Katy Perry's 'Part of Me': Using Music Videos to Recruit New Soldiers | The Vigilant Citizen

Interesting analysis of Katy Perry's latest propaganda release:

Katy Perry's 'Part of Me': Using Music Videos to Recruit New Soldiers | The Vigilant Citizen

The Daily Swarm - Drake Does Drugs, Does Them Correctly...

The Daily Swarm - Drake Does Drugs, Does Them Correctly...

video: Charli XCX – “Nuclear Seasons” (Live From Dalston Heights)

video: Charli XCX – “Nuclear Seasons” (Live From Dalston Heights)

The Art of the Playlist

Building a great playlist, or as we called them in the old days, "mixtapes", is a task requiring a great deal of knowledge, execution, and nuance.

I spend a lot of time making interesting playlists, even going as far as timing them out to perhaps one day fit onto the ancient format of the compact disc - 79ish minutes in length.

Hopefully I can turn this into a series of posts, because I have lots of ideas and suggestions and stuff that's just too interesting to keep all to myself. All of my playlist building happens in iTunes, and as much as it's a memory hog and sort of an unruly piece of software, I'm pretty entrenched with it right now and the fact I use an iPod as my main music device isn't going to do much to change that.

Here are some ideas off the top of my head that would be interesting to explore:

-The way the context and meaning of a playlist can change and grow as new songs are added over time

-Audio quality has to factor in at some point- a remastered version of an older song would fit the playlist flow better than that same song in amongst a bunch of old CD rips where the mastering level is much lower

-My own internalized Can-Con bias- In regards to general playlists, I always try to toss in some Canadian stuff where appropriate. Obviously this would not work a playlist like 'Madchester Bangers', 'Japanese Noise Rock short cuts', or 'Kosmische Anthems'

The complete new Chromatics album

Here's the new Chromatics double album in its entirety.... plus it kicks off with a Neil cover!

[link]

E.L.a.I.C. trailer: Stranger than Fiction

If you were to make the ultimate YouTube parody trailer, satirizing the entire Hollywood movie industry, you couldn't do it better than this trailer for a real live actual real thing that was actually made and everything: the trailer for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

Ingredients:

• A-list actor: Tom Hanks
• A-list song: U2's "Where the Street's Have No Name"
• National tragedy
• Little kid who is sad
• Some other stuff

Result:

• Profit

I can barely stomach five consecutive seconds of this drivel, so I admittedly am not familiar with the source material.

Charli XCX - Stay Away

Been listening this quite a bit lately. The harmonies in the chorus remind me of Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time"... some Chromatics and the XX in there as well. And maybe a little late-80s Fleetwood Mac in terms of the vocals and chord progression.

Gang Gang Dance - Adult Goth

Killer payoff at the chorus, so let this one play out:

What happened to action movies?

What happened to action movies? Interesting rant asking the above question, with great analysis of a golden age of Hollywood action flicks.

Consider this stunning fact: within a 16-month span, the following four movies were released theatrically:

Lethal Weapon (March 6, 1987)
Predator (June 12, 1987)
RoboCop (July 17, 1987)
Die Hard (July 15, 1988)

Not only is each one of those movies not your standard brainless macho fare (not even Predator -- we'll get to it), they're four of the best action movies ever made. Why? Because they've all got something more happening under the surface.

Kony 2012 as State Propaganda

KONY 2012: State Propaganda for a New Generation

I have absolutely no intention of defending Joseph Kony or to say “he’s not that bad”. He, along with many other guerrilla factions across Africa, has committed despicable atrocities. However, the problem of child soldiers has existed for decades and there are literally hundreds of Joseph Konys across the African continent. In some cases, some of the armies are actually funded by Western countries. If we would truly go to the root of the issue, we’d discover that Africa has been plagued with the problem of warring factions and rebel guerrillas ever since Western forces “liberated” their colonies and divided the continent of Africa according to Western interests. Indeed, instead of setting the boundaries of each country according to the geographic location of the ethnic groups and tribes that live there, countries were created according to the economic needs of colonizing forces such as Great Britain, France and others. The net result is: A bunch of artificial countries that each contain several tribes, ethnic groups, languages and religions. When one group takes power, the others are repressed, which leads to violence and rebellion. Add to the mix extreme poverty due to resources being siphoned out of Africa by Western countries and you’ve got a breeding ground for merciless warlords. As long as this problem exists, Joseph Konys will continue to emerge in Africa.

I'm sort of attuned to all this stuff happening right now, I'm reading Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, an outstanding read if you're interested in geo-politics.

Dave Grohl on how to write a pop song

[via]

Neil and Bruce back with another cover

'Sexy and I Know It' on 'Fallon'

[via BuzzFeed]

Finally got my hands on Galaxie's Tigre et Diesel album

I love this stuff - raging electro power pop. And it's French. I can definitely see why this was nominated for the most recent Polaris Prize... definitely check out this album...