Hello World.

A very funny (and extremely well made, I might add) advertisement for Cadbury Chocolate:

Hello World.

What do you get when you mix The Beatles, Zombies and “Screaming Girls!”?  Why, A Hard Day’s Night of the Living Dead, of course.

Hello World.

It would seem Alanis Morissette likes her “lovely lady lumps” as much as Fergie does, as she has done a very clever cover of The Black Eyed Peas’ My Humps (not at all new, but I haven’t been posting in a while so give me a break).

– [via Coverville]

Hello World.

Evolution of Dance is, as of this writing, the most watched video on YouTube.  It has been watched over 36 million times.

The reasons for this video’s success somewhat elude me.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s funny, it’s just not that funny.  New York Times writer Virginia Heffernan says that this video has gained such popularity because it has no English dialogue:

That’s its secret: It’s a silent movie. With a soundtrack… ‘Evolution’ plays in Asia. Remember Asia? Where 60% of the world’s population lives?

(quoted in the Wall Street Journal Online).

However this cannot be the only factor.  The songs in the video are all popular American “hits” from the last few decades, as are the dances that go along with them.  Many of the “jokes” would not necessarily translate into other cultures.

There is also the element of self-propelled popularity.  Many visitors to YouTube will go straight to the popular videos page and watch whatever comes up first.  Consequently, whichever video manages to get to the top spot will most likely stay there.

There is a lot of crap on YouTube, but there are also many videos that are arguably better than this one.  Unfortunately on the Internet, as in much of the popular entertainment industry, “popular” does not always translate to “best”.

Hello World.

A while back (in fact, over a year ago) I posted a video of comedian David Armand miming out the lyrics to Natalie Imbruglia’s Torn.

It turns out that there is a sort of sequel to that video, featuring the pocket-sized pop songstress herself, and I dare say it’s even better than the original.  This was performed at the 2006 Secret Policeman’s Ball for Amnesty International.

Hello World.

Apparently the people at Ebay have gone completely mad.  From the Triple J website:

In a strange turn of events Ebay is taking action to stop organisers of the Big Day Out selling their tickets - unless they stop threatening to cancel scalped tickets. Sorry – run that by me again ebay wanna stop the bdo selling tickets because the bdo won’t let ebay sell their tickets.

Basically, Ebay don’t like being told they can’t illegally sell tickets, and are adopting an “if we can’t do it no-one can” stance.

As a person who has both bought and sold tickets using third-parties such as Ebay I feel they should all just leave it be.  There will always be scalpers, and there will always be people who will buy third-party tickets - Ebay or no.

Full story at Triple J.

Hello World.

This is quite an amazing video of Benny Davis, a musician from Sydney University. He does a medley of pop tunes using only a single keyboard and four chords.

Hello World.

This is a cool video of a high-school orchestra playing Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit.  It’s actually quite a nice song once you remove Kurt Cobain from the equation.

Hello World.

Anyone who knows me (or who listened to the live broadcasts of our SURG shows) will know that I have a… how should I put it?… bizarre taste in music.  Throw any song at me and I will probably like it (and most likely already have it), however make it funny, strange or unusual and I will be praising your name.

This week I have discovered an album that is funny, strange and unusual all at once - and it also happens to be an incredibly impressive musical feat.

What am I talking about?  Why, Q-Unit of course!

This is an entire mash-up album bringing together the most unlikely duet in modern music - rapper 50 Cent and glam-rockers Queen.  It’s been put together by DJs The Silence Xperiment and is available for free download.

Now, I know by posting this I am probably going to receive some nasty comments, but please consider this before you yell at me:  I am about as big of a Queen fan as there is, and I hate 50 Cent.  This “album”, however, is so hilariously funny that these things seem irrelevant.  After a few minutes, these songs feel like they were meant to be this way.  Even if you dislike one or both of these artists (as I have said - I do), have a listen anyway simply for the sheer brilliance in how it has been put together.  These guys are genii (yes, the plural of genius is genii).

The site is also worth a visit for this picture alone.

A word of warning though - as 50 Cent’s lyrics feature prominently on this album, there is a definite bad language warning.  If you are offended by the implication that you may be fornicating with someone’s maternal parent, perhaps you should skip this one.

Hello World.

I don’t often feature program downloads on Da Patch, but I have found this one so interesting I just had to mention it.

The Filter is a program / plugin for iTunes (Windows only for now, Mac coming soon) which, according to the website, “creates perfect playlists from your iTunes library”.  I don’t know if I’d say perfect, but I will say pretty damn good.

Simply select a track (or a few tracks), and press the big black “F” button, and The Filter will create a playlist from songs in your library based around your selections.  The result is a diverse selection of songs that actually seem to go well together much better than iTunes’ built-in shuffle mode.  It also learns about your taste as you use it, remembering which tracks you skipped over compared to which you played through, and builds future playlists accordingly.

It’s very useful for making “mood playlists” - for example a playlist for doing work to, or (as I have) one for waking up to.

And no, if you feed Maroon 5 or Panic! At the Disco into it, it will not suddenly make them good.

Read more about The Filter here, or download it here.