DRM: Digital Rights Management

Digital rights management (DRM) is a generic term for access control technologies that can be used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals to impose limitations on the usage of digital content and devices. The term is used to describe any technology that inhibits uses of digital content not desired or intended by the content provider. The term does not generally refer to other forms of copy protection which can be circumvented without modifying the file or device, such as serial numbers or keyfiles. It can also refer to restrictions associated with specific instances of digital works or devices. Digital rights management is used by companies such as Sony, Apple Inc., Microsoft, AOL and the BBC.

The use of digital rights management is controversial. Proponents argue it is needed by copyright holders to prevent unauthorized duplication of their work, either to maintain artistic integrity^[1] or to ensure continued revenue streams.^[2] Some opponents, such as the Free Software Foundation, maintain that the use of the word "rights" is misleading and suggest that people instead use the term digital restrictions management. Their position is essentially that copyright holders are restricting the use of material in ways that are beyond the scope of existing copyright laws, and should not be covered by future laws.^[3] The Electronic Frontier Foundation, and other opponents, also consider DRM systems to be anti-competitive practices.^[4]

Link

A short documentary about Warp records

A documentary about Warp taken from the SLICES DVD. SLICES is a DVD Magazine for electronic music and presents insights into a multifaceted landscape of scenes, which has become a synonym for innovation and progress unlike any other.
"We devote ourselves to tireless doers, sources of inspiration and style-defining labels and artists. Thus, we offer a genuine alternative to music television."
SLICES reports from the electronic music world by means of portraits, background features and videos.
From Electronica and Downbeat via House to Techno.

AudioMulch

One example of the sort of technology that has been introduced in recent years at the level of production, distribution, marketing and exchange.

AudioMulch is modular audio software for making music and processing sound. The software can synthesize sound and process live and pre-recorded sound in real-time. The software has been used by: Nine Inch Nails ,Girl Talk and Four Tet amongst others.

Good Copy Bad Copy

A documentary about the current state of copyright and culture.

The problems with digital.

In the same week that Apple’s CFO, Peter Oppenheimer, confirmed what we all knew – that the iTunes Store doesn’t make money – 7,200 music and technology executives headed to the South of France for the Midem convention to try to figure out once again how to make money out of digital music.
It’s not like it was the first time they have tried. “Monetising the new music experience” – as this year’s Midemnet conference was headlined – has been the key topic at Midem for at least the past 10 years.
And the bad news, which I am sure you have already guessed, is they didn’t solve it this time either.
It was once said that the only sure way to make money out of digital music was to sell tickets to a conference on how to make money out of digital music. Even that one isn’t looking so hot an idea these days.
Midem itself acknowledged attendance was down 10% despite their decision to throw in the previously separately-chargeable Midemnet conference for free. And that came on top of the previous year’s 12% decline.
In truth the Midem organisers did a very good job of showing how to approach structural decline in a customer-focused and innovative way. Not only did they effectively cut the price, they added value in all kinds of ways with the result that the word of mouth on the show was very positive indeed. All things being equal they may even see an increase in numbers next year.
But what of the Big Question – how to make money with digital?
What was depressing was the preponderance of empty buzzwords and sloganising – “we’re moving to music as service” or that old favourite “music like water” – rather than anything specific.
Five minutes listening to “media futurist” Gerd Leonhard is more than enough to realise that his music is more like snake oil and he knows no more and probably less than the rest of us.
Maybe they should have asked a retailer. Surprisingly of the 7,200 delegates at Midem, just 28 were listed as retailers and, as far as I could see, just one of them, Jason Legg, Live Manager of ERA member HMV UK was asked to speak on a panel.
Interestingly, it was Jason’s comments focusing on HMV’s now 1.2m-strong loyalty card database and its ability to cross-sell recorded music, merchandise and concert tickets which gave the most convincing example of how best to monetise music online right now.
Other than Jason, the most convincing speakers in the Midem programme were those from outside the music industry.
Former Sony Classical executive Peter Gelb, now general manager of New York’s Metropolitan Opera gave a fascinating account of how the company had extended its reach, broadened its appeal to younger people ands made money by relaying live performance to cinemas.
Kodak’s Chief Marketing Officer Jeffrey Hayzlett gave an insider’s view of the disruptive power of technology by describing how his company has coped with a collapse in sales of traditional photo film from a $15bn business five years ago to just $200m this year.
And Jonathan Klein, co-founder of the world’s biggest supplier of pictures, Getty Images, told how it has prospered by using the internet to make imagery more accessible than ever before.
Interestingly these “outsiders” all attracted smaller audiences at the conference than did the music industry insiders who delegates had likely heard speak a dozen or more times before.
And what all three had in common was a clear vision coupled to a ruthless commitment to execution. It would not be surprising if after 10 years of discussion, what is really holding back the music industry’s ability to make music online is an inability any longer to see the wood from the trees.
Back in the early days of Midemnet when it was still separate from the main exhibition, it was not uncommon to hear conference delegates congratulate themselves that they were the future, while the predominantly physical business types in the exhibition hall were the past.
Despite 10 years of talking about making money online, perhaps the real split at Midem is between the people in the conference halls talking about making money and not doing so, and those in the exhibition halls, in the hotels and in the bars, most of them in the “old business” who are still doing rather well indeed

