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Archive: Music

If it wasn’t the Beeb’s, would iPlayer be dead by now?

1 August 2007 02:12

Categories: Blogging, Current affairs, Entertainment, Internet, Radio, Technology, Television

Well it looks as though the BBC iPlayer is turning out to be the biggest of damp squibs. I have previously looked forward to the iPlayer on this blog, while at the same time being exasperated by the bureaucracy that seemed to surround it.

A couple of months back, this report appeared in The Guardian and it sounded like it was almost time to give up on waiting for the iPlayer to arrive.

The first announcement of a groundbreaking download service for the BBC came four years ago. Back then it was called the Interactive Media Player, and was one of a number of ambitious projects to push the BBC into the future.

Since then iPlayer has been officially announced at least three times, rebranded twice, trialled several times and seen more than £3m invested in its development. Even then, it was only two weeks ago that the BBC Trust officially sanctioned it.

At last, iPlayer was unveiled to the public this week. I visited the website to register my interest — only to find that I couldn’t. Seemingly, my computer is too new for iPlayer.

To add insult to injury, even if you are not committing the heinous crime of using Vista rather than XP, iPlayer forces you to use Internet Exploder! For many, this is like being asked to insert nails into your eyeballs.

Put it this way. If anyone else had the chutzpah to release software like this, it would have already received a death by flaming from bloggers and Diggers. Perhaps it already has.

I mean, just look at it. You can’t use it on a Mac. You can’t use it on Linux. You can’t even use it on the latest version of Windows. And even if you are lucky enough to be using the correct operating system, you have to be using the right browser.

Even then, this sort of thing happens. Reports of the iPlayer’s shakiness are widespread. Even The Guardian‘s tech boffins apparently found it difficult to get working.

As though to top it off, iPlayer uses discredited DRM-based software to lock the programmes off. That is just the icing on the cake. Even the music industry is starting to give up on DRM.

Let’s face it. iPlayer has been in development for three or four years. It is still in the situation where it dictates which operating systems and browsers you can use. And even then it’s still really flaky.

My guess is that if a service such as, say, Joost launched like this, it would have never recovered from all of the negative publicity. It makes me wonder how the BBC dropped the ball so badly. Their Radio Player is a similar idea but without the pictures, and it works really well (current “severe technical problems” aside). So how come iPlayer is such a botched job?

5 comments

Battles — Mirrored

17 March 2007 02:16

Categories: Entertainment, Music, Reviews

I don’t usually listen to leaks. I’m old fashioned that way. I prefer to wait until I have the physical object in my hand before listening. As Armando Iannucci said, “there are only two things in the world that give us absolute happiness: one is unwrapping a newly bought CD.”

But for the first time I have listened to a leak. I just couldn’t stand waiting two months for the album to come out. I am just far too excited about this band to let this get away.

And what an album! Mirrored is undoubtedly the Battles that we have become familiar with over the past couple of years, but there is a really different vibe to their sound in what is technically their début album.

Battles are now a little bit cheeky, happy and bouncy. There is a little bit of a sense of humour shining through, but at the same time they have not allowed their incredible sense of how to surprise their listener to slip. Even the track titles are noticeably different. Many of them even contain actual words rather than looking like excerpts from half-remembered algebra lessons.

The album opens with the frantic ‘Race: In’, which already signals one of the major changes to the Battles sound: vocals take centre stage. Not lyrics, mind — vocals, often skewed so much that you cannot understand a word that is being said. The vocals in ‘Race: In’ sound a bit like dogs yapping.

Lead single ‘Atlas’ swiftly follows, and this is such an awesome track. There is a constant beat and a pounding, relentless bass accompanying the track throughout. Yet despite the basic foundations, here is a track that is as unpredictable as anything else Battles have come up with in the past.

It is kind of the theme of the album. It is recognisably Battles, the band that is liked by many for being so unconventional. With Mirrored, Battles have been unafraid to be as unconventional as to add seemingly conventional elements such as pounding beat and prominent vocals. But these elements are all incorporated in a ways that still surprise and reward greatly.

‘Atlas’ is a tough act to follow, but ‘Ddiamondd’ has a good shot at it. This is an utterly madcap track, with fast-paced chripy singing. If you can imagine it, the track is like a mixture between a sped-up version of Maxïmo Park’s ‘Limassol’ and Clor’s ‘Hearts on Fire’. And then comes the sped-up whistling that sounds like a messed up Seven Dwarves.

