hope a recent copy of the database exists, and the site can be reconstituted in Sweden or Russia – the only free countries left, it seems.
Jakatta – American Dream (Joey Negro Club Mix)
Loved this song when it first came out in 2000, was reminded of it recently and dug up the single. Notice anything a little non-standard about the beat? 
Original hide version
TK version
When I first listened to the TK version I thought it was unbearably cheesy and lame compared to hide’s fantastic original. But now it’s really grown on me!
Has anyone else seen the recent Nicholas Cage movie, Next?
Did you recognise the scores’ obvious “inspiration” from Kanno Yoko’s Ghost in the Shell score?
The item from the score plays during the opening credits. I don’t have the OST yet but I’ll get it. The copied track is “To tell the Truth”, from Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex O.S.T. 2.
UPDATE 1: upon listening again, I believe it is also similar to the Harry Gregson-Williams score for Miss Smilla’s Sense of Snow, specifically the title track Greenland Anno 1859 which I have a copy of but can’t get at the moment (it’s in Adelaide), and amazingly oink doesn’t seem to have.
Anyway, that seems to be the similar song I’m thinking of, which shares the distinctive two-chord piano line. They’re all similar songs, and I have no doubt that all have influenced the others – I know Kanno is a fan of Gregson-Williams.
MP3 1: 8:09 by Mark Isham – listen from about 1:10 in if you’re impatient
MP3 2: To Tell the Truth by Kanno Yoko – about a minute in, but listen to the whole thing, this is a great song
Anyone who has this album is welcome to send it to me!
UPDATE: thank you very much, Jacke!
By They Might Be Giants, Climbing the Walls. Hate to post “mood songs” but what can one do?
From experimental jazz artist UA, 黄金の緑 (おうごんのみどり / Golden Green). Listen all the way through or you probably won’t “get it”.
UPDATE: An exciting, neck-and-neck fight to the death has broken out in the poll to the right. Which of these musical titans will emerge victorious? Perhaps neither – the contenders may well be so close, such perfect competitors, that the result is tied. Disappointed, me? Not at all. TK is a worthy nemesis. And I cannnot but bow to the will of the people. If equal the people say, equal we shall be.
It’s been quite a while since I’ve been so transfixed by a demonstration of a computer game as that for Little Big Planet, coming soon for PS3. Can’t help but be reminded of Lemmings on the Amiga, although the gameplay doesn’t have much in common .. I couldn’t take my eyes off those little guys, either. Must look freaking amazing in 1080p.
And the catchy song playing in the background is actually by The Go! Team, Get It Together, which was a little surprising because they’re kind of famous for turning away companies who want to use their songs. Guess they liked the game too, then. Listen to the song, if only for a good example of how insanely over-the-top drumming and Bomb Factory can make anything sound cool, even a song whose main instruments are otherwise a pipe flute and tin drums. I love that band’s rhythms, though – just listen to the syncopation in the tin drum “chorus”. If that doesn’t get you air drumming, nothing will.
Anyway. Finally a game to be excited about on the PS3. Pity it’s not coming out for another 6 months : /
Hardly new, and those who know me in real life will have heard this one a million times. But I still love it, and – unusually for me – the lyrics hit ominously close to a nerve. Wins the award for the most beautiful synth of 2007 so far, too – pay close attention after 3:38 to hear why simple is often best.
Check it out, Self Saboteur by Delerium. Click “more” for lyrics.
By the way, I cannot fucking believe it is already June.