LINK

Apple: iPhone App and iTunes stores don't make money

Apple's App Store and iTunes Store aren't moneymakers. They're lures for prospective handset customers.

Although Apple's online content and app marts have long been suspected of being more marketing arms than profit centers, CFO Peter Oppenheimer made that belief a certainty on Monday afternoon when speaking with analysts and reporters after announcing Apple's first-quarter financial results for its 2010 fiscal year.

"Regarding the App Store and the iTunes Store, we're running those a bit over break-even, and that hasn't changed," Oppenheimer said. "We're very excited to be providing our developers with just a fabulous opportunity, and we think that's helping us a lot with the iPhone and the iPod touch platforms."

But as a marketing effort, the App Store's long-running, well, "challenges" may have tarnished Apple's rep as much as enticed millions of folks to send their money Cupertino's way.

Examples of the App Store's clunky approvals process are legion: disallowing then allowing Apple-supplied images not once but twice, approving some pointless apps but not others, banning then unbanning streaming 3G TV, rejecting studying but not approving Google Voice and Google Lattitude, refusing then approving then pulling then reapproving a Commadore 64 emulator, and more. Much more.

It hasn't been pretty. But during today's conference call, Apple COO Tim Cook - standing in for Steve Jobs, who was a no-show - defended the App Store approval process.

"I think it's important to keep this in some perspective," he said. "That we have over 100,000 apps on the store, and that over 90 per cent of the apps that we've had have been approved within 14 days of the submission. We created the approval process to really make sure that it protected consumer privacy, to safeguard children from inappropriate content, and to avoid apps that degrade the core experience of the phone."

He also outlined the App Store police guidelines: "Some types of content, such as pornography, are rejected outright. Some things like graphic combat scenes in action games might be approved, but with appropriate age ratings.

"Most of the rejections, however," he continued, "are actually bugs in the code itself. And this is protecting the customer - and the developer to a great extent, because they don't want customers that are unhappy with the apps."

Cook is also of the opinion that reports of the App Store's problems are overstated. "I think what you have here is something that the noise on it occasionally may be much higher than the reality." ®

Bootnote

More than one analyst asked both Oppenheimer and Cook whether Apple's projections for the next quarter's revenue took into account the launch of the long-rumored iPad, but both execs dodged all such questions. To one questioner, Cook replied: "I wouldn't want to take away your joy and surprise on Wednesday when you see our latest creations."

Media Convergence

This video includes facts and stats focusing on the changing media landscape, including convergence and technology.

24 Hour Party People Essay

This is the work for today's lesson (in my absence). Answer the following question:

In what ways is 24 Hour Party People a postmodern text?

