Inside Nokia Music

Adverts, especially TV ones, are usually a great source of frustration for me.

The reason?

Music.

You’re sitting through the commercial break, usually bored out of your mind. For some reason British TV seems to be full of ads for heartburn or constipation drugs, gold companies wanting to buy for less than market rates or dating websites. So would that make me a single, overweight, bunged up, junk food eating couch potato, with enough bling that would make even BA Baracus from the A-Team take notice?

Music is always a good hook for me; if I like a song I’ve heard then I usually attempt to find it. There are dedicated websites (do a search on Google for ‘advert music’ and you’ll get a whole raft of them) which can help you find the tunes in commercials, although it can be a challenge sometimes.

It’s a great way to extend to expand your music tastes. Without TV adverts I probably wouldn’t have discovered tunes from Boss Hog, a punk blues group, which featured in a Levi’s ad with their song Itchy & Scratchy. I only discovered Goldfrapp, one of my favourite groups,through a few adverts, with Ooh La La appearing recently.

Sometimes you run into a brick wall or discover that the tune was written specifically for the ad.

The latest tool in my arsenal is Shazam. A phone app that records the tune and matches it up to a database of songs. In the UK you can also phone up a number which listens to the tune and sends you a text message if they work out the song title.

My recent discovery was the song used in the demonstration video from HP.

After drawing a blank or two with searches on the Web, I was able to use Shazam to work out what the song was.

At first I thought it sounded like Goldfrapp, who have a new album turning up in the next few weeks. But turns out it’s the song “Ooh Yeah” by Moby.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe8mM2obFws

In a sense, the advert has done its job. My active involvement in finding the song will probably mean I’ll also remember the product as well.

Memorable Tune = Halo Effect For Brand = Awareness = Consumer Mindshare = $$$

Simples…

So, where’s my wallet so I can buy that computer…?

Anyone remember this sick short from Director Chris Cairns, Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs and a bevy of big name Turntablists, MC’s and a Beatboxer (credits)? Well, now the concept’s been brought into the realm of the live performance with some truly mind-blowing results… enjoy!

I’m a big fan of Shakira, she has a great voice and well, certainly rates highly on the hotness factor!

But, I actually don’t think her voice is great in English and personally prefer a lot of her Spanish language songs instead.

Even her English hits like “Whenever, Wherever” I think sound much better in the Spanish version.  Perhaps it’s because Spanish is a rather deeper and seductive language that suits her very unique voice.

If you listen to the two versions, then I do think the Spanish version feels a lot better! (Must apologise for the lack of embedding capabilities for the below YouTube video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKS7QkYvum0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_LkjpYx8do

It does make me think about the culture around music and the subtle differences that I think exist when it comes to regional tastes. I’m bit of a fan of the Latin genres of music. Perhaps it’s the romance and passion - the perfect antidote to the Stiff Upper Lip and British sensibilities?

As an example, I recently picked up, what is in my view, one of the definitive versions of the folk song Guantanamera which is sung by Joan Baez.

In any case, here are a few of Shakira’s other Spanish language tunes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyXTMjF7cWU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m-Se_oeyLw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LznYGrYSVG4

So, I was having a debate about music.

It centred on why bands like the Rolling Stones, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and countless others are great to listen to. These are the kind of bands who, if X-Factor existed then as now, would have been given the Simon Cowell Scowl.

The reason for me is imperfection and I’m going to bring some Zen into this, so make sure your Feng Shui and Chakra’s are aligned…

The reason I think is Wabi-sabi, and no that’s not Wasabi, the green hot stuff you put on your sushi. Wabi-sabi is a Japanese philosophy about the beauty of imperfection (well it’s more complicated then that but it seems hard to explain to Gaijin like me).

The music these bands played sounded very much on the “edge”, ready to fall apart at a moments notice. It’s a bit like running down a hill and building up so much speed that eventually you can’t move your legs fast enough and you just trip over (which I suspect is a good tactic for the great British tradition of cheese rolling).

