Here’s something a bit different for a change: a web game promoting a music album, at PearlJamTenGame.com. Pearl Jam are known to have pretty demanding fans, and this Papervision matrix puzzle (were you unlock playable tracks) will surely be appreciated, a nice depart from the usual click and listen experience of most music related websites.

As Michael @bigspaceship said last week: we’re barely scratching the surface of what games can be – The Graveyard . This work by Freedom Partners is showing one of the paths that will be trailed by interactive the next few years. Remember that teenagers that spent their high school years playing X-box and PS2 are now becoming the workforce and expect to find the same playful experiences on the web.

Oh, and i missed listening to Pearl Jam.

Here we go again with one more year end list. After 2006 and 2007, this one will be shorter as i’ve bought less albums, using Last.fm and Hype Machine to feed my music habits. Just in time for that last minute Christmas Gift, ladies and gentleman, meet the top 10 albums of 2008:

• Lindstrom – Where You Go I Go Too
• MGMT – Oracular Spectacular
• Hercules and Love Affair – Hercules and Love Affair
• TV On The Radio – Dear Science
• Santogold – Santogold
• Fleet FoxesFleet Foxes
• Sigur Rós – Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust
• Portishead – Third
• M83 – Saturdays=Youth
• Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend

As an extra,  the best Portuguese album in 2008 for Deolinda – Canção ao Lado.

The criteria is totally subjective, based on my listening habits, both online and offline. If you have your own list of best albums of 2008, feel free to share them in the comments.

If you wonder what’s a album list doing in this blog, consider yourself warned: music is a source of inspiration.

The video below has been around for a while, but it was the first one that turned lip dubbin’ into an Internet meme.

Lip Dub – Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger from amandalynferri on Vimeo.

Quite appropriately, it was done by a group of friends who work for internet video startups like Vimeo and CollegeHumor. And the girl at the beginning (Amanda) is really cute.

Liked it? Here’s a few more videos:
(more…)

This week’s selected website, BoomStudios, is also a bit of Shameless PromoTion to Coimbra’s design studio Bürocratik, whose work I’ve been following on their blog and website (don’t miss their design portfolio).

http://www.boomstudios.pt/

Boomstudios is a music recording studio owned by Pedro Abrunhosa, one of Portugal’s most famous singers and composers. (more…)

This blog has been too quiet these days, as i enter my second week of holidays. I’ll be back in full strength, but meanwhile enjoy a month old video of fireworks with music by Sigur Ros.

The Fourth from Michael Brodner AKA Bones on Vimeo.

Keeping the geek spirit of the latest post, here’s another nerd themed entry, that will get me some low quality hits for using dirty words and references to naked people. How’s that for a post about a nerd ?

Ok, it’s not actually a nerd, but rather N.E.R.D. (standing for No One Ever Really Dies), headed by the small genius Pharrell Williams. He and his team release this June the 10th their new album “Seeing Sounds“, on what promises to be a summer hit. Have yourself some voyeuristic sexy footage for the advance track Everyone Nose … All The Girls Standing In Line For The Bathroom:

So, anyway, they’ve put up the really lascivious promo site Everyone Nose. Lots of booze, hot women and the advance track playing on the background .
On a great partnership with a blog, they plugged in Last Night’s Party and rolled their own party gallery. Or so they thought, since with great fame comes great responsability and (probably) people asked to remove their pictures (altough i still managed to see quite a few).

I guess the Internet is a different party.

Time for a music post, right before a weekend break.

The Belgian electronic duo David and Stephen Dewaele, aka magnificent Soulwax, premiered their documentary “Part of the Weekend Never Dies” at the Royal Festival Hall yesterday.

They filmed 120 shows with footage of 2manydj’s, Tiga, Justice, So-Me, Peaches, Kitsuné, Klaxons and tons of other artists. Check the trailers

Radio Soulwax – Part of the Weekend never Dies – Are You Filming

and enjoy the weekend.

Or as Wired puts it, Pitchfork.tv Takes a Stab at Music Videos.

For long have i’ve been a regular reader of Pitchfork, along with last.fm, Hype machine,MetaCritic and ubber-cool Stereogum, that nurtured my musical tastes, while bypassing traditional music media moguls like MTV or NME.
Even in Portugal i’m a regular at remixtures, Palco Principal or Bodyspace, great web projects that help me keep up to date with Portugal’s music scene.

Pitchfork and other web based projects are taking a real dent in TV music channels, with loyal fans and delivering breaking news. Pitchfork has even achieved a successful spin-off, with their Chicago Pitchfork Music Festival.

Take for instance Stereogum, who has just released a tribute disk to download, honoring Post, the 10 year old record by Bjork, something possible thanks to the loyalty of both fans and artists to the music weblog. Not to mention other major online players like MySpace, that has just closed the circle with a deal to sell DRM-free music, further establishing the site as a social music destiny.

Even if Pitchfork got a bit too pretentious on their Wired interview, tomorrow we get the chance to review the video quality and the whole interactive experience, but if they keep faithful to their overall excellence, i bet this one will be one more nail in the coffin in traditional music business.

Images Credits: Pitchfork

A website that gets a band like Radiohead to premiere their video service, premieres exclusive demo tracks or shapes an album’s success with their review is surely a menace to MTV or VH1, companies that are increasingly more distant from music fans with their programming choices influenced by major record labels, and miss the huge long tail of music that MySpace, Pitchfork and thousands of music blogs have now filled.

Or quoting The Buggles:

In my mind and in my car, we can’t rewind we’ve gone too far.

MTV, take care.

This is a cross-post from Osocio.org, a blog on Social advertising and non-profit campaigns

Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour is sponsoring Burima, a micro-credit program with finantial support from Benetton, which also developed the website AfricaWorks, at their Fabrica studio.

In the words of Staci Smith who sent the project to my friend and art director Andre:

Late in 2007, Benetton began documenting the progress of the loan recipients through the images of photographer James Mollison. Mollison’s photos spotlight a diverse group of entrepreneurs including a fisherman, a decorator, a musician, a farmer, and a boxer. In keeping with Benetton’s commitment to social advocacy, the images are featured on billboards and print ads in the company’s new “Africa Works” global communications campaign. Benetton’s hope is that these everyday people will become tangible symbols of an Africa that uses the dignity of work to fight poverty and take back responsibility for creating its own future

A simple, zoomable navigation, trying to have a real impact on African’s looking for a way to change their lives for the better. The event launched worldwide last February 13th, with a performance by Youssou n’Dour of the song Birima (campaign video clip below).

Birima is also the name of the portal (http://www.birima.org/) where you can find more about the micro-credit program.

• Advertiser:Benetton
• Agency:Fabrica