Disney Soundtracks (And The Decemberists)

I recently saw Aladdin again for the first time in a long time. I forgot how awesome those movies are. Anyway, the thing that really got my attention about it was the music. Those songs are great. Even the non-vocal music is incidental and just really works with the tone of the film. Anyway, on my search for it's OST (Original Soundtrack), I found a tiny treasure trove of Disney soundtracks from Aladdin, Beauty & The Beast, Hercules, Mulan, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Lion King, and more. Notably present are the Broadway production versions of songs from The Lion King and Beauty & The Beast. Oh, by the way, all these files are in .rar format. If you're running OS X, use UnRarX or SimplyUnRar (which is slower and uses drag-and-drop, but offers incredibly easy password unlock). If you're running XP, I'd try 7-Zip (which is also available for OS X, but doesn't work for me). Awesome.

P.S.: On the same server, I found five or six Decemberists albums. Take a look. I'd recommend Picaresque.

Best Of 1982

Hey, listen to this song. It's Golden Brown by The Stranglers. It's awesome because it has a 3/4 time signature for three bars, then goes to a 4/4 time signature, then goes back. IT'S CRAZY! Yeah, I found it here, a compilation of the best songs of 1982. It was a dark time for music. Also, this morning I finally filled my 30GB iPod. 6003 songs, yo.

200th post.

Smörgåsmore

Guess what? Last week, Ollie Johnston died. "Who is Ollie Johnston, and why should I care?" I hear you cry in unison (an impressive feat, guys. Good job). Well, Ollie Johnston was the last of the original Disney animators, a team colloquially known as the Nine Old Men. They illustrated and animated all the films between Snow White and The Rescuers (thanks, Wikipedia). He was 95. Welcome to the end of a generation.

To help you drown the pain, I offer some more full-length albums, featuring artists from Queen to Cream to The Talking Heads. In addition to the above fine bands, I would recommend Sheryl Crow,* especially her C'mon C'mon album, and Fiona Apple's When The Pawn..., occasionally known as When The Pawn Hits The Conflicts He Thinks Like A King, and almost never known by its full name, When the pawn hits the conflicts he thinks like a king What he knows throws the blows when he goes to the fight And he'll win the whole thing before he enters the ring There's no body to batter when your mind is your might So when you go solo, you hold your own hand And remember that depth is the greatest of heights And if you know where you stand, then you know where to land And if you fall it won't matter, cuz you know that you're right. So... yeah. Yeah. Here's the site.

*Yeah, I listen to Sheryl Crow. What of it, Piers?

Fush Yu Mang

That is a great album title. But I digress. Smash Mouth's 1997 album (my favorite) here.

Tom Waits

I almost hyperventilated when I came across this directory with thirteen full-length Tom Waits albums. For the uninitiated, Tom Waits is probably one of the best songwriters in recent memory. Better than Bob Dylan. Better than Burt Bacharach. As for his voice, apparently someone said it sounded "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months and then taken outside and run over with a car." Sounds about right to me. If you like good sounds in your earholes, you'll probably find at least one song you like by Waits. Even if you don't think he's a particularly good songwriter, you'd have to admit he's pretty prolific. Since 1973, he's released 20 albums, and a few years back he released Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards. It was a 3-disc collection of songs he had written throughout his career that he felt just didn't fit in any other album he'd recorded. That's a lot of songs. I just can't tell you how much I like this guy. Anyway, after that disjointed and poorly written review, I'd like to close with some choice tracks. Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis, Train Song, Ruby's Arms, Underground, and for those of you who enjoy bizarrities, try on What's He Building?

Come On, Feel The Illinoise!

If you've never heard of Sufjan Stevens, you should feel ashamed of yourself. But not for long. To appease the guilt, simply listen to a couple of tracks from his 2005 album Illinois, also known as Come On, Feel The Illinoise, which seems like a pretty awesome name, until you start reading some of the track names, like The Black Hawk War, or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience but You're Going to Have to Leave Now, or, 'I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue to Fight Them Until They Are Off Our Lands!' and They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Ahhhh!. Yeah. My favorite song of his is Jacksonville.

