Tag Archives: music

in english

Talent Suomi & foreigners

Talent Suomi is the Finnish version of America's Got Talent, an American programme whose Flemish interpretation I had already seen in Belgium in the spring.

The interesting thing, which was highlighted in a TV news report I just saw, is that there is a lot of "people with foreign backgrounds" (ulkomaantaustaiset) as contestants in the show (and a couple of them are crowd favourites), bringing us to living rooms accross Finland when we are normally not so visible, and tend to have a not so great reputation.  Any change for the better is welcome.

I suppose that it might be a natural development after Ourvision, which was not that mainstream.

in english

Last.fm Open Mind Index

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User Tomektore created a very interesting web app to measure how open mided a specific last.fm user is.  His Open Mind Index is calculated from the number of different tags the music that a user listens to has.  I checked it out and my results are quite obvious: if I listen to Arabic electronica, Japanese punk, Finnish melodic rock, Mexican indie and some other stuff in between it's kind of obvious that I'm more or less open minded.

in english

Globalisation in music

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On the way back from Japan, surprisingly I didn't listen to my iPod music.  I found out that Lufthansa has 30 different radio channels with different music from all over the world, and just spent my 10 hours listening to what they had to offer.  Indian, Arabic, Italian, Tamil, French, Korean, Japanese, Mandarin, Hispanoamericana, Brazilian & African channels further enforced the point that international music is not only about the typical Anglo-saxon pop and rock charts.

I even found about a Berliner radio station, Radiomultikulti, that broadcasts music from all over the world.  However, I'm not sure they'd have the Japanese punk band I just discovered in Tower Records Shibuya.

in english

Rediscovering your roots

First of all, sorry for the posting break.  I was in London this week due to work.

A couple of months ago I discovered that there are some blogs specialising in offering MP3 downloads of old vinyl records you cannot find as CDs or in any other medium anymore.  My surprise was enormous when I found they had some Pérez Prado vintage albums.  He was a mambo musician that was very popular in Mexico City until his death in 1989, and I have to say his music reminds me a lot of the city were I was born, even though I didn't like it before.

Taxi abroad? Credit Card or Cash?
Taxi abroad? Credit Card or Cash?

in english

It’s time for another good idea, bad idea

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In YouTube, that is.

Good idea
Using new media to show the quandaries of senior citizens, as has been done with The Zimmers (more info here).

The Zimmers “My Generation” Released: 28/05/07

Bad idea
Using new media to show that any idiot can become famous.  And no, I’m not talking about Paris Hilton, but about
some guys that can’t even speak their native language, never mind play instruments.

Children garden

The End.