Jimi’s song Killing Floor is a great example:

The “edge” creates magic. Like the beauty of chaos theory in the fractal form.
One thing it reminds me was some of the musical history that I had in music classes at school. My biggest memory of music class was plinking out bad tunes on the keyboard. Especially after discovering the “drum beats and backing rhythms you could play with one key” mode. But the one thing that stuck in my mind was the history of the Blues sound, which was apparently derived from the instruments being used, which were so battered and beaten they were naturally flat and not in tune. Wabi-sabi at work again.

So in the spirit of Wabi-sabi:

Here is a band from Japan that sums it all up (slightly poor quality as it is a live recording)…

A tune from a one album wonder from the 70s that sounds like Steppenwolf (the band now has a limited edition CD of the original release, if you can find it!)…

And a 60s Garage Band. Enjoy!

Good marketing has become business critical in the world of music today. That’s why tonnes of money is poured into making music videos, but this doesn’t necessarily make them good. In most cases you will find the scantily clad artist in question aggressively gyrating in your face, in a dangerously flashy room, whilst an onlooking horde of baggy-clothed groupies egg them on. You don’t need a million pounds to make an awe-inspiring video, an interesting and original concept will do. OK Go got it right in 2006 with the video for Here It Goes Again, which is a continuous single take of the band performing an elaborate dance routine on treadmills. This video was responsible for the song’s top 40 chart success in both the US & the UK. To date it has received over 49 million views on YouTube and was awarded a Grammy for the Best Short Form Music Video in 2007.

Now OK Go have set the bar, will they attempt to match their own success with another awe-inspiring video? Yes…

Here’s the video for the new single This Too Shall Pass:

I enjoy a good music video when it’s done properly; here are 5 great videos I have recently rediscovered:

Oren Lavie – Her Morning Elegance

Jape – Floating

Björk – All Is Full of Love

The Avalanches – Frontier Psychiatrist

Fujiya & Miyagi – Ankle Injuries

I tend to relate lots of music to my life and music has this great power of reminding you of certain times, places and people. A lot of songs I listen to will instantly make me smile when I’m upset, or even make me cry when I’m perfectly happy, just because of memories they are associated with. In this blog I wanted to share some songs I have attached to certain times in my life and make a sort of growing up playlist. I think a lot of my emotions when I hear a song come from the memories I associate with the song. For example, I remember my mum blearing out Queen’s I Want To Break Free whenever her and my dad had had a bust up. And then Frankie Valli’s My Eyes Adored You whenever they had made up. While in the next room my dad would have AC/DC’s Highway To Hell pumping out the stereo anytime he was uptight about something.

I guess these early shades of music paved the way for my awkward teenage years listening to Guns N’ Roses. I think Guns N’ Roses forever changed the way music could and would sound to me. One of rock’s greatest bands, they combined the dark and dangerous with style and glam and their debut album Appetite For Destruction was stuck inside my tape player for a good while. My favorite track was Paradise City and, let me tell you, they don’t write them like this anymore. It took arena rock to the next level. I remember starting secondary school and hanging out with a kid called David. I used to follow him around everywhere. David listened to a band called Nirvana and wore converse trainers and torn jeans. He introduced me to Nirvana’s Nevermind album. At the time I loved ‘hair bands’ like Motley Crue, Bon Jovi and Guns N’ Roses and was pretty happy with the status quo, but when I first heard the opening 30 seconds of Smells Like Teen Spirit something changed inside of me. I bought the CD and continued to listen to it till the music felt like a part of me, till it was a part of my life.

