Music Video Features Dozens of QR Codes

Director DuNo Tran has gone QR code crazy, inserting a pile of them into the music video for Shin-B‘s latest song ‘Get Up and Go’. Once the video received 10,000 views (which it just did), the QR codes will link to prize giveaways including smartphones and streetwear.

Of course none of these QR codes can actually be scanned while watching the video. The only way to read them is to play the video full screen, hit pause and scan.

It’s unfortunate that the contest and giveaway angle of this video isn’t better communicated. The idea has great possibilities for a scavenger-hunt style game. Viewers could scan the codes and earn points towards prizing.

They have provided a very good instructional video on how to use the QR codes, including a recommendation of the Red Laser scanner app.

Create & Sell Your Own Version of new Kaiser Chiefs Album

Kaiser Chiefs - The Future is MedievelOne of the most incredible live shows I have seen was the Kaiser Chiefs a few years ago. Lead vocalist Ricky Wilson seemed to have the ability to be three places as once, as he lead the band through hits like ‘I Predict a Riot’, ‘Oh My God‘ and ‘Ruby‘ just to name a few.

The Future is Medieval

The Kaisers fourth album ‘The Future is Medieval’ was suddenly ‘released’ on Friday after being shrouded in mystery. I type “released” with double quotes because this is a whole new concept of what an album release is.

Create Your Own Album

This collaboration between the band, B Unique and Fiction Records, as well as ad agency Weiden & Kennedy London allows fans to pick their own 10 songs from the 20 song library. Once a fan has finalized their tracks, they can create a cover (again an old-release idea) and then make it available on the Kaiser Chief’s album gallery for purchase. Fans can purchase their album for £7.50, and then sell their version of the record on it’s own unique URL for £1 per download.

This is the most creative way I’ve seen of selling an album yet. God knows, how it will appear in the chart.

Below, meet Alex who was selected to create the first version of the album live and in person with the band.

 

Bjork to Release New Album Biophilia as 10 iPad Apps

Bjork is certainly no stranger to innovation. She’s been a fearless artist and performer throughout her career, first as a member of the Sugarcubes in the 1980s and as a solo artist since 1993.

She is set to release her seventh album Biophilia later this month. Today she gave the world a 30-second sneak listen to the first track Crystalline (see the video below) heard over her car stereo.

Besides the traditional release (CD & digital download) of the album alongwith music videos, the big news is that ten tracks on Biophilia will all be released as 10 iPad apps. Each app will be housed inside a single ‘mother’ app and will allow fans to interact with the song’s themes or create their own versions of the music.

She is set to premiere Biophilia at 6 performances over three weeks at Campfield Market Hall, as part of the Manchester International Festival, The first performance is set to take place on June 30. The performances will include two brand new instruments created by Icelandic organ maker Björgvin Tómasson. He’s created a small organ controlled via MIDI equipment, and a rebuilt celeste that incorporates the sounds of an Indonesian gamelan.

I love to experience what artists like Bjork and the Gorillaz (with The Fall album) explore the possibilities of new technologies such as the iPad as not performance and recording tools, but as mechanisms to release and share their

Breaking Down Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All-Time

Earlier this week Rolling Stone magazine released their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All-Time. Lists of the Greatest ‘anything’ are controversial to begin with and that’s exactly the point. They inspire intense debate and it’s impossible to create a list that everyone, especially music fans are going to agree on. This list is no different, and fans have been pointing out the absence or low ranking of their favorite artists and songs (What? No songs by Pearl Jam or Bon Jovi??).

The only thing that seems to piss more people off (and me) is being forced to click through 500 pages to see all the songs on the list. Looks like they chose page views over user experience.

Which decade had the most songs on the list?

The first thing that jumped out at me was the small number of songs from the 1990s and 2000s. In fact, the writers were only able to come up with 47 worthy songs for the two most recent decades. The most popular decade was the 1960’s with 196 songs or 39.2% of the list. Second most popular decade on the list were the 1970s with 130 songs or 26%. Rolling Stone was first published in 1967 and the artists from that period have always been featured prominently in the magazine over the years. The 10 years from 1964-1973 make up over 45% of the songs on the list.

Was 1964-1973 the greatest 10 years in music?

Are these 10 years truly the greatest period in rock and roll music? The Beatles, Beach Boys, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, The Who and Jimi Hendrix along with dozens of other artists released classic songs during that period. I was ready to criticize the writers for focusing so much on that period, but when I comparing songs from the 1980s, 90s and 00s, I started thinking maybe they were right. There simply seems to be a lack of songs now that are worthy of being called classics. Maybe in 20 years we’ll look back and we’ll be able to separate the classics from the noise.

Which year contributed the most songs?

