Posts Tagged ‘Music’

Still Alive, HTML5 Remix

Monday, October 4th, 2010

Last week, I got the wild idea to remix one of my favorite songs, Still Alive from Portal, to be about HTML5. In doing so, I twisted each line’s meaning by including a HTML5-related link at the end and Tweeting the song out, line by line. This broke several rules of Twitter (don’t spam your followers’ stream being the really important one), but I justified it by claiming it was Art.

Much to my surprise, while looking for things to link to for each line, I stumbled upon several sites I had never seen, such as: Is HTML5 Ready Yet?, HTML5 Demos, Burning Words, and Still Alive in JavaScript.

If anything, I’m grateful for not losing any followers (or gaining the exact number that unfollowed) and the one positive Tweet I received by Joe Barstow. I doubt I’ll feel inspired to do something like this again.

For those of you that didn’t follow along, here is the full text of the remix:

This was a triumph. (HTML5 Spec)
I’m making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS. (New HTML5 APIs)
It’s hard to overstate my satisfaction. (Biolab Disaster)
HTML5, We do what we must because we can. (HTML5 Doctor)
For the good of all of us. Except the ones who are dead. (XHTML2 Spec)
But there’s no sense crying over every mistake. (Apple’s HTML5 Demos)
You just keep on trying till you run out of cake. (CAKE)
And the Markup gets done. And you make a neat gun. (Canvas Element)
For the people who are still alive. (Twitter Search for HTML5)
I’m not even angry. I’m being so sincere right now. (Angry Web Designer on HTML5)
Even though you broke my heart. And killed me. (HTML5Shiv)
And tore me to pieces. And threw every piece into a fire. (The Wilderness Downtown)
As they burned it hurt because I was so happy for you! (Chromium Canvas CPU Usage Bug)
Now these points of data make a beautiful line. (flot)
And we’re out of beta. We’re releasing on time. (Is HTML5 Ready Yet?)
So I’m GLaD. I got burned. (Burning Words)
Think of all the things we learned for the people who are still alive. (Dive Into HTML5)
Go ahead and leave me. (Quirksmode on Native vs. Web App)
I think I prefer to stay inside. (Evercookie)
Maybe you’ll find someone else to help you. (Adobe Flash)
Maybe Adobe. THAT WAS A JOKE. HAHA. FAT CHANCE. (Adobe Illustrator’s HTML5 Tools)
Anyway, this cake is great. It’s so delicious and moist. (HTML5 Day)
Look at me still talking when there’s Scripting to do. (Remy Sharp’s HTML5 APIs Presentation)
When I look out there, it makes me GLaD I’m not you. (Quirksmode HTML5 Compatibility Charts)
I’ve experiments to run. (Chrome Experiments)
There is research to be done. (HTML5 Undo)
On the people who are still alive. (Zeldman)
And believe me I am still alive. (Daring Fireball on Mobile Canvas Speed)
I’m doing Scripting and I’m still alive. (DeviantArt’s Muro)
I feel FANTASTIC and I’m still alive. (HTML5 Demos)
While you’re dying I’ll be still alive. (IE9)
And when you’re dead I will be still alive. (IE6)
STILL ALIVE (Friends Electric Podcast: Episode 2)
STILL ALIVE (Still Alive in JavaScript)
Thank you for participating in this HTML5 Enrichment Center activity!

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/illustrator_html5/

Honesty in Song

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

I had a conversation with Tyler at US Digital many Thursdays ago about what makes music “good”, in objective terms. Anyone who has spent more than a half hour with Tyler will know how he feels about music. I’ve known him a bit longer, and have had several conversations about music, but never one that got so rudimentary. He said, and I have to agree, that good music is honest.

While listening to a story about the movie Juno on NPR, I heard both the director and screenwriter agree that honesty is what makes a movie great, so it seems only natural that music works similarly. Of course, how does someone judge the honesty of a track, an album, an artist?

The whole discussion arose over my general dislike of Björk, an artist praised in many geek circles for her electronic stylings and eccentric nature. She tends to use excessive amounts of dissonance between her vocals and instrumentals, and it drives me out of my mind. The music often feels uncomfortable throughout entire tracks, which pulls me out of the music and causes me to focus on the vocals and instruments. Bringing this up with Tyler, he expressed that he’d rather hear a track full of dissonance than perfect harmony, if it track felt more honest.

This point has been rolling around in my head for over a year and here’s what I’ve come up with: I’m terrible at judging the honesty of a song. While I’m not “into” pop, my default reaction is not repulsion to today’s Top 40. I can’t listen to an entire track, but it doesn’t upset me deep within my soul. Upon further inspection, I’m nearly always turned off by the cookie-cutter nature of the instrumentals and terrible lyrics.

On the flip side, discordant music cannot stay within my earshot for very long. I need to stop the terrible sounds that assail my mind. Thankfully, mostly because of Tyler, I’ve given some of these sounds another try and grown to love them—My Bloody Valentine being an exquisite example.

In essence, pleasing sounds make me happy, but once I can find the heart of the music—it’s honesty, I suppose—I can make a lasting decision about the music I listen to. That means I love Radiohead, The Submarines, and Howard Shore, but I still can’t stand to listen to Björk.

I’m now more curious than ever to hear how everyone else finds “good” music.