Poor Sigur Ros. The Icelandic band recently (but rather cautiously) wrote about the fact that the band have never commissioned any of their music to be used in advertisements. As I’m sure you are aware, their soaring monumental sounding music sounds like it could move glaciers (and perhaps dishwashers) yet, to date, the band have only allowed their music to be used in TV, film or charity-related ads.
On the Sigur Ros blog post entitled ‘Homage Or Fromage’, the band posted up examples of advertisements which they’re not saying necessarily plagiarise their music (they are saying that but for legal reasons aren’t saying it outright) but make them go ‘hmmmm’. There’s no denying the similarities in the ad music used to Sigur Ros’ tunes – change a note or chord here, keep that big sweeping crescendo and almost carbon-copy feel and you’ve got a new original composition. Everyone knows better though and that’s why Sigur Ros deserve some pity – there’s nothing they can do about it but make people aware it’s not them.
A couple of examples:
The web loves Justin Bieber. He’s the diminuitive Canadian 16 year-old pop star that keeps on giving. Already this year Bieber has been the subject of a pesky message board 4Chan plan to get him sent to North Korea and his antics have filled up internet tubes consistently. Recent highlights include a Youtube video of him escaping fans on a Segway scooter, footage of him walking into glass twice, tweeting the phone number of a hacker to his 4.5 million followers and bonding over Raekwon with Kanye on Twitter which now looks to be leading to a collaboration between the trio.
Even a former pop star, Mark Wahlberg remarked: “The world needs Justin Bieber. Justin Bieber is like a white Tupac compared to a lot of people out there.”
The latest Bieber sensation may be the best yet. A song appeared on the web last week which was Bieber’s hit U Smile slowed down by 800%.
J. BIEBZ – U SMILE 800% SLOWER by Shamantis
As a result of the slowing down, the song is now over 35 minutes long and is closer to the sound of Sigur Ros jamming with whales in a cold icy ocean. While the original is a potent and saccharine paean to a girl’s eh, smile, the slowed down version is a meandering barrage of crashing notes, ambient chord drones, stretched-out reverb-heavy vocals and lulls. It’s actually a beautiful calming piece of music that has more in common with Icelandic composer Johann Johannsson. It’s epic in feeling as well as in length. It’s the musical equivalent of the time-stretching effect in Inception.
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Fever Ray Winter mix
BBC 6 Music last week aired a special Winter Solstice mix from Fever Ray preceeded by a mix from 2006 from her brother and cohort in The Knife, Olof.
Listen at BBC 6 music
Portishead for Amnesty
Gloom-hop purveyors Portishead have released a new track entitled Chase The Tear. All proceeds of the sale of the single go towards Amnesty International.
http://www.portishead.co.uk
You remember the Sigur Ros interview a few years back where the band were so despondent, they may as well have been corpses? Billy Bob Thornton’s interview along with his band The Boxmasters on a Canadian radio station is a little bit different in that it features a lot of hostility, confusion and vacant answers before he loses his patience (at about 6 minutes 45 seconds) at the interviewer for asking him about musical influences and gets irritated by the presenter mentioning he’s an actor. Oh. Kay…
1. Where The Wild Things Are trailer
Stunning looking preview for the forthcoming film adaptation of the children’s book by Spike Jonze with muisc by Arcade Fire.
2. Lost as Muppet Babies
Dialogue from Lost characters dubbed over footage of the Muppet Babies (Sawyer as Animal, Jack as Kermit) results in a weirdly existential and funny clip.
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