Music

The Internet Archive

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I am bit surprised the the Internet Archive isn’t much more well-known.

From their mission statement:

The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library. Its purposes include offering permanent access for researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public to historical collections that exist in digital format. Founded in 1996 and located in San Francisco, the Archive has been receiving data donations from Alexa Internet and others. In late 1999, the organization started to grow to include more well-rounded collections. Now the Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages in our collections, and provides specialized services for adaptive reading and information access for the blind and other persons with disabilities.

Just follow the links in the quote above and you’ll find an incredible amount of each of the mentioned media.

Martin Solveig and Dragonette, Hello (2010)

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My daughters have been listening to this one, and singing along with it. I like this one. It reminds me of a New Wave pop song circa 1980. (The keyboard reminds me of DEVO, the girl singer reminds me of the songer from the MoDettes or from Altered Images, and overall it reminds me of the Rezillos.) The video is just the scrolling lyrics, so no point in putting it up on here.

(Here is a nice live version, but this is not the original singer.)

Angie Pontani, The Brooklyn Slide

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Please note the video below, which provides important information for ChicagoBoyz readers. It contains go-go dance instruction from Angie Pontani, of the World Famous Pontani Sisters, previously mentioned here and here.

The Pontani Sisters are now touring with Los Straitjackets, including three Chicago area shows this weekend. I hope to be at one of these shows. The video shows you how to do their new dance number, the Brooklyn Slide.

Please practice at home and attain basic proficiency before trying these steps in public.

Terrestrial Radio and the Death of Innovation

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I have been interested in radio and music in general for many years. I wrote about the “squeezebox” internet radio here which I highly recommend.

In the September 18, 2011 Chicago Tribune they had an article titled “No way to tune out internet” with the tagline “digital competition causing static even as broadcasters try to dismiss its impact”.

The article covers a radio broadcaster convention that met in Chicago and the comments of the radio executives on the state of their industry.

Radio Advertising Bureau President and CEO Jeff Haley told broadcasters that the fight against Internet and satellite radio must be joined, particularly in the car, where most listening takes place… lagging in online and digital efforts, the radio industry finds itself swimming upstream, chasing competitors all but dismissed a decade ago. Pandora has more than 100 million registered users, while once-teetering Sirius XM is in the black, with more than 21 million satellite subscribers.

In addition to being challenged in aggregate by online radio and satellite radio, over-the-air radio is also losing amongst the young.

A recent analysis… showed Pandora’s listenership topping all terrestrial radio stations among 18-34 year-olds in the top 5 markets.

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