1965 proved to be the year with the most songs on the list at 34. That’s more songs on the list from that one year than the entire decade of each of the 1990s or 2000s. 1965 featured such great songs as Ticket to Ride by The Beatles, My Girl by the Temptations, Gloria by Them and In the Midnight Hour by Wilson Pickett.

No songs from the year’s 1998 and 2005 made the list and only one song from 1985, 1990 and 1996 were featured.

Top Years

Which artist has the most songs on the list?

It’s no surprise that The Beatles have the most songs on the list with 23, second is the Rolling Stones with 14, third is Bob Dylan with 13 songs. Other artists with a significant number of songs on the list are The Who, U2, James Brown, Little Richard, Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix.

Top Artists

What words are mentioned most in the titles?

As a fun exercise I wanted to see which words were used the most in the 500 songs. It was not a huge surprise to see that Love was the most often mentioned word in song titles, from I Can’t Help Falling in Love to I Want to Know What Love Is. The Beatles contributed three songs above love; She Loves You, Can’t Buy Me Love and All You Need is Love. Man was the second most used word, examples are Street Fighting Man, Waiting for the Man, Mr Tambourine Man and When a Man Loves a Woman.

Top Words

Music as a Shared Experience

One reason is that I grew up during the time and most of these songs I remember from hearing them on the radio as a kid. The music I remember listening to was Top 40 radio. You would think nothing of hearing songs by Led Zeppelin, Al Green, the Eagles and Stevie Wonder one right after another.

Whether it was the splintering of radio formats, listeners retreating behind the headphones of their Walkmen’s, Discmen’s and now iPhones, or the near-infinite choice of music available via the internet, finding music that everyone has heard of seems to be getting more difficult.

What are some of your favorite songs of all-time?

Death Cab for Cutie Challenges Fans with Puzzles

Death Cab for Cutie - Codes & KeysSeattle indie-rockers Death Cab for Cutie joined up with Ebay-owned barcode scanning app Red Laser and transmedia agency Six to Start to create a series of interactive puzzle games leading up to today’s release of the new album ‘Codes and Keys’.

As fans solved each week’s puzzle, they collectively earned points toward unlocking an unreleased live track. Players who completed the week’s challenge were eligible to win tickets to sold-out shows.

Fans who scored 500 points in the Line of Best Fit and Photobooth games and solve the final puzzle could win a Limited Edition Codes and Keys. (WANT!)

The puzzle games included:

Talking Bird

In Week 1 fans were asked to rebuild a special QR code. When the 12 missing pieces were found on Twitter, they could then be dragged into the right spot it unlocked a box with another QR code that could be scanned entering the fan into a contest for tickets to a show.

Line of Best Fit (pictured at right)

During Week 2 fans were asked to earn as many points as they could by spelling words out of randomly selected tiles in a Scrabble-type challenge. Bonus points could be earned by spelling secret bonus words accessible by scanning the QR Code.

You Are a Tourist

Week 3 was more challenging, requiring users to scan one of nine QR codes which led to clues to a location mentioned in a Death Cab for Cutie song. Once the location had been revealed, fans had to ‘check-in’ from that location to be eligible to win tickets.

Photobooth

The final week was set up as a daily photo scavenger hunt. Each mission required fans to upload a photo based on the day. As photos were uploaded they formed the dark and light squares of a QR code. The finished code would unlock an extra mission for fans to play to earn a special prize of a Limited Edition series of posters.

All the puzzles were very challenging, maybe a bit too challenging. I love the imaginative user of QR codes throughout the challenge. of the four I found the ‘You are a Tourist’ game particularly engaging, connecting Death Cab for Cutie’s lyrics to their real-world locations.

Deftones Engage Fan Base With Instagram Contest

Deftones Instagram ContestSacramento hard-rock band the Deftones have been early-adopters of internet technology to stay connected to their fans and it’s paid off. While other rock bands of the late 90s and early 00s have faded from relevance and any measure of success, the Deftones have continued to release new material to a vibrant and eager fan base.

The latest tool the band interactive arsenal is the iPhone photo sharing app Instagram, where they already have over 9300 followers. During their current North American tour they are asking fans to post and tag (#deftones #cityofconcert) the best photos from each tour stop. Each day one photo will be named the “Fan Instagr.am of the day and will be featured on the Deftones Facebook wall. At the end of the tour all featured photos will be entered in a draw for a grand prize of an ESP guitar and 5 runner up prizes of a signed copy of their 1997 breakthrough album ‘Around the Fur’.

Their website features a long-running Community area which was first established in 2000 with DeftonesWorld, over the years an area for fan posts and the Sharing Lungs forum were added.

The band has a solid and established presence across all the major social networks: their YouTube channel has 36,390 subscribers and millions of views, their MySpace page has 615,533 friends, the Deftones iLike profile shows 423,112 friends, on Twitter they tweet to 84,904 followers, and biggest of all, the Facebook fan page with 1,385,723 Likes.