Powder v4.0

I come bearing news of a grand new concept, that of the webtoy. It's not quite a game, it's not quite anything else, really, it's just a toy. A perfect example would be that of the now famous webtoy Line Rider. You goof around with it for a while until something better springs into your mind. I introduce Powder, a particle physics exploration game. As dull as that initially appears, it draws you in rather quickly. Starting with a blank canvas, the GUI gives you a choice of over twenty various elements for creating your world. The fun lies in figuring out what elements interact with the others. For example, the Magma element acts exactly like you'd expect it to. If Water is added to it, it turns to Stone. If Stone is added to it, it turns into more Magma. If Nitro, C-4, Gas or Gunpowder is added to it, it explodes in various degrees of violence. The trick also lies in discovering new elements not in the initial set. Mix Powder and Seed in just the right way, a tree will grow. Add Ants to the tree and watch it be torn down to make bizarre anthills. Burn down those anthills with Fire. Freeze Water with Ice, then drag the frozen Water around to make Snow. It's incredibly well-implemented for a Javascript window. Probably the most amazing (and annoying) aspect of this program is the wind factor. Every burst of wind or explosion (and there are plenty to be had) will result in a frenzied activity in which every light element will be buffeted about the room for an inexplicably long time. Even when the wind calms down, you still have random little particles drifting around. The neat thing is, there are multiple ways to view the wind itself. In its standard view, you will see two colors, green and blue, shifting about each other in lava lamp-style variations. These colors represent high and low pressures. It's remarkably realistic, but there are times when you wish you could turn it off altogether. Of course, you could just spend your time, blowing things up, then restarting, in which case you wouldn't need to worry about wind.

Here we see a chunk of Ice, filled with Gunpowder. Above it, you may notice some Magma dropping rapidly down.

And here we see the same scenario, mere seconds later. All that blue color you see is Water, as Ice tends to melt after being blown up.

It's a wonderful thingy.

P.S.: If you have a question about a particular button, just ask me in the comments. I've figured all this stuff out.

Electric Light Orchestra

Sorry I've been behind. I'm working on a long post. Here, have some ELO. This is just a crapload of their stuff. I'd advise Do Ya. Aside from that, I'd recommend my favorite song of theirs, Mr. Blue Sky, which isn't on that site, but whatever.

Plan 9 From Outer Space

Wow. I just finished watching probably one of the greatest bad films in existence. I've seen Reefer Madness, I've seen Hobgoblins, and I've even seen Gigli (not really. I don't have a death wish), but the king of all bad films is Ed Wood's classic Plan 9 From Outer Space. Yes, Hobgoblins was worse, but good luck finding a copy. And besides, it's more fun to watch Plan 9 because Ed Wood honestly thought he was making a masterpiece. The dialogue is poorly thought out, but filled with character. You'll watch incredulously as footage is shamelessly re-used; as actors fumble their lines and bump into scenery. Ed didn't care. One take was apparently good enough for him. I'm actually surprised I finished it, but eventually you hit a wall where you can just take in all the crap and not care anymore. It's not a movie that you enjoy, or even experience. It's a movie that happens to you.

If you don't have time, or just don't find it that funny, here are some guy's opinion of the best parts. He missed some good ones, but got the "solaranite" speech at 3:10. At first I thought it was "solenoid", but then I realized that "solenoid" was an actual word. "Solaranite" is much better.

English To Engrish

Remember the post I did on Engrish? Well, now you can ridicule language on your own with the Engrish Translator. It translates your text to Japanese, then back to English using Babelfish. You can obviously do this on your own, but it's a lot faster here. And now for some choice song titles.

Baby Of Ice Of Ice
Lucy Of The Sky Where The Diamond Has Been Attached
That Is Not Nice (Wouldn't It Be Nice)
We Did Not Begin The Fire
Hat Of Pillbox Of Skin Of Leopard
Soldier Of Water Buffalo
Rear Of Blue Eye

Start to notice a pattern, don't you?

Experiments In Musical Intelligence

When you think of "computer music", you don't usually think of Scott Joplin or Bach, but the world is a crazy place.

