aka – Three Track Thursday #2

Florence + The Machine covering Otis Redding – ‘Try a little Tenderness’

Gorgeous..

Next, John Mayer covering Lana Del Ray – Video Games (Instrumental)

Hauntingly soothing.

Finally, Janelle Monae covering The Jackson 5 – I Want You Back

Not as good as I’d hoped, but still good nonetheless.

Until next time…

aka – Three Track Thursday*

It’s nearly Easter and nothing says FOUR DAY WEEKEND more than three awesome tracks from two epic artists. Get your ears on -

Kanye West & DJ Khaled – “Theraflu“

Nicki Minaj – “Beez In The Trap” (feat. 2 Chainz)

Kanye West – “MERCY“

COMING SOON

*This could be a recurring theme.

This is gorgeous -

Adele vs. Daft Punk – Something About The Fire (Carlos Serrano Mix)

via

Following on from last week’s entry (and a little bit later than expected – I’m writing this on Tuesday, but back-dating it to last week – sue me), here’s the top five things I loved most from the past seven days -

1. One of my fellow trans-mongolian adventurers, Ben Wallace, finally finished editing together one epic vodka train video (which we all helped in shooting along the way). Coming in at 6mins long, covering over 5600miles and tracking the consumption of quite frankly, a ridiculous amount of alcohol… I can’t stop smiling whenever I watch it.
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2. This top 10 albums of 2011 list (via @switzke) is definitely worth a peruse for many an hour of aural pleasure. Dive in.
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3. Paul Clarke‘s photography exhibition at Adam Street member’s club on Wednesday was really, really good (personal fave was the stage shot of Jon Culshaw) and I’m glad I was able to make it along. No link available at the moment (Paul’s working on it) but in the meantime, why not check out his portfolio?
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4. Writing a comedy, agony-aunt-style blog post that resulted in being followed by Cher Lloyd Twitter bots? Definite highlight of the week.
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5. I said goodbye to 1000heads. Good friends, great presents and an epic send off. Well done all.
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And for a bonus number six, two videos that came my way on my last day as a ‘head. Both about leaving; one achingly funny and the other achingly inspiring. Enjoy.

PS. Big love to Laura, Angela and Cathy for jumping on the 5Things trail.The latter’s three-fold reasoning as to why this is a good idea are exactly the same as mine. Win.

Good skills.

In which our hero dons his Agony Uncle hat and helps out a woman in need…

Cher Lloyd has a new single out called ‘Want U Back’. This is not news, nor is it something I would normally write about. However, one watch of the video below and you too may very well be compelled to put pen to paper to help the poor girl out.

First things first, Cher: you did the dumping lover, which means you can’t get all wanton and worthy now that your man has moved on. Harassing your ex-bf after you’ve done the deed is just not cool. Leave them be and move on – they’re just having fun! For realsies.

I know you’re sad and jealous [don't deny it, her jeans really don't come into it] but to be honest darling, the real issue here is that you’re addicted to social media!

Yes, there’s no branding on the photos that you’re browsing on that oh so conveniently placed iPad of yours, but there is no denying it – you’re actually Facebook stalking him, aren’t you?

Spending hours and hours moping around on your bed, hunting down photos of him and his new flower having fun is just not healthy dear (we’ve all done it), but why torture yourself in this way?

Gloating that you had him first is no fun for anyone (it’s just plain unattractive for a start) and look, of course he’s going to visit the same places you went to, you live in the same town!

Truth be told, you don’t want him back, you know you don’t. You just want what you can’t have. You let him free and you let him go and, sorry to say it (and as you quite rightly point out), the boy is flying! You can’t blame him for that.

Unfriend him on Facebook, unfollow him on Twitter and just have done with it. If he wants you, he’ll come a-runnin’ – but I doubt he will, not now you’ve all gone all helicopter anyway… Seriously, what is that about?!

I feel your pain. 10yrs ago this level of sophisticated monitoring required a private detective (or two) and several thousands of pounds worth of surveillance equipment. You’d probably need a lawyer too.

But Cher, honestly, in this day and age? People share stuff. And, while it isn’t easy to just not look. You really should stop give yourself a big hug, get out of the house and go and enjoy yourself.

Lots of love,

James

PS. That boy Astro [I recognise him, has he done any TV?], he looks a bit young for you lass. Just sayin’.

PPS. Love the track. Good work.

So long, 2011. 2012, here we come!

via

PS. I know this has been seen a million times everywhere already, but I still love it.

Zooey + Average Joe: Gorgeous

Yesterday was a fairly busy day, if you’re a tech-head like me at least; Google+ rolled out their brand pages, the Nokia N9 started updating to the much-heralded mega-fix firmware and, for those that needed it, Spotify dropped onto the Windows Phone Marketplace.

Google+ I’ve covered already (no really, what is it for?), the N9 update I am yet to apply and as for Spotify? Well, what can I say?

Choosing Windows Phone as the last, great, mobile operating system to support, Spotify prepped itself for the promised masses yesterday afternoon (after a preview some six months ago) and boy, is it a beautiful app to use.

