My friend Tony sent me a link to the video for Muse’s Knights of Cydonia today. I couldn’t stop watching it. It’s a mashup of nearly every single genre there is.
No wonder they had a competition, giving away posters of the fictional film to those who could spot the references 15 major motion pictures in the clip. See how many you can pick before you click on the link.
So after watching it a few times, I’m like who the hell directed this? Maybe they’ve got more awesome stuff out there for me to watch.
The answer is JosephKahn, and whilst he’s directed a lot of stuff, most of it is, well quite commercial. Like Britney Spears’ Toxic for example. ‘Nuff said.
But, trawling through the plethora of clips on his site turned up a few gems. The Fox Sports – Cyborg clip is fantastic. Unfortunately, I can’t find a link on YouTube to embed, but you can click thru to it. So we’ll have to settle for the companion Fox Sports ad – Knights:
Knights are always cool. Maybe one day they’ll get to fight some ninjas!
Yes, he’s also made a movie (unlike Chris Cunningham). Unfortunately, its Torque. Which I actually watched all the way thru. Apparently, its meant to be trashy, but I just found it tragic.
Still, he seems to have the chops sometimes, so there’s always hope he’ll put out another gem in some format soon.
UPDATE – talkin’ to Tony this morning, there’s one simple, but awesome clip I missed:
UPDATE UPDATE! The more I dig, the bigger fan I become. I’d forgotten about this awewsome Chemical Brothers clip, and who’s the director?
If you don’t like zombies and/or gore – don’t read this. If you do, click this link now! (In a new window – gosh!) Start the download.. ’cause it’ll take a while.
Now, where was I. Oh yeah. This video is so freaking awesome you may need to change your underwear. Seriously.
It’s a rad mashup animation – featuring anime style fighters taking on zombie babies and octopi and featuring cameo’s from monsters trucks and Carl Weathers, amongst others… It pwns!!
I don’t know how I missed the BoingBoing post for it. But I only saw it via Waxy’s Links. But, the real shame of it is that I shouldn’t have found out about it via the intarwub at all, ’cause it’s freaking local. Paul Robertson, the animator, did the animation on a Melbourne City grant or something – and it screened as part of the NextWave Festival over a month ago.
Now I did read through that guide at the time, and I have a vague recollection of reading about this – so I’m kicking myself now that I didn’t go see it “live”. Lesson learned.
MashupTown, a site that hosts and distributes mashups (two or more songs ingeniously mixed together to make a third) has taken down all of its files after complaints from the RIAA to its hosting partner.
Mashups are a really dumb target for the RIAA. There’s just no universe in which someone who downloads a mashup of Prince’s 1999 and the Benny Goodman orchestra performing “In the Mood” thinks, Well, now I’ve heard that, I have no need to buy the CDs those songs originated on.
In other words, if the RIAA genuinely only goes after its customers because it wants to keep from losing sales, attacking mashups won’t and can’t accomplish that. This action amounts to the RIAA saying, “This art is illegal because it displeases us.”
So, a lots changed in the world of podcasting since my last review. Mainly, that podcasting has gone legit, or whatever you want to call it now being part of the iTunes Music Store. No longer need you use the grungey little iPodder program, you can subscribe to shows directly through the much prettier Music Store. Which means its slowly coming to the common man (although, according to this report by Yahoo!, only 2% of “internet users” know what podcasts are).
Looking back at the last post, I see that I stopped listening to those shows ages ago. The novelty of listening to mostly ranting (ie drooling fan boy) wore off – although its possible they’ve gotten better since I stoppped. And Warren stopped doing his SuperBurst MixTapes.
So, what am I listening to now?
Well, for “new” music, MashUpTown Radio is where its at. Fresh, quality mash-ups delivered to the ipod on a regular basis. Some of my favourite new music is coming from these guys.
In terms of podcast shows, the scene has really matured now, and there’s some great niche shows available now.
For more topical ‘net goss, there’s those ex-Screensaver boys over at diggnation. Basically they just talk about the 10 top ranked shows on the digg.com new site. But they’re way funny. Plus, in ep#14 they come live from the Dolby Studios, and the preview they give of the new ‘5.1 surround sound technology for podcasting’ is great.
Lastly, though not strictly a podcast (why not?!!), are the Long Now Seminars. I’ve been trying to petition these guys to get on the podcasting bandwagon. Not all of us live in the Bay Area you know!! The latest seminar is from Ray Kurzweil and its damn kickass if you’re into the Singularity and such.
We live at a peculiar juncture, one in which the record (an object) and the recombinant (a process) still, however briefly, coexist. But there seems little doubt as to the direction things are going. The recombinant is manifest in forms as diverse as Alan Moore’s graphic novel The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, machinima generated with game engines (Quake, Doom, Halo), the whole metastasized library of Dean Scream remixes, genre-warping fan fiction from the universes of Star Trek or Buffy or (more satisfying by far) both at once, the JarJar-less Phantom Edit (sound of an audience voting with its fingers), brand-hybrid athletic shoes, gleefully transgressive logo jumping, and products like Kubrick figures, those Japanese collectibles that slyly masquerade as soulless corporate units yet are rescued from anonymity by the application of a thoughtfully aggressive “custom” paint job.