David Cope is a professor at University of California in Santa Cruz, where he teaches music theory and composition. He also happens to be Honorary Professor of Computer Science at Xiamen University in China. Also, a spectacular classical composer. Somewhere on the Venn diagram of this man's career, you would find the reason that he is so popular, and the reason I found him in the first place. He designed and wrote a program to analyze the patterns in the oeuvre of dozens of musical artists. From this, you will find music that was written entirely by a computer, designed to emulate the sound of a particular musician. He also has the distinction of being one of the only artists I've ever seen whose homepage is also his professional ".edu" domain. The album you'll probably want to grab is his "Experiments in Musical Intelligence", available in its entirety on his site. On that note, he's also probably the only artist I've seen who offers the actual programs he uses on his page for free. I haven't used them, so if you decide to pursue this, tell me in the comments. I think he also sells his scores on the page, if you ever want to play something it sound like Joplin would have composed had he not died.

Flogging Molly

In a departure from the norm, I offer not an album of the rapid-fire, Irish-punk excellence that is Flogging Molly, but instead just a directory carrying exactly 43 songs of theirs. You win some, you lose some.

I suggest Devil's Dance Floor, Every Dog Has Its Day, Drunken Lullabies, Life In A Tenement Square, Seven Deadly Sins, and The Worst Day Since Yesterday. You know what, screw it. Get them all.

How Stuff Works

Most of you are probably familiar with HowStuffWorks.com, a site that answers all of life's big questions, like what would happen if everyone in America flushed their toilets at the same time (it wouldn't be pretty), or how freegans work (woo). You might not be familiar, however, with the Entertainment channel of the same website. How Stuff Works' Entertainment Channel analyzes the inner machinations of stuff that doesn't exist. Case in point:

Yes, friends. That is a lightsaber.

I stumbled upon this gem when looking for a functioning Batsuit online. My mind was swollen with dreams of soaring across rooftops, seeking to dish out punishment to some two-bit crooks as some form of twisted retribution towards the man who had killed my parents all those years ago. Far too late, of course, I realized that I was not, in fact, Bruce Wayne. Just as well. Further probing would reveal the articles "Is Batman A Sociopath?" and an interview with Christian Bale stating that the Batsuit was "hot, dark and sweaty and it gave [him] a headache." Apparently that helped him get into character, so it all evens out. Here you can find out how an actual Batsuit would work.

I would advise the following starting points: Comic Books, Memorable Movies, Musicians & Bands and TV Shows. Good stuff.

Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

I got my hands on some more indie-rock, this time packaged as Spoon's newest album. So here you go: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. Song-wise, I'd recommend My Little Japanese Cigarette Case and Don't Make Me A Target.

Dark Side Of The Moon

I was just quietly debating with myself, wondering what the top-selling album of all time was. Realizing that I live in the Information Age and no longer have to ponder quietly, I looked it up. Turns out that the Michael Jackson album Thriller has sold somewhere between 60 and 100 million copies since it was released in 1982, meaning it has gone platinum 27 times. That's a whole lot more than you realize. That's one CD for every three Americans (I think). Even I have a copy lying around here somewhere. Anyway, albums that sold only 40 million copies or so are in constant struggle for second place, and they include such masterpieces as AC/DC's Back In Black and The Eagles' Greatest Hits. Also, Backstreet Boys' Millennium. Yeah. Despite this, the one album that you will still see going for exorbitant sums in even the hippest music stores is Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon. If anyone knows why this is, feel free to tell me. It reached a certain point and all of a sudden, people started feeling compelled to listen to it while watching The Wizard Of Oz and record A Cappella renditions of the album that are accurate down to the very last second (seriously. It's uncanny). Well, I'm no philosopher, so just take the album and enjoy.

Odelay

I think I wrote about Beck before (I did), but here I've gone and found another album, his magnum opus, Odelay. The site will ask you for a name and password. Both are "guest". Damn, I'm good.

Smörgåsbord: Part Two

Well, I did it. I listened to every artist on that site. It wasn't pretty. Here's my rundown:

Aimee Mann's Bachelor No. 2: Not bad, give it a try if you like Sheryl Crow or The Beatles.

