7 posts tagged “pharrell williams”

This is one of the best commercials/music videos I have seen in a while. I love the special effects that look like something you would do in an arts and crafts class.

You can download the song at www.converse.com (after some clicking).

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Music/05/30/music.radiohead.prince.ap/index.html

The above article is about how Prince performed Radiohead's song, "Creep", at the Coachella music festival. Some fans put videos of the performance on YouTube. Prince's people complained and got the videos taken off of YouTube, but the song is not his. Radiohead has no problem with the song being on YouTube so there is no copyright violation going on. The article will explain it better than me, but it just goes to show how dumb artists look when they try to protect their music way too much. It makes me think of how annoying Metallica was when the band members were complaining about their music being on Napster back in the day.

Here is the song, Creep, by Radiohead. I was in love with the song when I first saw the video for it way back in the early 90s. I think I watched the video on MTV's great show, 120 Minutes. It would be nice if a show like that one was still around.

Radiohead - Creep

Here is the video ...

Here is a cover of Radiohead's "Karma Police" by Tori Amos (I may have posted this before) ...

Here is Radiohead's version ...

In other news, Madonna's "Give It 2 Me" video is out and about on the internet now. Here it is on YouTube, but don't be surprised if this video gets taken down since it has already has been taken down numerous times ...

The quality of that video is awful, but I am sure a high-quality version will be uploaded to YouTube sometime soon. I am not crazy about the video, but it's not that bad. People probably wonder why Pharrell Williams is all over the video, but the "Hard Candy" album is almost more his than Madonna's. I think he produced the majority of it, and his voice can be heard throughout the album (along with the voices of Justin Timberlake, Timabaland, and Kanye West). 

I was listening to Madonna's album, Hard Candy (I know, I need to move to another album ... I promise I listen to a million other things at the same time), and I noticed how the song, "Incredible", has the line, "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone", which has been a famous line in music history.

I think the line originated in Joni Mitchell's song, "Big Yellow Taxi" ...

Then, the line was used as the title of Janet Jackson's song, "Got 'Til It's Gone", and Joni's song was sampled, too ...

Here is Madonna's song which puts the line in one of the verses ...

In other news, I watched the Woody Allen movie, "Scoop", on HBO today. It stars Scarlett Johansson (2 t's and 2 s's) and Hugh Jackman. It came out in 2006, and Woody Allen's other Scarlett Johansson London-based movie about murder, "Match Point", came out in 2005. The movies are not alike at all, though. Scoop is more of a comedy, and "Match Point" is pretty serious. They do both explore class in London, though. Here are the trailers ...

The last couple of Sundays I have gone to a club/bar in Austin called Elysium with some friends for their 80s music night. The music is usually very good, and the crowd is very eclectic. Here are my two favorite songs they play ...

Real Life - Send Me An Angel (this is the 1989 version, I think)

The original 1983 version of "Send Me An Angel" did not feature as much clapping in the background so it is less fun to dance to. Here is the video for the original version ...

The other song is also from 1983, and it is "Major Tom (Coming Home)" by Peter Schilling ...

Here is the video for the song ...

OK, there are three songs on Portishead's new album, Third, that make me think of others songs.

The first song is "Hunter", which makes me think of a song from the 1992 horror movie, Candyman, by Philip Glass called "Face to Razor".

Here are the two songs ...

I saw the new Speed Racer movie at Alamo Drafthouse last night. It has gotten awful reviews, but the movie has some very cool scenes. I think the film should have been edited down to an hour and 30 minutes, and I think more color should have been inserted into the slow scenes. The racing scenes are amazing, and they would look great on an IMAX screen, especially if there were an IMAX 3D version of the film (which there may be for all I know). I know they did something like that for Beowulf (which I have not seen).

I think the soundtrack should have been more electronic, electro, techno, whatever. The major DJs out there should have contributed really cool songs to the score of the film. Fast electronic music would have gone perfectly with the scenes, and I think the movie had a little bit of that, but it needed way more.

