GoodbyeBlueSky.com » Banter

Terribly Tuned

Billy — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:49:14 +0000

Here we have a little video that, with the help of Weird Al Yankovic, explains the brief history of auto tune. You know, today’s pop music? It’s pretty much a synthesizer loop with somebody talking over the top, where the vocals have been auto tuned to death to make it sound like a big pile of terds.

Yes, obviously I’m not a fan of the auto tune plague. Remember that Cher song that started it all? It’s kind of funny how she was ripped into at the time for using such a lame feature. Here we are ten years later and the majority of pop music stars have become rich from following in Cher’s footsteps. That, and saying “shore-tay” over and over.

Anyway, this video presents the history of auto tune in a less biased view and actually has some interesting points. I put this up on Terrible Tuesday simply because it talks about a musical thing that, for now, is making much of the radio painful to listen to.

They Came From…

Billy — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:27:42 +0000

Music can make or break a movie or any type of film. I’ve seen some mediocre movies that seem like great movies simply because of the score (soundtrack). I’ve also seen a couple movies that I think could have been pretty good, but the music just left me a bit unfulfilled. One particular movie that happened with is MirrorMask. The movie is visually stunning and has a decent fantasy type of plot with pretty weird characters. The trailer had some pretty good electronic, ethereal kind of music to set the right mood. When I got the movie and watched it, the actual music in the movie was really shallow, and if I remember right (it’s been a couple years now), it kind of had a weird jazz type of feel to it, which completely set off the mood of the movie. Here’s the trailer for those curious:

An example of a movie with great music, and a story line that doesn’t really grab the attention (although it becomes very strong while watching the movie) is The Weather Man with Nicholas Cage. Here’s a little clip from that movie with some quality music to set the perfect mood:

Anyway, on to my real point. There is a trailer for an upcoming snowboard video where the music makes an already incredible looking video so much more powerful. I still get goosebumps watching it. Check it out, the song is Aqua Vitae by Armen Hambar and the trailer is for a video called They Came From…. (Click through on the Vimeo link to watch in HD)

(int) Factor Films presents THEY CAME FROM… from factor films on Vimeo.

And now, here is another trailer for the same movie by Factor Films. Notice how the change in music gives it a pretty different feel altogether. Kind of cool I think. This song is It’s What I Want by Röyksopp.

INT: they came from… pre-teaser from factor films on Vimeo.

And if you’re still reading this, here’s a pretty cool one minute video of Michael Jordan that also features Aqua Vitae.

Help Convince Bono to Quit

Billy — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 21:26:27 +0000

This is hilarious. A dude named Aaron With has started an online petition to get Bono to retire from public life. Here’s the objective of the petition:

To get Bono to retire from public life (so he’ll stop leading misguided counter-productive philanthropy efforts) ….and, simultaneously…. to make a huge donation to fight AIDS.

It’s a worthy cause, pretty funny too. Check it out here.

I Like All Types of Music

Billy — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:17:13 +0000

Oh how I love that common answer to the question “What kind of music do you like?” More often than not, I find that means that the person has no music taste and will listen to whatever they hear on the radio or MTV…if they even play music anymore.

Since I’m not getting any visitors to the site yet, as it’s only a couple days old, I’m mostly talking to myself in this here post, so it’s pretty dumb. Anyway, I just found one of the most awesome articles I’ve read about music over at The Onion:

I Like All Types of Music

Yeah, I gave this post the same title as that article from 1998. I felt it appropriate. Also appropriate is the list of sample mp3s I threw together right here below this. If you read that article, you’ll get it. I had to exclude one of the artists mentioned in there, as I can’t stand any of her stuff. I really don’t want to mention her name on this site, so I’ll leave it up to you to figure that one out!