Badly Drawn Boy's Hour Of The Bewilderbeast: Eh. I can't quite get into it. Pretty generic.

Beirut's Gulag Orkestar and Lon Gisland EP: I really like this guy. It's got an Eastern European folk flair that I can't resist. I'd recommend the song Elephant Gun.

Divine Comedy's Liberation and Regeneration: Woo! I cannot recommend the song Bad Ambassador enough. I've been listening to it nonstop.

Stars: I've been too paralyzed by indecision to actually listen to them, there are ten albums in the directory. Ten.

The Books' Thought For Food: Mellow, lo-fi, instrumental electronica. I fell asleep listening to the album last night, so... there you go.

The Kings of Convenience's Riot On An Empty Street: These guys are a latter day Simon and Garfunkel. That's all you need to know.

The remaining artists range from mediocre to unspeakably horrendous, so you can find out the difference for yourself if you're really that invested.

OH! I don't know how I missed it two times in a row, but the site also has Hard N' Phirm's Rodeohead, a Radiohead medley cover done entirely in the bluegrass genre. I was gonna post a link to it in my Radiohead article, but I had forgotten the name of the song. I'm exhausted. I'm gonna go take a nap.

Smörgåsbord

I just realized that the post I just did about The Blow links to an album that is hosted on a site with dozens of albums. It's a veritable smörgåsbord! I love writing that. SMÖRGÅSBORD.

Our staff* recommends the Hedwig And The Angry Inch Soundtrack, the Arcade Fire album Funeral, Elliott Smith's XO (my favorite), Regina Spektor's Begin To Hope and also her Soviet Kitsch. I'd stay away from The Magnetic Fields in general, but to each eir own (not a typo). This is a couple week's worth of free albums, so revel in its glory as freely as I do. I'll be checking out the other half-dozen artists I've never heard of and giving updates.

* Still just me. *sniffle*

The Blow

Those of you who enjoy listening to Blonde Redhead will probably like The Blow, a Portland based electronica artist who mashes up some wicked funky beats on her 2006 album Paper Television.

Khaela Maricich (who is apparently a solo act and so just calls herself "The Blow") used to be known as "Get The Hell Out Of The Way Of The Volcano", which I think ties with "Reverend Boo-Tay And The Disciples Of Funk" for best band name ever.

I would have to nominate Babay (Eat A Critter, Feel It) and True Affection as the best tracks (the former has the best name).

Apocalyptica

I was first introduced to this band when I heard an album composed entirely of Metallica covers. I know, a string quartet covering metal bands aren't exactly new hat, but listen to the work on their 2000 album Cult. Apparently, they have vocals in addition to their bitchin' cello work (EDIT: No, they don't). Note that all the tracks are originals, except for the last three, In The Hall Of The Mountain King, Until It Sleeps and Fight Fire With Fire. The first is a great foray into quite possibly the most well-known classical song of all time (along with Vivaldi's Spring, a song that everyone instinctively knows, but would be hard pressed to name), while the next two are some more Metallica covers. AWESOME!

P.S.: If you want the rest of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, you can get it here. Good Baroquey stuff.

The Beatles Interviews

Apparently, the Beatles were known for both making awesome music and being rather witty with the press. I found this Russian website cataloging some hundred-odd quotes from Beatles interviews and press conferences. Some favorites:

Press: Do you like topless bathing suits?
Ringo: We've been wearing them for years.

Press: Recently there has been an article published in Rolling Stone magazine stating that Day Tripper was about a prostitute, and Norwegian Wood was about a lesbian. What was your intent when writing these songs?
Paul: We were just trying to write songs about prostitutes and lesbians.

Press: The French have not made up their minds about the Beatles. What do you think of them?
John: Oh, we like the Beatles.

Press: Who thought up the name Beatles?
Paul: I thought of it.
Press: Why?
Paul: Why not?

