The Vanities Music Video by Diesel

Recently I got the chance to hook up with The Vanities on a music video which our team created for them. It is the first music video produced by Diesel:U:Music for our new artist promo programme, where the aim is to bring the most innovative new talents from the world of film and music together, to fuel exciting new collaborations, and create a series of videos that will explore the future format of the music promo.

Stay tuned. We have two more videos in production, to be released soon!

Best of Diesel:U:Music Podcast

If you are looking to put a big grin across your face, then download The 'Best of Diesel:U:Music' podcast. A FREE new monthly music podcast, featuring 10 blistering tracks from across genres and countries, plucked from the Diesel:U:Music online community.

Get it here!

Each month Diesel's in house creative team curate a mix of 10 epic, repeat - EPIC tracks (see track listings at end of post), from unsigned and new talents which you really should hear like, Marc Sunderland (UK), Molly Nilssen (Sweden), and the Dancing Pigeons (Germany), all the way through to equally mesmerizing acts like the truly incredible Congolese group, Staff Benda Bilili (see exclusive interview on dieselumusic.com), and play them alongside some of the most exciting breaking and respected artists of the moment like, Hot Chip, Kanye West, Santogold, Lykke Li and Damon Albarn. The major artist involvement helps and supports the newer acts by maximising exposure of the podcast for them too, and the podcast becomes another platform through which Diesel can support emerging musicians, in addition to the already established social music community site, the live radio station, world tour and music video contest.

The podcast includes special rare remixes, and demos of previously unreleased tracks. The result is an healthy dose of addictive, iPod ready, eclectic music. The monthly episodes will be complemented by special editions that will focus on individual artists or music genres. Available is an enhanced podcast, for those who have next generation MP3 players and iPods, each track is accompanied with its own artwork and a supporting text written by the artist that gives an interesting and exclusive insight into the background behind the track. To get featured on this “Best Of” podcast, artists can upload their tracks to Dieselumusic.com

it’s FREE and it’s downloadable NOW from Diesel:U:Music website and iTunes.

If you want more than 1 hour of great music at a time, then tune into Diesel:U:Music radio live 24/7.

A second podcast, 'Best of Diesel:U:Music Radio' provides interviews, news, special reports and exclusive content from many of Diesel's live radio station DJ's including Lucy Pink, Neon Neon, Supper Furry Animals and more more more - Diesel:U:Music radio.



BEST OF DIESEL:U:MUSIC 001 PODCAST : TRACK LIST
Track 1: We Have Band - Oh!
Track 2: Gang Gang Dance – House Jam (Hot Chip Remix)
Track 3: Marc Sunderland - Long way to go
Track 4: Eugene McGuiness - Fonz
Track 5: Ex Lovers – Just a Silhouette
Track 6: Hjaltalin – Traffic Music
Track 7: The Vanities – Dolly
Track 8: Milke – Love Get Out Of My Way
Track 9: Grizzly Bear - Cheerleader
Track 10: Dead Cities – Dead Cities

BEST OF DIESEL:U:MUSIC 002 PODCAST : TRACK LIST
Track 1: Plantlife – We Can Get High
Track 2: Javelin – Oh! Centra
Track 3: Staff Benda Bilili – Sala Mosela
Track 4: HEARTSREVOLUTION – Dance Til Dawn
Track 5: NASA (Feat. Kanye West, Santogold, Lykke Li) - Gifted
Track 6: Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt – Snowday
Track 7: U-CEF – The Stick (Feat. Damon Albarn)
Track 8: Here We Go Magic – Tunnelvision
Track 9: Ra Ra Riot – A Manner To Act
Track 10: Molly Nilssen – We’re Never Coming Home

Diesel Viral - Diesel XXX SFW Porn Video

Just in case you hadn't already heard about Diesel's biggest ever party, Diesel have just released a viral video to promote their 30th anniversary party. The Diesel viral video, entitled SFW (safe for work) themed video is pretty hardcore as it takes old porn videos, but in typical subversive style they have carefully placed animations over the top to transform the previously 'adult' scenes' into humorous and innocent alternatives. Check out the video here - BUT BE WARNED, WHILE BEING SAFE FOR WORK, IT IS NOT FOR THE EASILY OFFENDED!


