It's now official altho most of the people involved in the musical community and with a few hours of flight suspected it for years but spanish scientists have analysed the data from popular music from 1955 to 2010 and yes, the verdict is without any doubts: modern popular music is just getting dumber and louder...
Where is David Jones ? Where is The Thin White Duke ? Where is Ziggy ? Decades of music fans can indeed wonder where their favorite workalcoholic singer is, and what he does these days...The thing is: David Bowie turned 65 yesterday and while even older stars like Keith Richards plan to go on tour yet again, the thin chameleon hasn't been seen or heard in ages.
Ok, this is the festive season and you try to emerge from the never ending party your live seems to have become....Here's some informative but fun articles we wrote since june 2011, launch of the Kollector Blog that will help you get thru the week :)
First, let's cover some of the artists we wrote about...
Remember Thomas Dolby, with his perky New Wave hits "She Blinded Me With Science" or "Hyperactive" or the very european "Airwaves" ? Well, since he made it big back in the eighties, Thomas hasn't stop to move and, just like the intemporal watcher in the sci-fi serie Fringe, it seems he has always been there when important things happen. Let's recap...
Damon Albarn, singer of famous english 90's band Blur and also main prime suspect in the excellent Gorillaz, has recently been to Congo where he recorded "Kinshasa One Two", an album done in 5 days with local musicians (among them Nelly Liyemge, Jupiter Bokondji and Bokatola System) plus Dan The Automator, Richard Russel and others. All benefits of the operation will go to Oxfam as part as the DRC music initiative.
Not all is bad on the internet for music: there's more out there than piracy, insulting streaming revenues and Pop Idol wannabees: there are also thousands of bands working their music these days by sending bits and pieces to each other and producing albums without actually never recording in the same room and, as posted this morning, even big recording studios offer new ways of making music and mixing it...
I don't know about you, but I have sometimes felt really dumb reading a synth's manual and not being able to pass page three without wondering what the heck they are talking about as some manuals seem to be put together by scientists communicating to fellow members of their Uni and not good communication people trying to teach how to use that piece of equipment without checking if you're aware of quantic physics and fluids dynamics.
Wired, the wonderful US magazine, has a very interesting article on how music tickles the brain, where and how much.
Basically, music triggers dopamine to ciculate in the blood, and that dopamine makes us feel good, or better. What is fascinating is that there's a peak moment which makes dopamine releases bigger seconds before an anticipated passage in the music: our brain likes to play with himself and delivers more dopamine when the brain is being tickled and waiting for a chord, a figure, something that will give our brain "food for thoughts".
Really amazing story from Paul Mawhinney, the man who owns the biggest record colllection in the world (and it's up for sale for a mere 3 million bucks) about his passion for some quite unknown artist from England who couldn't get a hit in the USA, was dropped from Mercury and about to be kicked by RCA too... when Paul came in and convinced an A&R guy from his hometown to press 700 copies of a 4 years old single for FM radios...It worked !
Music. If you believe you've got it, NEVER GIVE UP!
"...the version with Blixa singing was seriously creepy. With a capital K..." dixit Nick Cave.
That line alone is worth the detour for that australian TV video.
In this excellent interview, Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue go deeper about "Where The Wild Roses Grow", that incredibly dark song which took the charts by surprise in 1995.