That Ringo was apparently quite the wit. Check it out here. Oh, and let's not forget Corey, who sent the original link. Isn't she great, folks? Give her a hand. COREY! *Audience goes wild*

30-Second Bunny Theatre

Here's a website that reenacts famous films in thirty seconds or less. With animated bunnies. It's great; they do movies as varied as Fight Club, Die Hard, and Napoleon Dynamite. A perfect example would be the summation of Snakes On A Plane, in which the opening scene plays out like this:

Henchman: [beating up snitch] He saw us!

Main Bad Guy: I'ma put snakes on his plane.

Accurate and forthright. I only wish I could link to a YouTube clip or something, but as it is, my Flash skills aren't up to par. In fact, you could say that they're much, much less than par. Regardless, watch my favorite short to get the idea: James Bond Medley. Somewhat ironically, that's the only short that doesn't hold itself to the normally strict 30-second rule, but only because they had to boil down 21 films to fit in under a minute.

30 Strangest Deaths

While I tend to refrain from posting links to other blogs, this Neatorama article was too morbidly fascinating to pass up. It lists the top 30 most... interesting deaths to ever occur. Among popular ones like the famed Rasputin assassination, you'll find more unconventional ones, like my favorite:

Homer and Langley Collyer were compulsive hoarders. The two brothers had a fear of throwing anything away and obsessively collected newspapers and other junk in their house. They even set up booby-traps in corridors and doorways to protect against intruders. In 1947, an anonymous tip called that there was a dead body in the Collyer house, and after much initial difficulty getting in, the police found Homer Collyer dead and Langley no where to be found. About two weeks later, after removing nearly 100 tons of garbage from the house, workers found Langley Collyer’s partialy decomposed (and rat-chewed) body just 10 feet away from where they had found his brother. Apparently, Langley had been crawling through tunnels of newspapers to bring food to his paralyzed brother when he set off one of his own booby-traps. Homer died several days later from starvation.

Sad and creepy. Check it out.

Best Band Name Ever

While lurking about the 'tubes, I found this treasure. To quote directly from the page:

Think you’ve come up with the best band name ever? Yeah, me too. I’ve come up with plenty of them, some good ones too, but most are just awful (therein lies the fun). Regardless, they all deserve some sort of merit, like say, a comprehensive list on a website. This is that list.

Who among us has not misspelt a phrase or come up with some catchy two-word rhyme and instantly thought "I shall start a band. And I shalt call it X!", Where X is a band name of your choice (I personally lean towards "The Everlovin' Muffin"). My personal favorites are The Roamin' Catholics, The Bwah-Ha-Has, The Möbius Strippers, The Natural Causes, The Oh God No's, Sans Serif, The Cedartown Highschool Marching Band, and Good As In Awesome. The website, unfortunately, is no longer taking admissions. If you think of a good one, just post it in the comments.

EDIT: I just thought of another one: Move Zig. Eh? Get it? No? You need to spend more time on the internet.

For great justice.

Formica Blues

You know the band Mono? I HATE THEM. But who knows, you might actually like them. Grab this spiffy Formica Blues album, the only one they ever made.

Baby Name Map

Hot on the heels of NameVoyager, I present to you the Baby Name Map. It does basically the same thing, but worldwide instead of just in the US. It also splits the name count up by state. Virtual high-five to Guy Davis, who both mentioned the page in the NameVoyager comments, and started the Baby Name Map. Thanks, Guy!

Posters For Humans

When seeking to decorate your abode or place of business, you could go for some vapid motivational poster loudly proclaiming "WORK ISN'T FUN, BUT YOU GOTTA DO IT", or some pseudo-funny college dorm poster chiming in likewise "BEER IS DELICIOUS", or you could go the route I would endorse above all others: get some paint and have fun. If you're artistically challenged, however, and simply must have a poster with someone else's work on it, get one from Posters For Humans. If you need another reason besides my testimony, take into consideration that Cliché Posters, the mother company behind Posters For Humans, pays its artists 50% royalty for every poster, where most other companies (if what I read is to be believed) pay its artists about 10%. In addition, all their posters are exclusive, sold nowhere else. Also, they're constantly scouting for new artists from all over the place, artists with innovative art and great ideas. Don't believe me?

That'll teach you to EVER doubt my opinion again. Their page is less than a month old, so there will probably be a content explosion in the next couple weeks. Either that, or it'll go under. Drop by and give them a peek.