Diesel SFW XXX - Watch more free videos

Anyone can get a ticket, but their availability is limited. Check out the Diesel XXX site for more information. The ambitious event is taking place in 17 countries on the same day and the eclectic line up includes N.E.R.D., Mark Ronson, Pedro Winter, Mr Oizo & M.I.A. who has come out of retirement to play. This adds to the already buzzing rumor that Diesel are releasing a special limited edition pair of jeans for €30.

Amazon Adopts New Business Strategy - Giving Away Films For Free!

The way people spend their free time is set to change yet again. The internet has rapidly been eating into into both the hours we don't send at work (as well as those that we do), taking more and more time away from the time we used to spend watching TV. Well, TV is just not quite ready to be cast aside so easily, and more than going down with a fight, it is seeing a rapid reincarnation. Most of my English friends spend their time online watching the BBC iPlayer, and now I am sure my friends in the US will have an equally time consuming distraction as the IMDB site launches its new free TV show and film service.

The IMDB (Internet Movie Database), is set to offer movies and TV programs for free. Amazon that owns the site has started to offer a range of movies as well as popular series such as Lost. New episodes from TV series that have not yet even been broadcast on TV, including the new Knight Rider series will be offered for free. Shows will include advertising, but should the film not be available, or should viewers want an ad-free experience an alternative film will be suggested that can be downloaded from Amazons video on demand digital rental site.

So, Amazon, a pioneering online success story and true company of the digital age has already shown that it is having to move to avoid it's business model coming under threat. Rather than deny the inevitable, and try to protect its online sales and rentals, by offering content for free, they will integrate an ad revenue model, which ultimately will lead to increase online sales from users that are willing to pay for enhanced and ad free content.

Amazon are clearly targeting being both 'the destination' online to buy content and to own the best sites about the content they are selling. They also recently launched SoundUnwound a new site that they want to become the 'Wikipedia' of music and bands.

Nokia Offer Free Unlimited Music Downloads

Nokia is aiming to take on the growing influence of the Apple iPhone by launching a new series of handsets that enable owners to download to their device and computer, an unlimited number of tracks from their library of over 2 million tracks. The cost of the service is built into the price of the phone, which is estimated to be around €300.

The service expires after one year, requiring customers to purchase a new ‘Comes With Music’ device, but the old handset will continue to work for normal phone use, and previous ly downloaded tracks can still be listened to.

This kind of packaging free music with another product or service is proving to be an interesting future model for the sale of music, aimed at getting to pay for music rather than download it for free. The only way to tackle this issue is to provide a better service than free music downloads offered on illegal P2P networks.

Nokia’s music service uses Microsofts Digital Rights Management and means that music downloaded from Nokia can’t be used on an iPod or the iPhone. This fact coupled with their policy of forcing people to buy a new handset each year, rather than offering customers the chance to pay for a new subscription seems aimed at ensuring more Nokia handsets to combat the increasing influence of the iPhone. But such a strategy goes against why the iPod and iPhone are such great success stories. Remove barriers and make things easier for the user, and you will be far more successful.

Offering a better and open service, where the revenue comes from actually selling the music seems to be a better approach that simply using the free music as a means to incentivize the purchase of a new handset seems short sighted in my opinion. In this environmentally sensitive time, and with a global recession looming, encouraging young kids to throw away technology after one year seems a little excessive.

Either way, expect to see lots more ‘Comes With Free Music’ bundled with everything, as the music industry seeks to revive itself.

Diesel Launches Radio Station

Diesel UK are the first brand to have an official radio station. Broadcasting for the coming month, on 87.7 FM in the London area the station has some amazing DJ's and artist lined up, as well as featuring music from the unsigned Diesel:U:Music community.

Tune in live online at Diesel:U:Music.

There is a live video stream (streaming above!) on Yahoo live, where you can see the studio and participate in the programming, and chat with DJ's and guests.

Phonographic Speaker For iPod

This ceramic speaker designed for any portable audio device does not require batteries or other power source relying solely on input from the players ear phones, and horn acoustics to deliver the equivalent loudness of a computer speaker.

Designed by Tristan Zimmerman It is not yet available at time of writing this post, but is anticipated for launch in a matter of weeks.