Work on this essay today. I expect in to be handed in by Friday. Your other essays will be handed back by Mrs Hammond in her first lesson this week. Tom can you enable the print function on your scribd embed. I can't print out your essay to mark it.


Remember to keep referring to the question.

Theory must be included. See earlier post of mine on Baudrillard and Strinati to help with this.

Make a list of the postmodern elements and find textual examples to explain them.

You could refer to some of the following elements and use them to answer the question:

• breaking the 4th wall/ direct address
• use of real peopl playing themselves
• the refernce to Icarus at the start of the film
• the 'wheel' reference
• the attempt to create a new mythology whilst referring to ancient myths
• quotes from popular culture - the use of intertextuality in the film
• the documentary feel to some parts of the film
• use of archive (real) footage
• the narrative as linear or non linear
• the truth ( can we trust the version of events we see? this will link to the creation of a new mythology)
• humour/ irony/ black comedy
• nostalgia
  

Life On Mars

Watch the clip and answer the following question.

Discuss the representation of gender and ethnicity.

Make sure you comment on the sound and editing too. This will reinforce the separate work you have undertaken in these 2 areas.

What is creativity? (G325 questions on production work)

Taken from Media Magazine blog.

One of the possible areas you could be asked about in the exam is creativity. The projects you have undertaken will hopefully have felt like an opportunity to display your creativity, but you will need the chance to discuss what you understand by creativity and what it might mean to be creative.

The assignment options at AS and A2 all offer constraints for your work, whether it be making pages for a music magazine, the opening of a film or the packaging for an album; one of the reasons why you aren't offered total free choice is because people often find that working within constraints gives them something to exercise their creativity, whereas total freedom can sometimes make it really difficult to know where to start. It's why genre can be interesting- how has something been created which fits with certain structures and rules but plays around with them to give us something a little bit different?

The word 'creative' has many meanings- the most democratic meaning would really suggest that any act of making something (even making an idea) might be seen as a creative act. In more elitist versions of the term, it is reserved for those who are seen as highly skilled or original (famous artists, musicians, film-makers etc). an interesting third alternative is to think about how creativity can be an unconscious, random or collaborative act that becomes more than the sum of its parts.

A great shared site for creative random art with some effort is on Flickr with the shared CD meme pool. This is a game where you create a CD cover for an imaginary band and upload it to Flickr; the trick is you have to create it from 'found' materials, again following a set of rules.

1. Generate a name for your band by using WikiPedia's random page selector tool, and using the first article title on whichever page pops up. No matter how weird or lame that band name sounds.
2. Generate an album title by cutting and pasting the last four words of the final quote on whichever page appears when you click on the quotationspage's random quote selector tool. No matter what those four words turn out to be.
3. Finally, visit Flickr's Most Interesting page -- a random selection of some of the interesting things discovered on Flickr within the last 7 days -- and download the third picture on that page. (Even better: Click on this link to get a Flickr photo that's licensed under Creative Commons.) Again -- no cheating! You must use the photo, no matter how you feel about it.
4. Using Photoshop (or whatever method you prefer), put all of these elements together and create your very own CD cover, then upload it to the CD memepool

My version:

Band name: Margarita Rosa de Francisco

Album Name: Milk's Leap Toward Immortality

Image:


The final version:





The key question to consider is: how has something been created which fits with certain structures and rules but plays around with them to give us something a little bit different?


Ideas and theories to help you.


"A process needed for problem solving...not a special gift enjoyed by a few but a common ability possessed by most people" (Jones 1993)


"The making of the new and the re arranging of the old" (Bentley 1997)


"Creativity results from the interaction of a system composed of three elements: a culture that contains symbolic rules, a person who brings novelty into the symbolic domain, and a field of experts who recognise and validate the innovation." (Csikszentmihalyi 1996)


"There is no absolute judgement [on creativity] All judgements are comparisons of one thing with another." (Donald Larning)

LINK

Happy Mondays-Kinky Afro

Tony Wilson on Channel 4

Logorama

Logorama is a 17-minute animated film written and directed by H5/ François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy and Ludovic Houplain, and produced by Autour de Minuit. The film depicts events in a stylized Los Angeles, and is told entirely through the use of more than 2,500 contemporary and historical logos and mascots. The film won the Prix Kodak at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 82nd Academy Awards.