P.S.: They also have some rather awesome vintage posters, often inexplicably confusing or cripplingly depressing. This is one of the former.

The Double-Tongued Dictionary

Remember Unwords? Remember Rinkworks? Remember Inherently Funny, or the Hep Dictionary? Continuing in my fine tradition of learning you all some good vocabulary, I present The Double-Tongued Dictionary, where you'll find such grand new catchphrases such as the slightly sexist but nonetheless funny

Tampon Rock: This genre is girls or women with guitars or a piano, singing poetically about their emotions and their inner worlds. Jewel, Aimee Mann, Tori Amos, Peaches, Liz Phair and their queen Sarah McLachlan are excellent examples of this. This is the kind of music that makes you believe you need a uterus to have real emotions.

Good stuff. The Doubled-Tongued Dictionary: A Lexicon of Fringe English, Focusing on Slang, Jargon and New Words.

Weird Converter

There are exactly 7042699.601148 cans of beer in an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

205.2802223529 Shaquille O'Neals (standing on each other's heads) would reach the top of the Empire State building.

One million dollars in one dollar bills weighs about the same as 20.02402818182 Jennifer Anistons.

I don't know why you would need those figures, but in case you need some more, here you go: WeirdConverter.com

Hastily Cobbled Together For A Fast Buck

Not too long ago, I mentioned Monty Python, specifically Holy Grail. Today I speak of their recorded works, arguably just as good as the films or TV show. Monty Python's Hastily Cobbled Together For A Fast Buck Album is a pretty good lesson in irony, given it was released years after its recording and no money was ever made from it. It was composed mostly of B-sides from older albums, and has never been released. Eventually, it fell into obscurity, until Python member Michael Palin gave it to the band Motörhead as a gift (for some reason). Since then it has leaked out to the internet and is now considered a "legal bootleg", as Monty Python has spoken of its existence online since 1981, when it was first recorded.

Anyway, enough of that. Here's side one and here's side two (they're in .zip format)

NameVoyager

While perusing some baby websites, as I am wont to do on occasion, I stumbled upon an extremely interesting little web-tool known as the NameVoyager. In a massive graph, you will see thousands of names, listed alphabetically, with the width of its bar tracking the name's popularity from the 1880s to 2006. It's a great little tool to see how many little kids will be running around with your name in the near future. This is really only a concern to people with the more infrequent names.

This graph would have you believe that there were no "Josiah"s born between 1900 and 1960, which is obviously wrong, but nonetheless a pretty good estimation. What scares me is all the new "Josiah"s. In ten years, they're gonna be all over the place.

BONUS! You can use it to see the ranking of most popular names throughout history, divided by male and female. Number one girl name in 2006: Emily. Number one boy name in 2006: Jacob. Number one girl name in 1880: Mary. Number one boy name in 1880: John, followed closely by William.

EDIT: The names Piers and Sayer are rare enough that they don't show up at all. Sorry.

Gogol Bordello

Not too long ago, I wrote about Parno Graszt, a legitimate gypsy band from Hungary. Today, I intend to write about an illegitimate gypsy band, Gogol Bordello. They do incredibly funky gypsy music, but they're located in New York, and they perform mostly in English, making them about a billion times more accessible. I tracked down their first album, Voi-La Intruder. I think the first song of theirs I had ever heard was Start Wearing Purple. Incidentally, it was also one of their biggest hits and the song that my sister showed me yesterday, kicking off my sudden re-interest in them. It's a great song from a great band.

CGSphere

Way back in 2006 (remember that? I actually don't), I was deeply involved in computer graphics. And by "involved", I mean "interested, but painfully incompetent". During this period, I frequented CGSociety and other big CG sites, but none grabbed my imagination as forcefully as CGSphere. The concept behind the project is to encourage would-be designers to come up with as many variations on the shape of a sphere as they could; the logic behind this lying with the fact that the sphere is arguably the most perfect geometrical shape EVER. It's also one of the principal components in computer graphics. I submitted some, but they're embarrassing enough that I do not intend to show them here. Instead, I'll show some of my favorites.