First, some caveats:

• Spotify mobile is only available to premium subscribers
• Premium is £9.99 a month. A small price to pay to NEVER PAY FOR ANY MUSIC EVER AGAIN.
• I’ve tried Zune* and, until Spotify dropped, that was fine (if a little alien).

So, to the app itself.

The good stuff:

• WP7 app design: oh my God this app is gorgeous.
• Scrolling, sharing, syncing: all of it rocks my face off.
• It’s Spotify, on my mobile.

The stuff needed in the next update:

• Background colour options
  Windows Phone offers either ‘dark’ or ‘light’, white on black or black on white respectively. Spotify should either match its app’s skin accordingly or at least offer it up as an in-app option. Strangely, while the app offers the light variation, the desktop client offers dark.
• Last.fm integration please
  Syncing tracks listened to in online mode and remembering then uploading my tracks listened to in offline mode.
• Offline playlist filters
  Yeah, love that but, any chance that you filter the playlists by DOWNLOADED FIRST? Having to scroll through all of them in order is a pain.
• Album art on lockscreen
  I mentioned I was on Zune before, one thing that the WP music player does nicely is show album covers on the lock screen while playing music. It’s a nice touch and adds to the overall experience. Spotify should do this too. See below.

 Florence playing through Zune

 Florence playing through Spotify

Overall, great work guys, it’s an awesome service and I’m a big fan. Having it running on my Lumia makes me a very happy bunny indeed. Good job.

Please, continue to iterate, improve and impress.

Danke,
James.

*I signed up for a Zune Pass about a day after first getting my Windows Phone. I like that it covers my Xbox too, but I already have Last.fm there. So it was only really the mobile music angle I needed to cover. Now Spotify is here, I just don’t need it.

“It’s you, it’s you, it’s all for you…” 

Yes, I know. But I don’t care.

I spotted this just over a week ago and have had it open in my browser since with the full intention of blogging it when I got the chance. That’ll be today then.

This is the new (and fairly sweary – you have been warned) single from Scroobius Pip, Introdiction.
I love Pip’s work, have done for ages – and this is a great, great track.

Oh yeah, and the price of the video production? £100.

Enjoy.

…or lack thereof

If you have never seen Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, stop reading now. Immediately. Get yourself over to Play or Amazon or something and go get yourself a copy. Order it, download it, watch it and then come back.

Right, everyone else – still here? Good.

Believe it or not I managed to make it to my 17th year without ever seeing this film. My good friend Bodger, upon discovering my apparent deprived childhood would not let me leave his house again until I had seen it. Twice. Needless to say we were late for college that day.

Many, many things have been said about this film – none of which I’m going to try and emulate or even beat (perhaps another time), however one area that’s not touched upon that often is that of the awesome soundtrack to the film.

From the manic synths of Sigue Sigue Sputnik through to the soft, dulcet tones of The Smiths; the Ferris Bueller’s Day Off OST is a wonder to behold. Except… it doesn’t actually exist.

That’s right, perhaps one of the most bizarre yet luminescent and nostalgic collections of music ever to placed into one film was never actually released as an album.
The reason? The director, the supremely talented John Hughes, was worried about the mix of songs being ‘too eclectic’ to see as an album.

According to Wikipedia, he said:

“The only official soundtrack that Ferris Bueller’s Day Off ever had was for the mailing list. A&M was very angry with me over that; they begged me to put one out, but I thought “who’d want all of these songs?” I mean, would kids want “Danke Schoen” and “Oh Yeah” on the same record? They probably already had “Twist and Shout,” or their parents did, and to put all of those together with the more contemporary stuff, like the (English) Beat – I just didn’t think anybody would like it. But I did put together a seven-inch of the two songs I owned the rights to – “Beat City” on one side, and… I forget, one of the other English bands on the soundtrack… and sent that to the mailing list. By ’86, ’87, it was costing us $30 a piece to mail out 100,000 packages. But it was a labor of love.”

Amazing.

Thanks to a mixbag of research and Wikipedia, I’ve managed to hunt down a full track list for what would’ve been the FDO:OST.

1. “Love Missile F1-11″ (Extended Version) by Sigue Sigue Sputnik
2. “Jeannie” (Theme from I Dream of Jeannie)
3. “Beat City” by The Flowerpot Men
4. “Main Title / Rebel Blockade Runner” by John Williams (From, Star Wars)
5. “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want” (instrumental) by The Dream Academy (a cover of a song by The Smiths)
6. “Menuet Célèbre” by (Zagreb Philharmonic Chamber Studio)
7. “Danke Schoen” by Wayne Newton
8. “Twist and Shout” by The Beatles
9. “Radio People” by Zapp
10. “I’m Afraid” by Blue Room
11. “Taking the Day Off” by General Public
12. “The Edge of Forever” by The Dream Academy
13. “March of the Swivelheads” (a remix of “Rotating Head”) by The (English) Beat
14. “Oh Yeah” by Yello
15. “BAD” by Big Audio Dynamite

And – minus a few that I couldn’t find in the library – I’ve managed to throw [most of] them down into a handy little Spotify playlist.

Enjoy.