My favourite track, though, is ‘Rainbow’. It starts off really quietly with quite a basic riff. Gradually it builds up a bit of a warped streak before eventually turning into something that’s simultaneously mad and happy. It all builds up to a quite triumphant ending, like one of those emotional post-rock bands without (quite) as much pretentiousness. I just don’t know how to describe the track, I don’t even know why I’m trying. Just fantastic.

‘Rainbow’ particularly highlights the John Stainer’s idiosyncratic drumming style. Unrelenting snare drum rolls are interspersed with hi-hat rolls. Full marks to him for effort. To see just how much he puts into his drumming, check out this video of part of ‘SZ2′.

‘Snare Hanger’ is another stand-out track for me with its glitching, almost hip-hoppy drums. The track ends sounding almost like it was influenced by The Futureheads (“oh – o – oh oh!”).

Meanwhile, ‘Tij’ reminds me of Blur’s most experimental moments multiplied. This track is another one that ends interestingly. Splintered, it sounds like a beatboxer with a serious case of the hiccups.

In short, this is a shimmering, dazzlingly experimental album that isn’t afraid to blast out a good melody. I really hope this album is noticed by a lot of people, because it’s probably one of the best I’ve heard for a few years.

Already a lot of Battles’s more po-faced fans have reacted angrily to the new direction. It’s too happy, it’s not serious enough, and — ewww — vocals. I just love the fact that this is only their début album, and already there is ‘old’ Battles and ‘new’ Battles. This is a band that is clearly not scared to push boundaries of any sense, even if it seemingly risks alienating some of their more serious fans out there.

Atlas promo video

2 comments

Does Honda care about the world?

4 March 2007 00:31

Categories: Current affairs, Formula 1

The Honda F1 team’s new livery has caused a bit of a stir.

I think it looks revolting. It ensures that this season will be one of the ugliest in history, with Renault’s multicoloured vomit-coloured livery, Ferrari’s funny slanted subliminal ~~Marlboro~~ non-descript barcode and, of course, Toro Rosso’s paint factory explosion.

Now Honda have only gone and taken the Earth, and re-moulded it into the shape of a Honda RA107. Yuk!

But for those people who aren’t just interested in a racing car’s colours, Honda’s sponsor-free livery has raised more than an eyebrow around the place. Friends of the Earth have been particularly critical, pointing out the hypocrisy of a gas-guzzling Formula 1 team trying to push forward an environmental agenda.

On the other hand, as Ollie White points out, isn’t it better for a Formula 1 team to try and promote an environmental cause? That’s better than nothing, right? After all, if they didn’t, Honda could be accused by Friends of the Earth of burying their heads in the sand.

I think Friends of the Earth are being a little bit too harsh. It’s easy to paint a picture of motor racing being a horrible, over-indulgent, carbon emitting, environmentally unfriendly sport.

But the reality is a good deal more nuanced. Some say the F1 teams are there just to sell cars. But it’s worth remembering that they make cars as well.

As such, much of the life-saving technology that is in everyday use in road cars is developed, improved or even invented by motor racing teams. Once upon a time, the technology we take for granted today was the cutting-edge in motor racing. So motor racing has probably saved countless lives.

The strangest thing about this all is the revelation that Formula 1 has been carbon neutral for a whole decade! This is news to me, which immediately makes me suspicious.

But I mean how can a sport be carbon neutral? Has Bernie Ecclestone been going around planting trees on behalf of each of the teams? And does it count the testing, air travel to long distance races, and suchlike? This revelation poses more questions than it answers.

This whole thing does kind of prove one cast-iron law about environmentalism: don’t open your big yap about the environment, or you’re bound to be exposed as a hypocrite.

(eg. Do Friends of the Earth go without electricity then? Don’t they realise that electricity use contributes to one third of carbon emissions — ten times more than air travel. This makes them hypocritical environmentally unfriendly scum!!1!etc.)

Perhaps the worst thing about Myearthdream is the fact that it is blatantly designed to disguise the fact that Honda have not managed to find a new sponsor since the enforced departure of Lucky Strike.

When rumours that Honda was thinking of changing its livery first surfaced I was a little bit disappointed. Honda were in a unique position, where the colours of their tobacco sponsor coincidentally matched with the team’s traditional colours. All Honda had to do was remove the ‘Lucky Strike’ logos and it would have been fine. (Remember the ‘Impossible Dream’ advert…)

And who would have minded that? Nobody would have accused Honda of being hypocrites, or jumping on the bandwagon, or even of being unable to find a sponsor. The environmental message may be a laudable aim, but Honda are taking a hell of a lot of stick for it.

