Link Banana

The headline may be better than the video, but the video is still good for a laugh.

What your favorite genre of music tells us about you:

POP: Conformists, overly responsible, role-conscious, struggling with sexuality or peer acceptance.

HEAVY METAL: Higher levels of suicidal ideation, depression, drug use, self-harm, shoplifting, vandalism, unprotected sex.

DANCE: Higher levels of drug use regardless of socio-economic background.

JAZZ/RHYTHM & BLUES: Introverted misfits, loners.

RAP: Higher levels of theft, violence, anger, street gang membership, drug use and misogyny.

(via Marginal Revolution)

Three random things:

• Feist performs a version of “1 2 3 4” — the song made famous by iPod nano ads — on Sesame Street. (via Austin Kleon)
• Chris Blake made a music video showcasing the Google results for “biggest regret.” (via Boing Boing)
  
• The word count of popular songs has increased. It was 176 in the ’60s, 436 last year. The untested consensus (to which I assent) is that it’s mostly due to the increased popularity of rap and hip hop.

These two bits are a touch incongruous but I feel I must shoehorn them together:

• This video of oobleck on a speaker has been everywhere, it remains awesome. (FYI: Oobleck is the combination of cornstarch and water. It’s creates a non-Newtonian fluid.)
• This video using Skittles as a synthesizer is rather neat. Like BB Gadgets, I think the colors should also affect something.

In 1969, 14-year-old Jerry Levitan got to ask John Lennon a few questions. This year, he made an awesome animation of that event, and put it up on YouTube. (Would we get to see things like this without YouTube?)

(via BuzzFeed)

In an interesting but odd graph, The Economist shows that though America requires the most albums sold for an artist to “go platinum,” Norway, Britain, and Australia require more sales per capita.

The New Scientist’s Technology blog point to some odd facets of the iTunes EULA:

“Licensee also agrees that Licensee will not use the Apple Software for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear, missiles, or chemical or biological weapons.”

(via Freakonomics, who found another odd clause in a different iTunes EULA)

A.V. Club has a rundown of their favorite songs so far this year. For someone who hasn’t been paying very close attention to music in the last few years, this isn’t a bad way to catch up.

Because I always wondered and never found out for myself: this is what the Chipmunk’s Christmas song sounds like slowed down.

(via Coudal)

This may be the reason YouTube was invented.

(via Fimoculous)

Weezer’s new music video is chock full of internet memes, and thus must be loved by everyone on the internet. That is all.

(via Waxy)

Last weekend’s New York Times Magazine had rather interesting story about the reemergence of one man bands. What makes them different from other solo artists?

“The era of solo performers — singer-songwriters and all that — is pretty much done. There aren’t any new solo performers out there that are interesting; now it’s all this assisted-performance type of thing.” When I asked him to clarify the difference between a solo performer and the music he made, Pallett was quick to oblige. “With a solo performer, what matters is the material — in the sense of the written song, the lyrics and so on — and the songwriter’s charisma; it’s about the personality that comes through in the music. There’s no technical aspect involved: nothing too difficult is attempted.” He gave a mock sigh of despair. “For better or for worse, there’s difficulty in a lot of what I do.”

Also, if you’re interested in challenging your opinion of that magazine, consider reading this diary of a girl you’ve never heard about (unless you’re big into the Gawker scene).

And it’s rather entertaining. A sample:

Q: What’s the most curious record in your collection?
A: In the seventies a record company in LA issued a record called “The best of Marcel Marceau.” It had forty minutes of silence followed by applause and it sold really well. I like to put it on for company. It really bothers me, though, when people talk through it.

(via Coudal)

News to me: the notoriously secretive Bob Dylan has a radio show on XM. Vanity Fair has compiled an excellent list of the show’s features and quirks. If the graphic’s too hard to read, or you just want more details, the expanded text is available here.

(via kottke, who explains the inspiration for the graphic)

What happens when you use an album cover for your face.

(via Ze Frank)

If you hadn’t heard Scarlett Johanson (yes, the actress) is planning to release an album of covers. One track has leaked, and I do have to say that it’s not as bad as your average actress-tries-singing track. It’s even pretty good.

(via The Playlist)

They just passed Wal-Mart.

(via Daring Fireball)

I don’t know how I missed this. Apparently the LA Times ran a story this morning that said, essentially, they’ve got more evidence that Sean ‘P Diddy’ Colmes knew in advance about the 1994 shooting and assault of Tupac Shakur. I didn’t see it ‘til this story showed up on my radar. Whether the Times is right or not, it’s interesting to see the story coming up again 14 years later. And it’s a reminder of this fact:

On Sept. 7, 1996, Shakur was fatally wounded in a drive-by shooting on the Las Vegas Strip. Six months later, the Notorious B.I.G. was shot dead in Los Angeles, also in a drive-by. No one has been charged in either slaying.

EDIT (3/26/2008): The Smoking Gun is calling the “new documents” forgeries. The Times promises to investigate. (via DF)

There was definitely a time when I would have scoffed at a service like this, which provides an RSS feed to tell you when your favorite bands are releasing new albums. Given how many near-misses I’ve had recently, I believe the service may well be worth signing up for.

(via clusterflock)

About this announcement, Vulture raises an important question:

The Telegraph says that all parties involved expect the Beatles’ albums to top the download charts for months after their digital release — but will that really happen? Does anyone on the planet not own every single one of these songs in multiple formats already? Call us insane, but we can’t really see this being the monumental success that would offset Paul’s alimony payments … unless this means “The White Album” will finally get remastered, in which case we’ll probably buy it twice. (Once for each ear.)