Here is a very old remix of the Speed Racer song ...

The above song is not in the movie ... it's a very, very old remix. There is a remix of the Speed Racer theme at the end of the movie that Chim Chim dances around, too, while they show the credits. I will look for it. (edit ... I found it on Amazon's MP3 downloads)

Edit ... OK, here is the song Chim Chim dances to at the end of the new Speed Racer movie ...

I think that is the song. It sounds right.

Here is a scene from the end of the movie, but the quality of this video is not that good ...

The Wachowski brothers, who did Bound, The Matrix Trilogy, and V For Vendetta; did this Speed Racer movie, and I expected a lot more from them. However, I still think their visuals during the racing scenes are amazing so just remember that when you read all the horrible reviews of this movie (which is not as bad as the reviews say it is).

You can read a better review of the movie here at  Ain't It Cool News. I swear some of these reviewers are ripping into this movie out of peer pressure. However, I think the movie really is the old cartoon brought to life. For fans of the old Speed Racer cartoon, I think the movie will be fun.

In other news, here is another fun song from Madonna's new album, Hard Candy, called "Spanish Lesson". It has really goofy lines like Entiendo means "I get it", but it is still a good song.

  OK, here is yet another edit to this post (I think I have edited this post more than any other in the history of this blog) ... I wanted to buy Madonna's "Give It 2 Me (Paul Oakenfold Edit)" on iTunes, but I hate the DRM that goes with an iTunes song (DRM means digital rights management, and it means that you can only play the song on approved players like iTunes and the iPod). However, I then remembered that Amazon's MP3 store is DRM-free so I bought the song there, and here is the cool remix ...

Madonna - Give It 2 Me (Paul Oakenfold Edit) ...

So it looks like Barack Obama won in North Carolina by a pretty significant margin, and he held up pretty well in Indiana next to Clinton. Therefore, I wanted to do an Obama post since I haven't done one in a while.

You can donate to Barack Obama's campaign here, and you can give $10 or $25 if you want. You don't have to make a huge donation. Every penny helps ...

http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/markinaustin

I still think he will be a great president.

Here are two songs I like right now ...

Madonna - Beat Goes On

Santogold - My Superman

Madonna has a song on her new album, Hard Candy, called "She's Not Me", that is pretty cool. Wendy Melvoin from Wendy & Lisa and Prince's band, The Revolution, is credited with playing the guitar on the song, and her name is even mentioned in the song. Like other songs on the album, the sound of the song changes at certain points, which keeps it pretty interesting. The song reminds me of Garbage's "Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!)". Listen to both songs and maybe you'll hear the similarity ... maybe not.

Madonna - She's Not Me (produced by Pharrell Williams)

Here is the video for Prince's song, "1999", which I have always really liked. I don't know if Wendy is in this video, but it's still topical for this blog post ...

Prince is very picky about where his music and videos can be shown/streamed so I could not find the "1999" video on YouTube, but I did find it on imeem.com.

Here is "Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!)" by Garbage ...

Here is another song from Portishead's new album, Third. It is the first song on the album, and I love the phrase, "did you know what I lost, do you know what I wanted", that is repeated in the song.

 
Here are some songs from the new Santogold album. Most of the songs on the album have been shared on the internet for years, but it's nice to hear high-quality versions of the songs. Santi White of Santogold is friends with M.I.A., and they seem to travel in the same social circles, but Santogold is a group that definitely stand on their own talent-wise.

Santogold - Shove It

Santogold - Unstoppable

Santogold - Anne

In other news, I guess I am not M.I.A.'s #1 fan anymore because I did not go to her concert at La Zona Rosa in Austin on May 1st. I had to work the next day, and there was no way I could go to that concert and make it to work the next day. Also, by the time I even considered risking it and going to the concert, the tickets were sold out. I am sure the show was awesome, though, because her last show there a couple of years ago was full of energy and the sound was perfect.

Here is a picture from the Austin concert ...

I think all of the photos were taken by David Reagan for the Austin American-Statesman's blog aka Austin360.com.