And perhaps this is deserved. After all, this is the big idea of Simon Fuller — a man who, it is worth remembering, was responsible for S Club 7 and Pop Idol. The man has brought nothing but pain to this world. This is just his latest hare-brained scheme.

The problem was that he was hired by Honda to do something. He would have been better off doing nothing, and sticking with Honda’s traditional colours. But he would be out of a job then.

4 comments

Look what I gave the blog for Christmas

27 December 2006 23:45

Categories: Admin, General

Some new clothes! They still need to be ironed a bit though. I’ll sort out all the little niggles over the coming days. What do you think?

Update: Finally getting round to updating this post, which I meant to do yesterday. It’s crazy. It’s Christmas and I’m still running all over the place with no spare time. I’ll have to do something about that…

Anyway, the original plan for this new look was to use pink, green and yellow because I think those colours all work really well with each other. But I had also decided to have a dark background, because I fall in love with just about every website with a dark background. So that meant that the colours had to be a bit pale in order for the text to be readable.

At first I thought the green looked really rubbish, so I took it out. Then I thought, we’ll I’ve taken the green out so now the yellow looks out of place. So then the whole thing ended up being pink. Reactions (as you can see in the comments to this post) were a bit mixed. But anyway. I’ve taken away the pink header because it was probably a little bit too in-your-face.

Regular readers might remember that this isn’t the first time I’ve attempted to use black / dark grey and pink. The previous times I gave up and reverted back to the same old blue. I am totally fed up of the blue now, so I’m determined to keep this dark design now. I thought quite hard about it, and I think (hope) it works. Now I’m pretty happy with the design and I just have some sweeping up to do. When I can be bothered.

BTW, I decided to call the theme Razzmatazz, because that’s the song I was listening to when it came to deciding a name, and I thought it fitted quite well.

6 comments

ITV Schools scarred me for life

17 April 2006 02:02

Categories: Entertainment, General, Nostalgia, Personal, Technology, Television

ITV Play slinky ident
ITV Play barker
Images nicked off Andrew Wood at TV Forum Another ‘Participation TV’ channel (i.e. scheming, conning, shite shite quiz channel) launches this week. ITV Play is replacing Men & Motors on Freeview. All I can say is:

at least Men & Motors isn’t much of a loss
at least it will have Quizmania on it
at least it has really pretty idents!

People who have read this blog for a long time may know that I am interested in all of this television presentation nonsense. When I was a wee nipper, I found ITV regions fascinating. I just did, don’t ask me why. It was probably just the shiny logos.

It wasn’t only television logos either. Apparently my first word was ‘gas’. According to my parents I often pointed at the logo on the gas van and shouted ‘GAS’. I guess it’s one way to learn how to read.

If a station relaunched with a new set of idents, I’d usually end up watching the channel all day just to take it in. Sad or what? Imagine my delight when I discovered a few years ago, through the wonder of the internet, that I wasn’t the only one.

Anyway, when I was younger, some idents really scared the crap out of me. I remember a particular Channel 4 ident that was used to introduce its American Football programmes. It always made me jump because the ’4′ figure made a loud grunt. Numbers don’t grunt! I can remember actually having nightmares about it.

But the scariest ident of them all was surely the rotating ITV Schools one. I’m not too sure why I was so frightened by it, but it seriously gave me the willies. I remember once actually running through to tell my mum when I managed to sit through it!

Maybe I was worried that the rather hefty-looking ITV logos would spin off course and hit me. Perhaps I couldn’t comprehend the advanced computer graphics. Everybody knows that CGI dates horribly. But despite the fact that the ITV Schools ident is almost twenty years old, I think they still look amazingly good even judging by today’s standards.

There is an excellent feature on TV ARK all about the making of this ident. It sounds like it was a truly massive task. It’s amazing to think that they would go to so much bother just to create a way to introduce some television programmes!

When I was six, the spinning ITV Schools ident and ITV Schools itself was gone forever. So I wouldn’t have to be scared by the evil ident, right? Well imagine my shock when (at the tender age of six, remember) the brand new Channel 4 Schools ident ended up being this freaky thing. The spooky countdown music (which I now actually think is pretty cool) sounded like an accompaniment to a drowning. This is music for introducing schools programmes! Did they not realise that children would be watching?!

10 comments

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