Lady Gaga ft. Beyonce-Telephone

Jason Kottke has speculated that this may be "the last great music video". Whether it is or not who knows? If you add Gaga, Beyonce, Kill Bill references and a ridiculous amount of product placement then it all equals postmodern perfection.

Sound in TV Drama

Soundintvdrama 100129055219 Phpapp01

View more presentations from hammonda.

Hyperreality (examples)

1.A magazine photo of a model that has been touched up with a computer.

2.Films in which characters and settings are either digitally enhanced or created entirely from CGI (e.g.: 300, where the entire film was shot in front of a blue/green screen, with all settings super-imposed).


3.A well manicured garden (nature as hyperreal).

4.Any massively promoted versions of historical or present "facts" (e.g. "General Ignorance" from QI, where the questions have seemingly obvious answers, which are actually wrong).


5.Professional sports athletes as super, invincible versions of the human beings.

6.Many world cities and places which did not evolve as functional places with some basis in reality, as if they were creatio ex nihilo (literally 'creation out of nothing'): Disney World; Dubai; Celebration, Florida; and Las Vegas.


7.TV and film in general (especially "reality" TV), due to its creation of a world of fantasy and its dependence that the viewer will engage with these fantasy worlds. The current trend is to glamorize the mundane using histrionics.

8.A retail store that looks completely stocked and perfect due to facing, creating a world of endless identical products.


9.A life which cannot be (e.g. the perfect facsimile of a celebrity's invented persona).

10.A high end sex doll used as a simulacrum of a bodily or psychologically unattainable partner.


11.A newly made building or item designed to look old, or to recreate or reproduce an older artifact, by simulating the feel of age or aging.

12.Constructed languages (such as E-Prime) or "reconstructed" extinct dialects.


13.Second Life The distinction becomes blurred when it becomes the platform for RL (Real Life) courses and conferences, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings or leads to real world interactions behind the scenes.

14.Weak virtual reality which is greater than any possible simulation of physical reality.

Taken from Wikipedia.

Hyperreality

Hyperreality is used in semiotics and postmodern philosophy to describe a hypothetical inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from fantasy, especially in technologically advanced postmodern cultures. Hyperreality is a means to characterize the way consciousness defines what is actually "real" in a world where a multitude of media can radically shape and filter an original event or experience. Some famous theorists of hyperreality include Jean Baudrillard, Albert Borgmann, Daniel Boorstin, and Umberto Eco.

Most aspects of hyperreality can be thought of as "reality by proxy." Some examples are simpler: the McDonald's "M" arches create a world with the promise of endless amounts of identical food, when in "reality" the "M" represents nothing, and the food produced is neither identical nor infinite.[1]

Baudrillard in particular suggests that the world we live in has been replaced by a copy world, where we seek simulated stimuli and nothing more. Baudrillard borrows, from Jorge Luis Borges (who already borrowed from Lewis Carroll), the example of a society whose cartographers create a map so detailed that it covers the very things it was designed to represent. When the empire declines, the map fades into the landscape and there is neither the representation nor the real remaining – just the hyperreal. Baudrillard's idea of hyperreality was heavily influenced by phenomenology, semiotics, and Marshall McLuhan.

Postmodernism a definition (a repost)

Postmodern texts deliberately play with meaning. They are designed to be read by a literate (ie experienced in other texts) audience and will exhibit many traits of intertextuality. Many texts openly acknowledge that, given the diversity in today's audiences, they can have no preferred reading (check out your Reception Theory) and present a whole range of oppositional readings simultaneously. Many of the sophisticated visual puns used by advertising can be described as postmodern. Postmodern texts will employ a range of referential techniques such as bricolage, and will use images and ideas in a way that is entirely alien to their original function (eg using footage of Nazi war crimes in a pop video).