More about it, and where to buy. Read originally of Trend Hunter.

One Legged Salsa

This guy gets my award! This guy does with one leg, what most people couldn't do with too. Kind of put's Rolf Harris' Jake The Peg, with the extra leg to shame.

Be A Fashionable Victim, Not A Fashion Victim

When you are packing a weapon, you want it to look stylish, no? No longer concerned with the technical specifications, the thing that is going to sway my decission when buying a 'personal saftey device' is how fashionable I will look when I pull it from my bag and defend myself from attack. I may be their next victim, but would hate for any mugger to think that I was a fashion victim. That's why I will be carrying a Tazer MPH, with its sexy leopard skin print. Not only that, but when I am not busy fending off an attacker the weapon does not need to languish in my bag...oh no! It sports an MP3 player, so I can listen to all my favorite tracks while I travel in fear. Heck, just thought, if I am listening to my Tazer as I walk my dangerous route home, maybe I won't hear my attacker approach? Hummnn. As I Taze them, will the MP3 player still work??? I am going to have to get these questions answered. Stay tuned.

Diesel's Viral Dance Disco Lesson with Aarlf Smarks

The last time I heard viral and feet mentioned in the same sentence I had to buy some cream for athletes foot. This time thankfully it is a lot more fun than a fungal infection.

Diesel’s latest online campaign for their Freezy Sneaker shoes takes a 1970’s video of a Finnish Disco Celebrity, mashed up to promote a new sneaker design, that is decidedly 80’s. Try and make sense of that.

Don’t blame it on the sunshine. Don’t blame it on the moonlight. Don’t blame it on the good times. Don’t even blame it on the boogie. Blame it on Aarlf Smaks, This native Finnish disco dancemeister was ‘THE’ man that any self respecting disco-goer aspired to be like, and is single handedly to blame for the way your dad deploys those sexy moves on the dance floor (the ones that obviously got your Mum so hot all those years back). So maybe, just maybe, he is in a strange way responsible for your being born?

While part of the emerging trend of video remixing, in this case the remix and music was created by Hexostatic - Diesel’s choice of Aarlf Smaks to promote their new Freezy Sneakers pokes a big glittery finger in the eye of the current trend of big name celebrity product endorsement. That said, if this campaign video goes viral Aarlf may just may get again?

I remember being shown the original film by an old Finnish colleague of mine, and it made me laugh so much at the time. I am glad that some how Diesel have been able to bring this video into a piece of communication.

Oh yeah, I hope it has a viral effect, rather than a fungal effect, but either way it still makes my feet itch for some reason.

Pet Shop Boys 'Integral' Video Features QR Tags

The new video from Pet Shop boys is such an intellegent and witty comment on the Big Brother society we are building around us. Containing QR tags that link to online articles about privacy and rights, the actual aesthetic of the video is based on these little digital bar code devices. Ironically the look is very remenicent of the 80's computer game aesthetic that is having such a revival, yet in this case it is actually something very much about now.

Thanks to Martina for sending me this.

Will people pay more for DRM free music?

Apple announce today that it would be making all of EMI's music catalogue available from it's iTunes store WITHOUT Digital Rights Management - meaning that the music will be able to be copied to any other music player or played on any other computer without any software controlled restrictions.

Users will be able to choose between DRM protected tracks, or the unprotected alternative. The unprotected tracks will be mastered at a higher quality than the DRM protected tracks, so will offer better quality and be usable on pretty much any digital music player, but will cost about 1/3 more (about 30 cents).

This annoucement makes all the more sense of Steve Job's recent outspoken statement regarding the future of music distribution and his desire to see DRM free music. This now seems like clever positioning prior to this very interesting announcement. EMI will certainly appear as pioneering and brave following this announcement.

I am not sure that I find the DRM of Apple that intrusive(unlike the Microsoft equivelant), although I would prefer to have DRM music naturally so that in future I could use the music on any platform. So I am not sure I would pay a premium. Good on EMI though!

Read more at Apple.

iLike - The Future of Music Communities?

iLike is a relatively young music community based software service, having only just reached the rip old age of four months, but I predict that this is going to become a very popular service, and the principles on which it is based will be adopted by many other music services.