It now amazes me the role Nirvana has played in my life, it changed everything for me. Because of Nivana, by the time I was 18 I had found bands like Black Flag, Devo, Sonic Youth and The Pixies but it was The Beatles I started a fascination with. I bought as many albums as I could get my hands on and just listened and listened. Their songs were so fresh and innovative to me. They mixed a lot of things together. Their music is just wonderful. I have a few favourite Beatles songs but the stand out for me is Let It Be. The piano lends a degree of intimacy, then there is a gospel element and an anthemic guitar solo. I know the song has a sad undertone but everytime I hear it I feel a maternal warmth. After The Beatles I became more aware of British pop culture and groups such as Blur, Oasis and Radiohead.

I later got into the whole 1979 punk movement and bands like The Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks and Generation X. The Pistols started the whole punk revolution, but for me The Clash definitely carried the torch when the originators were long gone. For sheer diversity, The Clash was number one. London Calling was one of those records that opened up my ears to other ideas about what ‘rock music’ means. With big slabs of things like reggae and rockabilly mixed in with the punk. No one can believably make this music anymore, they could do it as homage or a way to show off their influences but ironically, just as it shows me something that’s always been there, it also reminds me of something that is eternally gone.

I’m now 27 and U2 is my favorite band for many reasons, but most specifically because it was the first music that really spoke to me and changed what kind of person I was and what I wanted to be. The Joshua Tree was my first experience with U2 and I had never heard anything like it, and I thought it was absolutely brilliant. I have so many favourites tracks – Where The Streets Have No Name, I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For and With Or Without You. Actually, there isn’t a bad song on the entire album.

Its no secret that if you write a decent Christmas tune then your set up for life. The ones who have managed to accomplish this seasonal song nirvana have done it well. So well in-fact that anyone trying to – lets face it – cash in on this frosted window of opportunity these days is pretty much destined to cringe out a proper Christmas log.  I used to hate all of the usuall suspects: Wizard, Slade, McCartney, all caned to death on the radio and every shop you entered. Since I dont listen to the radio that often anymore and have the sense to avoid all shops at this time of year, my anger towards these pieces of festive croonery has kinda lifted.

John Lennon once sang “So this is Christmas, and what have you done?”. Well, finally we have an answer that’s marginally more dignified than “Drank too much, got irritated with my own family and was sick on the dog”.  Rage Against The Machine has been pushed into the coveted Christmas number one slot in a beautifully orchestrated act of rebellion that is both ridiculously silly and peculiarly British.

We have an odd and often genuinely funny way of showing our contempt for things that irk us in this country. Remember when David Blaine tried to prove that he was a powerful warlock, connected to all the mystical spiritual forces of the universe, by climbing inside a perspex box in London and staying there for slightly longer than you might expect? Well, except for a few credulous idiots, Britain’s response to Blaine’s cheap stunt was utterly heartwarming, especially to a gnarled old misanthrope like me. They bought burgers and fries by the armful, and hurled them at the starving, doe-eyed, drawling buffoon until he decided to give up and go away. It was twisted and funny in equal measure, and it made me proud to be live in this country – a country where a one-sided food-fight is seen as a valid protest.

Well, this Christmas, the British public has once more done something that’s made me feel pride and a burbling sense of contentment. When I first heard about the plot to make RATM Christmas number one, I was embarrassed and ashamed to be honest. I thought it was a futile, toothless gesture – the equivalent of giving a murderer a witheringly disapproving look and hoping he’ll go away and really think about what he’s done. But I was wrong. It took off in a way I really didn’t expect, with thousands of disillusioned people spending their hard-earned money to register their disappointment in what has become an annual banality-fest. What’s more, they did it in a way that was actually genuinely amusing. No matter what people say, swearing is funny. Sure, it can be cheap and pathetic, too – there’s nothing worse than a poor comedy that uses uninventive cursing in order to shock a laugh out of a placid audience. But when it’s done right, it’s gold. All you need to do is listen to Shelagh Fogarty’s reaction when the inevitable happened and Zack de la Rocha “forgot” to censor himself on Radio Five Live to see the inherent comedy genius in the campaign. Her panicked “GET RID OF IT!” is laugh-out-loud funny, and worth the price of a download alone.