Bands, like any company or organization cannot be complacent about staying engaged with their fans. They can no longer afford to wait on the chance of one big hit album, instead they must rely on maintaining a loyal fanbase with a long term vision. This is something than bands like the Deftones understand and remain focussed on.

‘You’ve Seen the Butcher’ from Deftones 2010 album ‘Diamond Eyes’.

Moby Promotes New Album with Fan-Fueled Instagram Microsite

Moby DestroyedElectronic musician Moby is promoting the release of his new album ‘Destroyed’ with a microsite by asking fans around the world to use Instagram to share photos of their city at 2am. The album release will be accompanied by a book of Moby’s photos taken while on tour.

Considering the travel across timezones, a different hotel room everynight, it’s no wonder that Moby has trouble sleeping while on tour. Taking advantage of being up, he wrote most of the album late in the evening when it seemed to him that he was the only one awake. Moby describes the album as a soundtrack for empty cities.

The site features a scrollable map of the world (using Polymaps, a cool javascript library of interactive maps) showing white dots for photos taken by Moby and black dots for photos shared by fans on Instagram using the hashtag #destroyed. The site also features a stream of the full ‘Destroyed’ album using Soundcloud, which has recently been used by mainstream artists such as Foo Fighters and Beyonce to showcase their new music.

As for the album ‘Destroyed’, if you like the music of Moby you’ll probably enjoy this. If you’re looking for anything new or were wanting to see Moby experiment this may not the album you’ve been waiting for.

Chris Milk & Arcade Fire’s ‘Summer Into Dust’ Experience Continues Online

If you were at Coachella last month for Arcade Fire’s Saturday night performance you watched as hundreds of large beach balls cascaded down from the top of the stage. The beach balls bounced throughout the crowd changing colour in time with the music, and if you were really lucky you walked or drive away that night with one of them.

The experience is a collaborative between director Chris Milk and Arcade Fire (they had previously collaborated on the ground-breaking browser video ‘The Wilderness Downtown’). The beach balls were equipped with LEDs and IR transmitter technology provided by ESKI and Moment Factory. It turns out that the Coachella performance that night was only the beginning of an interactive experience entitled ‘Summer Into Dust’. Those who managed to get their glowing beach balls home are asked to share pictures and videos, as well as discover new ways to interact with them.

The experience is part of the Creators Project, a partnership between Intel and Vice celebrating art and creativity using digital technologies.

Here’s the Spin on Record Store Day

Record Store Day 2011
Attention music lovers, in case you didn’t know today, April 16th is Record Store Day. First launched 3 short years ago in 2008, Record Store Day is now celebrated at over 700 stores in the US, more than 100 here in Canada and many more around the world. Record Store Day celebrates those independent music retailers who are working to keep

The day is now marked with hundreds of instore performances by performers such as My Morning Jacket, Foo Fighters, Drive-By Truckers (full list here) and special releases from everyone from AC/DC to Lady GaGa to Yeasayer. (full list of special releases here)

Yes, I have a few 45s lying around

One of the most unusual releases is a 78rpm 10″ vinyl version of The Beach Boys classic 1966 singles Good Vibrations and a B-side of Heroes and Villains alongwith alternate takes on both songs on a separate disc. It will be interesting to know how many record buyers still have the ability to play a 78rpm record, but no doubt playing a record this rare and special may not be a good idea.

Sonic Boom on Bloor Street has a full day of performers for Toronto music lovers to check out, contact your local store for details on special releases and times

Sonic Boom Music
512 Bloor Street
1pm – Modern Superstititions
2pm – Teenanger
3pm – Bidiniband
4pm – Rouge
5pm – Ben Gunning
6pm – SIster
7pm – Light Fires
8pm – Zeus
9pm – The Wooden Sky

Sunrise Records
336 Yonge Street
12 noon – Darrelle London
2pm – The Spoons
4:30 pm – Silverstein
7 pm – Anvil

Death Cab for Cutie Broadcasts Live Video for New Single

Last night Death Cab for Cutie premiered the video for ‘You Are a Tourist’ in a very unique, exciting and risky way. The choreographed video was recorded live in one take and featured complex lighting and projections as well as several additional dancers and performers. You can sense the excitement and relief from the band and crew when the camera draws back at the end to reveal the full set. I can only imagine the extensive rehearsals needed to coordinate the movement on the set so that no one walked in front of the camera or bumped into each other.

The video was directed by Tim Nackashi, who has worked with Radiohead, TV on the Radio and masters of the one-take video OK Go. You can view behind-the-scenes photos from the video shoot on Facebook now.

I’d be looking forward to the May 18th tour date here in Toronto, but it sold out before I even knew it was happening. I’ll make due with getting the new album Codes and Keys on May 31.