Things I Think Are Kinda Cool

The birth of electronic music can be traced back to the EMS (Electronic Music Studios), a group of forward-thinking musicians in England who experimented with sounds and techniques to create a completely new genre.  ”What the Future Sounded Like” is an excellent documentary that profiles the group and the stunning achievements they made.  If you’re a geek like me, you’ll love seeing all the vintage computers and mixing equipment which must have seemed incredibly futuristic at the time.

It’s fascinating how most of the music they created is timeless and could still hold up today, decades later -

-via Metafilter

***Click here for Part Two and Part Three of the documentary.

Two weeks after D-day, American Colonel Jack Tueller used his trumpet and the power of music to reach out to the last German sniper stalking him on the battlefield.  What happened next might surprise you.

This is his story. (Warning: you might need some Kleenex.)

-via The Daily What

French music producer Breakbot’s latest single “Baby I’m Yours” has a stunning video directed by Irina Dakeva.  It’s made up of over 2000 dreamy watercolor paintings…and the song is pretty good too.  Enjoy:

-from The Culturist (via Buzzfeed)

Music Hack Day brings together computer programmers smarter than you or me to geek-out and develop music-related applications.  The Swinger is one of the awesome hacks created at the event…it can make any song Swing.  In a nutshell, it time-stretches the first half of each beat, and then time-shrinks the second half (it SORT OF makes sense to me, actually).  Some of my favorite examples…

Guns N’ Roses “Sweet Child O’ Mine”

Police “Every Breath You Take”

Daft Punk “Around the World”

Journey “Don’t Stop Believin”

-via Presurfer

Everything’s better once Legos are involved…especially music videos:

-Michael Jackson “Beat It”

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-Queen “Bohemian Rhapsody”

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-Beatles “Eleanor Rigby” (with extra Star Wars bonus points)

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-Beastie Boys “Sabotage” trailer (full video coming soon…)

-More ‘Lego-fied’ music videos at Topless Robot (via @GeekAmI)

Way back in my day, we hung out in AOL chat rooms and bought CDs.  We also drank Everclear and did keg stands to celebrate the end of a semester.  Nowadays, irony-loving whippersnappers (from U of Mississippi) perform hidden camera dance numbers from films already in the bargain DVD bin.  (I know I may sound snarky, but the nerd in me still thinks this is kinda cool).

-via Buzzfeed

Music videos are having a sort of creative renaissance lately, and I’m starting to remember why I used to love them so much way back in yesteryear.  First came OK Go’s Rube Goldberg-esque video for “This Too Shall Pass”…then Lady Gaga & Beyonce made incarceration look hot in “Telephone”.  Next up, it’s a much more understated but equally impressive video from Diane Birch called “Valentino”.  The video is one continuous take, and it took two weeks of intense rehearsals to perfect it.  Enjoy:

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Take a look at this behind-the-scenes split screen video to see exactly how precise and detail-oriented Diane and her band needed to be to pull this off:

-via Buzzfeed

OK Go has created another viral video jaw-dropper…I’ve always loved these “Mousetrap”/Rube Goldberg chain-reaction videos – this one takes the genre to a whole other level.  Sit back and enjoy – I guarantee you’ll watch it until the very last frame.