It is wonderfully designed service with a very fresh, clean and modern interface. The service itself is very simple in concept - to help you organise and share your music, allow you to interact with people who share similar music tastes and recommend new music. While many other sites and services are setting out to do similar if not exactly the same things, iLike combines so many of the best concepts and in such a well designed package that it stands out from the rest.

iLike sets out to introduce you to music that you will like but have not yet listened to and combines several simple methods.

First you must create a profile which can be shared among the rest of the iLike community. You start by manually describing the genres and actual musician that you like. This creates a crude profile of your music tastes. But by downloading a small software gadget that analyses what you play in iTunes or Windows Media Player the service it able to get a realtime view of your music preferences, initially taking a snap shot of your music library and then starts an ongoing analysis of your music listening habits in the most logical way, by making a note of every time you listen to music on your computer or iPod. Continuing to build up and ever more perfect picture of your listening habits.

Users of iTunes software also have the benefit of having a user interface directly in the iTunes browser, that gives you access to your profile and community features of iLike. It shows you similar songs to the ones that you are currenly playing - so if you like Muse but want something similar, simply start playing one of your Muse tracks and it come immediatly back with recommendations similar to Muse. The recommendations all link to 30 second previews accessed via the iTunes store. You can also rate the songs in your library so iLike can determine which ones you like over others. Being embeded in iTunes and so always there when you are playing your music, with no need to remember to login to a website is a strong feature. We all have far too many sites to surf, to remember to come back to so many sites we have registered with. Once registered you are likely to continue to use the service as it is also very unintrusively implemented. The concept of dedicated software to access web content is going to be a strong trend in future.

Interesting are the complex algorthms that they use to determine what you would like to listen to. The most successful services in the future will be those that have alorythmns that are able to search massive quantities of data and deliver you only a few, but highly relevant results. While is can be easy to relate certain bands with others, the software that calculates your recommended suggestions is far more complecated.

iLike also harnesses the community of users and networks you to people that share similar tastes in music. By being able to easily browse other peoples libraries that share similar bands, it bives you a less mathematical and more human way to discover new music. You can build up lists of friends and see what they are listening to, what is most popular and recommend tracks to them.

This is the future of tracking and understanding trends and analysing music consumption. Bands can find out exactly who is listening to their music and which songs are played the most. This must be really interesting to base understanding on the actual listening rather than on record sales.

iLike seems very heavily geared at providing an excellent service, with the aim of generating revenue from providing traffic and sales to the iTunes store. The strong links between iLike is also apparent in it's design, as it seems to have been designed specifically to fit in with the iTunes software. I ask how long will it be before iTunes buys iLike or releases their own version of this community software.

A really great aspect of iLike is that it not only recommends establish artists, but is a forum discovering new music talent. Capitalising on the content of their sister site Garage Band, it acts as a filter on the many thousands of unsigned artists that have submitted their music to Garage Band. So through iLike you are also recommended new unsigned bands who's music is easily downloaded for free with one click straight to your iTunes library.

The service requires so little effort, yet delivers good value. you do not need to make friends, build pages, maintain blog etc, but you can do all of these things with it if you wish.

Download iLike and join the community HERE.

Steve Jobs On The Future Of Music DRM

Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, writes a very frank article on the future of digital music distribution and the role of Digital Rights Management. Giving three possible outcomes, he describes the difficulties of allowing music bought from the iTunes store being able to be played on other manufacturers music devices, the option to leave things as they are, and the option that the music lables could ditch DRM completely. He comes out strongly in favor of this third option, and claims that DRM does not and will never work, and makes the interesting point that 90% of all music sold (i.e. music sold on CD), is sold without any form of DRM.

Read the article here.

Griffin Tune Centre

Is this the precursor to the Applie iTV?

This device unites your iPod with your TV set, and enables you to visulaise and control your iPod via the screen of your TV set, so you need never get up from the comfort of your sofa! You and also watch the video and pictures on your iPod as well as play internet radio.

More

Cover Pop Music Visualiser

A beautiful flash animation that generates music and visuals based on variants of simple mathematical algorithms.

View here.

Dixie Chicks

Interesting fly over navigation for Dixie Chicks site, by WeFail.

Music Cubes

Music Cubes from BBC.

Post 911 Blues

No doubt to be a much viewed clip...