Postmodern film

Postmodernist film describes the articulation of ideas of postmodernism through the cinematic medium. Postmodernist film upsets the mainstream conventions of narrative structure and characterization and destroys (or, at least, toys with) the audience's suspension of disbelief to create a work in which a less-recognizable internal logic forms the film's means of expression.

OCR January 2010 G322 textual analysis exam

OCR Summer 2009 G322 textual analysis exam

How is the representation of gender constructed in this extract?

OCR January 2009 G322 textual analysis exam

How is the representation of age constructed in this extract?

Continuity Editing

A short documentary on Continuity Editing in the film V for Vendetta.

AS Evaluation exam board example

This has been posted by the exam board as a good example of an AS level evaluation.



It's worth looking at to make sure you at least equal it. We are hoping that your evaluations will be better. They should be, if you follow the advice posted.

AS Evaluation Questions and Activities

For the final 20 marks of the project, you must complete seven tasks on your blog, posting them in this order, with the question heading at the top of each task. You may do them as a pair/group, but must post individual copies on each blog. Make sure you answer each question as well as producing the visual elements.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film openings)

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups ?

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

7. Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?


EVALUATION ACTIVITY 1
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film openings)

Remember when we looked at 9 frames from Art of the title sequence? Well now it's your turn to do the same with nine of your frames.

You should go through the final version of the project and select nine distinct frames which you screengrab and drop into a photoshop in the same style as the website. You will be using these to write about how typical or not of opening sequences your particular design is, so choose them carefully.

Once you have the nine frames neatly in Photoshop, screengrab the whole thing and post to your blog, then write an analysis of how you have used such conventions.

The aspects we would like you to consider across your nine frames are:

The title of the film
Setting/location
Costumes and props
Camerawork and editing
Title font and style
Story and how the opening sets it up
Genre and how the opening suggests it
How characters are introduced
Special effects


EVALUATION ACTIVITY 2
How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Pick a key character from your opening. Take a screengrab of a reasonable sized image of them. Think of one or more characters from other films with some similarity to them (but maybe some differences too!), find an image on the web of that/those characters and grab it as well. Drop the two into photoshop, as a split screen. Export this splitscreen image as a jpeg then drop onto your blog and write about the similarities and differences in terms of appearance, costume, role in film etc.

So for example if you have a lone cop type character, look for other lone cops to compare him with...


EVALUATION ACTIVITY 3
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?


For this question, you are going to do a 'director's commentary' style voiceover explaining some of the key features of your opening

You will need to script the voiceover which deals with institutional issues to include:

discussion of your production company name and logo and the role of such companies

What does a production company do? start here
the idea of a distributor and who that might be and why. start here
where the money might have come from for a film such as yours herewhy the various people are named in the titles- which jobs appear in titles and in what order and how have you reflected this?
what your film is similar to 'institutionally' (name some films which would be released in a similar way)
You need to refer to actual company names and processes so you will need to go back to the early posts on film companies and maybe do a bit more research

When you have scripted, record the voiceover using Final Cut on a new audio timeline, then export to quicktime and embed on blog.


EVALUATION ACTIVITY 4
Who would be the audience for your media product?

You should have a drawing of your target audience member and an explanation of what kinds of taste they might have- where they would shop, what music they would listen to, what their favourite Tv programme would be, etc.

make sure you have taken a phot of it, post it on the blog and write a few notes on why they would watch your film.



EVALUATION ACTIVITY 5
How did you attract/address your audience?
You will use YOUTUBE's annotation tools to add NOTES, SPEECHBUBBLES, and LINKS to your video (click on icon below):



These annotations will highlight the ways in which your Film Opening links to other similiar films in order to attract the particular Audience you have previously identified.

Your annotations will refer to genre conventions, use of music, similiarities with other movies and what you have identified as the Unique Selling Point of your imaginary film.


