that our friend Ellen Page didn’t win Best Actress from the MPAA. But didn’t Kristin look great in that musical number? And jeez, Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová sure are making the most of that one song, aren’t they?!
The Musical Minority
For all of you who may have chuckled at me behind my back for loading up my MP3 player with digital copies of Carol Channing and Bea Lillie LPs, I have one thing to say to you: So there! Check out what Chris Caggiano over at Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals just discovered he can do.
The embarrassing part is that we both admit to having LPs of Let My People Come that we actually listen to. Well, that and my Carol Channing ventriloquist puppet.
Spontaneous Musical Number!
One of the most annoying arguments I hear people use to discount musical theatre or musical films is that, “People just don’t break into song and dance in real life. It’s not realistic.” Well here’s a great big raspberry in your face if you think that. Check out these folks on the London Tube.
Who I Listen To
The other night we were having a conversation about music and our respective relationships with it. We had just seen A.J. Schnack‘s well-made but slightly difficult new documentary, KURT COBAIN ABOUT A SON, and I was saying that Kurt and Nirvana were so popular that they defined an entire era of music. Sadly for me, that era (grunge and the 1990s) more or less signaled the end of that portion of my life where I defined my interests musically and I moved to the world of film. Not that I don’t like music anymore, I just don’t live and breathe it the way I did before.
The music I do listen to tends to be dominated by female singer/songwriters, many of whom I now discover through an online community called Ecto. One in particular, has risen to the top to claim the coveted position of favorite musical act which was once held by the likes of Kate Bush and Jane Siberry. Her name is Emm Gryner, and I’ve been a great admirer of her work for several years now. She hails from Canada (surprise, surprise) and is a rocker-bassist-chick who plays gorgeous melodies on her piano that make me cry. I’ve seen her perform live a few times, and turned some friends on to her music, but since she’s not all that widely known among my circle of acquaintances, I thought I’d post her latest video here. There’s something unique about Emm’s voice, and she is a master of the pop hook. “Blackwinged Bird” is a good representation of her ballad work, but she’s not some Tori-wannabe. If you like what you hear, check her out.
Searching for music? It ain’t over till the fat lady sings.
I can’t believe I haven’t heard about this before. Check out midomi.com. It’s an online music retail site that lets you search for tracks by singing them! You just hook up your microphone and sing or hum a few bars of a song and bam. There’s your song. And it actually works! After you find your song, you can listen to a 30-second sample of the original recording and buy a digital copy of the song in either mp3 (unprotected?!) or Windows Media format (presumably with Microsoft DRM). Hey, as long as it’s not iTunes- or Zune-related, I’m happy.
There is one catch. Your vocal input isn’t matched against the original recording. To find the correct match, another user out in the world must have already recorded a vocal sample. But that’s even cooler in my mind. It’s a social networking site for compulsive singers! Your recordings can be “favorited” and rated by other users and you can send private messages to them.
Great. Now my weekend is shot. If you need me, I’ll be sitting on the couch in my underwear singing showtunes into my USB microphone.