There are those who say that, since both the X-Factor winner Joe McElderry and Rage Against The Machine are signed to the same major record label, this was a futile and pathetic gesture which achieved nothing in the long run save making a few fat executives a little bit fatter. But the people who say that have missed the point entirely. This isn’t an anti-capitalist protest. Nor is it an attempt to register contempt with the actual winner of X-Factor – a point that seems to have escaped Cheryl Cole when she accused the public of “bullying” him with a “mean campaign”. This is a pure form of democracy, where people who have been silently enraged by the endless parade of anodyne music they’ve been force-fed over the past few years have suddenly seen a way to register their disgust by buying a song that would never normally get any airplay in any country.

You’re right, it’s not revolutionary. It won’t have a long-lasting effect on the charts. It won’t usher in a new age in the music industry.

But it has shown Simon Cowell that there’s more than one type of person that buys records in the UK. And apparently some of us aren’t as fond of him as he might think we are.

So, Merry Christmas, Simon Cowell.

Many people hate you, some are indifferent to you, but literally hundreds of thousands of us will pay money to wipe that smug little grin off your face.

If that’s not the spirit of Christmas, I don’t know what is.

Merry Christmas, you lot.

I love Christmas. There, I’ve said it. Despite the fact that pretty much every year I end up getting severely stressed about something relating to this festive period, I always end up really looking forward to the end result. When you consider all the traditions that rear their heads every December, from stuffing yourself senseless with festive poultry, drinking copious amounts of under-priced beverages and fighting over the TV remote, there is always one thing that does it for me. “What is it?” I hear you whisper… Well for me it’s going to a good old carol service. (Sigh)…Actually no (gasp). If you haven’t had a chance to get to one this year then you should pencil something into your desk diary. I don’t care what anyone says, but deep down I reckon everyone enjoys singing or at least participating in a bit of festive vocal chord flexing. If they say otherwise then they’re probably lying.

I started this week by going to the annual Bristol Evening Post carol service at The Colston Hall. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t been to this particular event before and for £6 (which went to charity) it was well worth it. It was packed. The itemised list of performers was as follows: 1 brass band, 1 Wurlitzer organ, 2 pianists, 3 local choirs, 4 conductors & a partridge in a pear tree. Fantastic! All the performances were first class and the audience participation in the five or six traditional carols was hearty and enthusiastic. Two things stood out for me that evening. The first was the front row member of the Avon and Somerset Constabulary Male Voice Choir who looked suspiciously like Captain Birdseye, the second was the amazing Wurlitzer Organ which was staggeringly AMAZING and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. It was a memorable night with family and friends and left me feeling pretty hyped and ready for Christmas.

So… If you’re wondering what to do one evening in the next couple of weeks then look up your local events guide to see where the next carol service is. You might be surprised. In the meantime, check out Nokia Music Store for some classic carols from King’s College Choir, Cambridge (bit of a tongue twister that). They are legendary. Oh… And Happy Christmas!

Oh my, the new Jay-Z & Alicia Keys song, Empire State of Mind, does funny things to me. Admittedly a middle-of-the-road Jigga man rap to start, you might even be inclined to zone out or turn it off, but as soon as Alicia starts her warbling about New York, everything changes. I literally YEARN for New York city when she starts that up. A city I have never even been to either, so that’s pretty good going. I’m seeing the city streets in my mind, I’m inhaling the smoky air, I’m sat in the back of a yellow cab on my way to Central Park looking up at the skyline, and anything is possible… you get the picture.

This isn’t the only song to do such a thing though. In much the same way, when Friendly Fires sing about Paris in their second single, the promise to a girl of “One day! We’re gonna live in Paris” is both exciting and romantic. Then the dreamy backing vocals pipe up with stories about stars and I’m lost. I’m not massively keen on France, but listening to this track I really really really want to live in Paris one day. Well, as long as it’s with a hot guy like Ed from Friendly Fires.

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