EVALUATION ACTIVITY 6
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?


In pairs, take a picture of each other holding the kit you have used. This might just be the camera and tripod, and your Macbook but there may be other things you want in the shot.

Drop the image onto your blog and annotate it, adding all the programs and other technology you have used as screengrabs and what you learnt about it/from using it. Your written text need only be minimal. You could include reference to all the online and computer programs you have used such as youtube, flickr, blogger, final cut,photoshop,vimeo garageband, etc.



EVALUATION ACTIVITY 7
Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Concentrate on editing and camerawork.

Grab some frames from both tasks and put them on the blog and show what you know about shot types, edit terms and techniques.


Make sure you mention the 180 degree rule, match on action and shot/reverse shot

(from Mr Smith's blog)

24 Hour Party People trailer

Even the trailer is postmodern.

A Hand Drawn Study of the Nature of Birds. Vol.1

A short film by the film maker Daniel Cooper.

24 Hour Party People essay

In what way is 24 Hour Party People (2002 Michael Winterbottom) a postmodern text?



Elements to research:
Tony Wilson (Anthony H. Wilson)
Manchester
Granada TV
So It Goes
Factory
Hacienda
Peter Saville
Joy Division/New Order
Happy Mondays
Madchester
Martin Hannett
The Sex Pistols at The Lesser Free Trade Hall in 1976

Seven as a six panel comic

From Little White Lies magazine's “Creative Brief” series, the most recent of which asked people to winnow down their favorite movie into a six-panel comic. The results are pretty spectacular.

Florence & the Machine– You've Got The Love (The Very Best redo The XX remix)

this is kind of confusing but: the very best remix the xx remix of florence & the machine’s jam you’ve got the love, which is actually a cover of the source & candi staton’s 1991 hit… & it’s pretty hot! it’s not all that different from the xx’s version which was all over the place last year, but esau mwamwaya & co. sound bomb on pretty much anything! grab the new remix below.

M.I.A.-Boyz

This post links to the Rihanna Rude Boy post. Diplo's remix is a way of commenting on Rihanna's video debt to M.I.A.

Via Twitter, Mad Decent majordomo/superstar DJ Diplo kinda slammed the new video for Rihanna’s “Rude Boy” as a rip-off of his homey M.I.A’s “Boyz” clip (comparing the two, he does kinda have a point, but decide for yourself). Then, adding humor to injury, the dance-music merry prankster tweeted a download link to his new, irreverent remix of “Rude Boy” just a few hours later. It’s just amazing what that there Interweb can do!

True to this being a Diplo gag, even when he’s making an musical joke he can’t help but make it a total club banger. It’s kinda been eclipsed due to his current accomplishments, but with his Philadelphia Hollertronix crew, Diplo was one of the early innovators of mash-up culture, and that’s exactly what he’s done here, blending “Boyz” (which is also one of his productions) into “Rude Boy” in classic mash-up style. Not only does it add a punchline, but the extra element makes the Rihanna track that much hotter: the pounding carnival kick drums and “na-na-na” from the M.I.A groove give “Rude Boy” a raw, sweaty urgency that the poptastic original only hints at. The end result of this hybrid is as loud, shrill, and dancefloor-filling as those blaring rave sirens that Diplo laces nearly track wit (but, oddly, not this one). So is this remix a rude gesture? Probably, but who cares? It’s definitely essential. Stuttering, insane, and irresistible, it’s surely on its way to to a strip club near you…

From kspace.tv

Rihanna-Rude Boy

The latest single from Rihanna isn't too dissimilar to the Busy Signal track in terms of content. The remixes of the track particularly the duet with Assassin are closer to the dancehall style of Busy Signal.Interesting to note in the video how Rihanna is channeling both Keith haring and Grace Jones. The video also owes a debt to M.I.A.s work. Diplo's remix of Rude Boy refers to this.

