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Scientists recreate an iconic Pink Floyd song by scanning listeners' brains
The research looked at how brains interact with music.
Vinyl certainly isn't dead
With all of the hoo-ha surrounding Taylor Swift's decision to pull her tracks from Spotify, it's easy to forget that downloads and streaming aren't the only ways people get their music. Many still buy CDs, although album sales have nearly halved in four years, and then there's vinyl. Normally reserved for audiophiles, collectors and old-school DJs, the humble vinyl record is making a comeback, thanks, in part, to hipsters bucking the streaming trend. According to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), annual UK album sales on the format passed the one-million mark for the first time since 1996, and are on track to reach 1.2 million sales before the year is out.
David Gilmour concert to be released as iPhone, iPad app
Rather than stick to a DVD-only distribution for concerts, DVD authoring group The Pavement is turning to smartphone apps to reach a larger audience. The company is working with David Gilmour, formerly of Pink Floyd, who will become the first musician to release a concert as a smartphone app. The now solo artist is releasing a compilation of songs recorded during Robert Wyatt's 2001 and 2002 Meltdown Festival. The critically acclaimed performance features Gilmour alone with just his voice and along with a vocal choir that's accompanied by a group of acoustic instruments. Robert Wyatt, Bob Geldof and Pink Floyd's Richard Wright also join in on some of the performances. I've seen clips of the show on YouTube and the music is top-notch. The concert app will be available for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch starting November 19, 2012. According to David Gilmour's website, the app will cost £5:99, US$8.99, or €6.99 or the equivalent.
The Daily Grind: Which band fits with your favorite MMO?
I'm a big fan of MMO soundtracks -- heck, of game soundtracks in general, really. It's rare that I turn off the in-game tunes in favor of my own playlist, but I've been doing just that recently when it comes to The Secret World. No disrespect meant to composers Marc Canham and Simon Poole, of course; I bought the soundtrack, and I love that creepy main title riff. A modern setting goes well with modern music, though, or in my case, the sonic stylings of Pink Floyd. I can't put my finger on why David Gilmour's soulful guitar solos and Roger Waters shrieking vocals go so well with the TSW, but they do. What about you, early risers? Assuming you play your own music while playing your favorite MMO, which artist fits your game best? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
NASA films dark side of the moon, finds no evidence of Brain Damage (video)
Take a moment to Breathe, because this one's kind of heady. NASA has just published a new video of the Dark Side of the Moon and, contrary to popular belief, it's not really all that dark. (We'd probably describe it as a subdued gray, if we had to, but feel free to go with Any Colour You Like.) Compiled into a 30-second video clip, this footage provides a cursory glimpse of the moon's hind parts (its "B-Side," if you will), panning over the rock from north to south, in all its crater-y glory. It's all part of an initiative from NASA's Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL), which presumably spent a lot of Time and Money to build its twin spacecraft, nicknamed Ebb and Flow. On January 19th, the lab sent the pair up to that Great Gig in the Sky, as part of the GRAIL MoonKAM mission -- a "progressive" educational outreach program geared toward middle school students. Ebb was charged with filmic duties, and did a remarkable job of shooting On the Run with its MoonKAM camera, returning high res footage to NASA's engineers, and giving both Us and Them something to think about during the next lunar Eclipse. See the video (along with its eerily sync-able counterpart) after the break, and if you've got any questions about it, please don't hesitate to Speak to Me.
Pink Floyd, Sting release biography apps
Just coincidentally, I decided today to pull up some Sting on Spotify and listen to some old tracks. Turns out the musician released a big box set called Sting: 25 Years a few months ago, featuring three CDs worth of his songs, both old and remastered. And just recently, to go with that set, he's also released a companion iPad app, featuring concert footage, interviews, lyrics, handwritten notes from over the years, and lots of other biographical notes and info. You can even use AirPlay to send content to your TV while using the app, so that's pretty cool. Sting performed in New York to announce the app recently, and 9to5Mac says he performed "Fragile," dedicating the song to none other than Steve Jobs. The app looks pretty comprehensive, and thanks to some corporate sponsors, it's a free download, though a big one (442 MB). Pink Floyd also has an app out -- this one's a universal build called "This Day in Pink Floyd," and as you might imagine, it offers up news, song notes, and trivia about the classic band, with new content delivered every day. There's also an exclusive music video, some special Pink Floyd wallpapers, and even a "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" ringtone. That app is $2.99. Great to see some classic musicians like this really delivering some interesting content via the App Store. Neither app has any of the musicians' actual music in it for you to listen to (though they both allow you to play music directly from your own device's library), but as an ancillary reference, both of these are really solid.
