Bob Dylan at The Super Bowl

in Music, Television | February 1st, 2009

As you’ll recall, we men­tioned a few days ago that Bob Dylan allowed “Blowin’ in the Wind” to be used in a British com­mer­cial. Nev­er before had Dylan allowed that to hap­pen, at least in Britain. For one of our read­ers, there was a small sil­ver lin­ing. The com­pa­ny using the clas­sic song (the Co-oper­a­tive Group) has some clear virtues. “The Co-op is eth­i­cal; The Co-op sup­ports Fair­Trade; The Co-op is still a co-oper­a­tive; They sure ain’t Victoria’s Secret.”

Fast for­ward a few days, and we strange­ly find Dylan doing a Super Bowl ad for Pep­si — not the worst com­pa­ny in the world, but also not the best. Above, Dylan and Will.i.am (Black Eye Peas) sing a song that they wrote specif­i­cal­ly for the Super Bowl ad, and you might even­tu­al­ly find it being sold on iTunes. I can hard­ly wait.

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Beethoven Symphony No. 5, Arturo Toscanini, 1952

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture | January 31st, 2009

Here’s a nice vin­tage clip that comes out of a YouTube Chan­nel called The Great Per­form­ers, which we’ve added to our page: Best YouTube Col­lec­tions. The video fea­tures Arturo Toscani­ni con­duct­ing Beethoven’s 5th at Carnegie Hall in 1952. You can find the sec­ond move­ment here.

For more clas­si­cal music see:

Free Beethoven and Mozart Record­ings via Pod­cast

Beethoven’s Sym­pho­ny No. 9 — Kara­jan or Mup­pet Style

The Ten Best Clas­si­cal Music Record­ings of 2008

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Bob Dylan Goes a Little Commercial

in Music | January 29th, 2009

Stephen in the UK high­light­ed a piece in Guardian that will inter­est Bob Dylan fans. It begins:

Bob Dylan has giv­en rare per­mis­sion for his music to be used in a TV com­mer­cial.

Protest song Blowin’ in the Wind will be used to rein­force a mes­sage of change in a TV cam­paign for eth­i­cal bank­ing and retail firm the Co-oper­a­tive Group.

The song, a 1960s anthem for those dis­af­fect­ed with the estab­lish­ment, is thought to be the first track Dylan has allowed to appear in a UK TV ad.

Blowin’ in the Wind is being used to under­pin a mul­ti­mil­lion-pound relaunch of the Co-oper­a­tive Group’s image.

The TV cam­paign, which breaks next month, aims to show­case the com­pa­ny’s diverse inter­ests from food, funer­als and trav­el to phar­ma­cies and finan­cial ser­vices.

In response to all of this, Stephen adds: “The Co-op is eth­i­cal; The Co-op sup­ports Fair­Trade; The Co-op is still a co-oper­a­tive; They sure ain’t Vic­to­ri­a’s Secret.” Thanks Stephen.

Relat­ed Bob Dylan Con­tent:

When Bob Dylan Went Elec­tric: New­port, 1965

Bob Dylan & John­ny Cash Togeth­er in 1969: Free MP3s

Bob Dylan — Like A Rolling Stone 1966

 

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Amazon Serves Up Free Music

in Music | January 28th, 2009

An excel­lent find by Kot­tke: “Ama­zon has hun­dreds of free mp3s avail­able for down­load, includ­ing tracks by Bri­an Eno & David Byrne, Ani Difran­co, and Rev­erend Hor­ton Heat.”

Update: A read­er informs us that this is US only. My apolo­gies to any read­ers out­side the US.

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In Honor of Aretha Franklin’s Inauguration Hat

in Music | January 23rd, 2009

At least in my mind, Aretha Franklin stole the show on Tues­day. It’s hard to top her singing My Coun­try, ‘Tis of Thee — the beau­ty of the voice, the obvi­ous poignant sym­bol­ism of the moment, and then her hat. Yes, the hat that has cap­tured the pub­lic imag­i­na­tion. Just days lat­er, we have a Face­book group ded­i­cat­ed to her head­wear, and now on Flickr a series of pho­tos that cre­ative­ly super­im­pose the Franklin hat on oth­er celebri­ties, Col­bert and Bull­win­kle includ­ed.

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Leonard Bernstein Conducting Shostakovich’s Fifth with Some YouTube Comments Sprinkled on Top

in Music | January 14th, 2009

Imag­ine you’re surf­ing YouTube and come across a clip of Leonard Bern­stein con­duct­ing Shostakovich’s Fifth. It looks and sounds great. Now imag­ine that you lay­er on top a series of YouTube com­ments that accom­pa­ny the video. Sud­den­ly things get a lit­tle dif­fer­ent and bizarre. This piece comes from the YouTube Com­men­tary Project devel­oped by Artists Space, which we’ve added to our col­lec­tion, YouTube Edu­ca­tion: 80 Intel­li­gent Video Col­lec­tions on YouTube. 

PS The YouTube com­ments are rat­ed R, not PG. So watch this clip in the com­pa­ny of an appro­pri­ate audi­ence.

 via Kot­tke via The Rest is Noise

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“Stand By Me” Sung By Musicians Around the World

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture | January 13th, 2009

What hap­pens when you take Ben King’s 1961 hit, Stand By Me, and then trav­el around the world, hav­ing dif­fer­ent inter­na­tion­al artists offer their own inter­pre­ta­tions, and final­ly you stitch them all togeth­er in one seam­less tune?  The clip below starts in Cal­i­for­nia, moves to New Orleans, then heads off to Ams­ter­dam, France, Brazil, Moscow, Venezuala, South Africa and beyond. And I’m will­ing to bet that you’ll like how it turns out.  The clip comes from the doc­u­men­tary, “Play­ing For Change: Peace Through Music.” Thanks Jil­lian for the heads up on this one, and, you guessed it, this one’s added to our YouTube Favorites.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

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The Ten Best Classical Music Recordings of 2008

in Music | January 3rd, 2009

Alex Ross, the New York­er music crit­ic who recent­ly won a MacArthur Genius grant and pub­lished The Rest is Noise, a wide­ly praised work that makes sense of 20th cen­tu­ry clas­si­cal music, lists his favorite clas­si­cal music record­ings of 2008.

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