Andrew Marr on how film portrays the western world

Historians of a century ahead, writing about our times, will use the films in our cinemas right now to discuss the decline of the West. They will talk about a radical lack of self-confidence in the project of enlightenment-science-plus-corporate- capitalism, a spectacular loss of nerve. They will observe how fear about the coming “singularity” in computing power, remorse about wars in Asia and environmentalist horror about rainforest destruction and species extinction combined to shake the West’s belief in its destiny. And then they will contrast all that with the brash confidence, even triumphalism, of the Chinese film industry as a set piece contrast in how art imitates life.

The Times

Andrew Marr

March 5 2010

David Gauntlett: Media and Everyday Life

In 2007, Gauntlett published online the article Media Studies 2.0, arguing that we need to recognise the changing media landscape in which the categories of 'audiences' and 'producers' blur together. He argues that there is a shift from a 'sit-back-and-be-told culture' to a 'making-and-doing culture'.

He's really useful as a current theorist you can refer to in your exams.

David Bowie: Starman

Flight of the Conchords: Bowie's In Space

A song from The Bowie episode. After a photo session, Bret develops body image issues and gets some dream advice from his idol, David Bowie. Jemaine plots to cheer him up and Murray tries to get one of the band's tunes used for a musical greeting card.

Flight Of The Conchords David Bowie references

Foals: Spanish Sahara

Foals return with Spanish Sahara.

Six minutes of arresting beauty, the song inhabits a still, dry space, with simple, understated guitar chords providing a strong and emotive melody. Yannis’s haunting vocals set a hazy, hallucinatory soundscape, climaxing into a rush of shimmering guitars and keys.

I’m the fury in your head, I’m the fury in your bed, I’m the ghost in the back of your head.

Bunny and the Bull trailer

Bunny and the Bull centres on the uncomfortable-in-his-own-skin Stephen (Edward Hogg) as he recalls a disastrous trip across Europe in the company of his lothario best pal Bunny (Simon Farnaby), a journey so catastrophic our hero hasn't left his grubby Kings Cross flat in a year. Shot in six weeks on a budget of just £750,000, the film introduces us to a cavalcade of whimsical oddballs, including a Hungarian vagrant named Attila whose tipple of choice is dog's milk, and a suave yet down-to-earth bullfighter.

Link

Warp artist investigation

As you can see you have all been assigned a Warp artist to investigate. You need to compose a presenation on your artist for Wednesday's lesson (no excuses). You will have to listen to some of the music and watch some music videos to form an understanding of the artist. Links to the Warp website and the Warp You Tube channel.

Include: biography, select discography, genre of music, audience classification,sales figures, synergy in terms of placement in tv programmes and film soundtracks,influence (if any), influences, examples of the music and videos. It would also be helpful to find out what record label each artist releases music on in the USA.

Grizzly Bear: Olivia and Vicky
Maximo Park: Hannah and Jack
Boards Of Canada:Leonie
Aphex Twin: Dan and Ian
Gonjasufi:Liv
Broadcast:Alex
Battles:Reece
Clark: Laura
Flying Lotus: Jacob
Leila: Erica
Born Ruffians: Emily

Postmodern music/ Postmodern Thought by Joseph Henry Auner, Judith Irene Lochhead

Postmodern music

Apply as many of Kramer's rules (in your own words) to five pieces of music. Embed a clip of each piece in your blog.

1. Timbaland


2. Stockhausen


3. Alvin Lucier


4. your choice


5. your choice

This will help your understanding of Kramer's theory and add to any response in the exam.

Aaliyah-Try Again

Aaliyah's only number one single in the USA from 2000 (she died in 2001). the song is based on a backing track that is not your usual R n' B beat. Timbaland works in another unusual element to create a memorable track.

Aaliyah-Are You That Somebody?

Another Timbaland production for Aaliyah. Aaliyah was Timbaland's muse as well as being a rising music star. She had started to reach a world wide audience for her music and acting. This track contains the Timbaland vocal tics that are expected along with the sound of a baby gurgling in the background. This is another example of using unusual or unexpected sounds to make music.