Harmonix polling fan interest in future Rock Band titles
How do you feel about Led Zeppelin getting their own Rock Band title? Maybe you'd be happier with Pink Floyd or The Eagles? Perhaps U2? Yeah, none of those sound particularly enthralling to us either. Thankfully, Harmonix gave us the option to write in our own choice (Flock of Seagulls, duh!) for a possible future artist-specific Rock Band title via a recent poll offered on the developer's forums. Not interested in more one-group/artist RB titles? That's also an option! Harmonix explains the poll as a way to interact with its community and solicit fan response to future titles that are being considered. "With the release of Green Day: Rock Band just a few days away, we wanted to take the opportunity to ask all of you to tell us about which other artists you might want to see as the focus of future artist specific games." As you might imagine, though, the company says it's not planning on making any of these games for sure just yet. "This survey isn't a guarantee that Harmonix is going to make games based on any of these bands, but community feedback is and always has been absolutely invaluable to us in determining our focus within the world of Rock Band as we move forward." We're holding out hope that a group of hardcore Scott Stapp fans aren't secretly plotting to overwhelm the poll with requests for Creed: Rock Band. [Via Blast Magazine]
Fable 3 'almost at its final edit' stage, says Molyneux
The head of MGS Europe assuredly has a few more things on his plate than the third game in a franchise he helped create, but in a recent feature on Peter Molyneux at Develop, the British creator calmly pronounced the game to be nearing its "final edit" stage of production. Whether he means "ready for submission to Microsoft" or "we haven't started polishing it yet" (or, heck, anywhere in between) remains unclear, though we'd certainly like to get our hands on the final product sooner rather than later. Additionally, Molyneux triple dips on his love for Valve, proclaiming Half-Life 2 as his "favourite" game ever (you crazy Brits!) as well as the game he would most like to have worked on, and also notes the developer as the one he most admires (get a room, you two!). And hey, if you've been hankering to know his "favourite" album, it's Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon." (Yep, we were kind of disappointed too.)
Nick Mason: We'd consider Pink Floyd Rock Band or Guitar Hero
Despite how some musicians feel about music 'n' rhythm games, Pink Floyd drummer (and part-time T-Zero agent) Nick Mason isn't entirely ruling it out for his band. With The Beatles: Rock Band having just released, the BBC asked him if we could be seeing a Pink Floyd Rock Band or Guitar Hero game, to which he replied, "I think we'd consider it." While he isn't a big supporter of the genre (he thinks it deters kids from learning real instruments, just like other celebs do), he did add, "Everyone's looking at new ways of selling the music because the business of selling records has almost disappeared." Especially those vinyl ones, which (gasp!) weren't even interactive.
Laser Floyd 2K9: Let's Tap used as music visualizer
We're actually kind of surprised we didn't put this together earlier. Let's Tap features a "visualizer" mode that translates your percussive taps to pretty, swirly effects on the screen. SquidTV's Rick Mears got the bright idea to set the Wiimote on top of a speaker, crank up some Pink Floyd (the go-to band for freaky visual effects), and let the movements of the speaker provide the tapping. See for yourself after the break.The result, once it really gets going, is an impressive, abstract display that moves to the beat. And now that we think about it, this must have been Prope's intent all along, as a music visualizer makes so much more sense than ... just a visualizer. Of course, who are we to try to make sense of a game that requires you to keep the controller out of your hands?%Gallery-33707%
Wii Warm Up: I wanna rock!
Following yesterday's news about the one and only Jimi Hendrix making his way into Guitar Hero World Tour, we figured now would be a good time to ask you who you'd love to see featured in your music game of choice. Want to play some The Beatles songs? Looking for some more Freezepop? Want to have your favorite Pink Floyd song featured? Well, out with it!
Games that shouldn't be MMOs
Here's a corollary post to an earlier story. Our cousin site, Cinematical, has brought teh funneh with a post about which board games would make awful movies. In that spirit, we now present to you a list of games that would make terrible MMOs, in no particular order.Please note that these are merely our particular opinions, and we're not saying that a cleverer-than-thou developer couldn't make a great MMO out of these games ... but for reasons we'll state here, it's highly unlikely. Then again, sometimes the best-sounding ideas turn out some awful games themselves (*cough* Fury *cough*), so it all evens out. Excelsior!
