Freestyle YOUR style with this singin', dancin', rappin' banana and his Peanut Butter Jelly Time!
Thanks to CCR for this one.
- report by SMPT correspondent, Kyoung Kim
Back Dormitory Boys
According to the SMPT dictionary, brilliance is two Chinese students in matching jerseys with a webcam and a Backstreet Boys lip synching obsession.
- report by SMPT correspondent, Kyoung Kim, who asks you to note the kid in the background playing video games
Belle & Sebastian help you say it with Blood
To get the word out about their new album "Push Barman to Open Old Wounds" Belle & Sebastian has come up with a pretty disgusting promo of an e-card that replaces your virtual pen with a virtual scalpel and virtual skin for virtual paper. Your message appears in blood where the incisions have been made and it's clear that no anesthetic has been applied as you can hear the painful screams of the patient above the background music of the B&S. Then, when you're done with that, it's time to click on the barman and play the operation game, where you apply your scalpel-wielding ways in attempts to remove pasties and clocks from said patient.
Thanks to Theater Great and Flicky Disk Co-Founder, Tom Bowtell, for this one.
- report by SMPT correspondent, Kyoung Kim
Help Science, Get Free Music
Music Lab is a research project conducted by scientists from Columbia University "to learn about how people form opinions about music." In exchange for letting them pick your brain, you get free music downloads. It's conducted online, so you can partake from right where you are. On company time. Three cheers for R&D!
- report by SMPT correspondent, Kyoung Kim, via Gene Perelson
Singing with Regional Pride... Unless You're From NJ
Did you have any idea that there were things called "state songs"? That each of the states that make this country (sorta, barely, not really) united has its own bonafide song with lyrics and music? With the exception of New Jersey? It's true! Ask Laura, who art in Laura's Midi Heaven, collector of state songs (sheet music, flags and birds too).
Being that I'm from Jersey, I find this discovery of state songs and my state's lack of one utterly bewildering. You who did not grow up in Jersey: Did you know about this? Were you forced to learn and sing your state song in elementary school? Because, I grower upper in Jersey, did not and was not. Is this because people from Jersey are more enlightened and know that state songs are a stupid stupid idea? Case in point:
The Old North State
Written by William Gaston
Composed by Mrs. E. E. Randolph
Carolina! Carolina! Heaven's blessings attend her!
While we live we will cherish, protect and defend her;
Tho' the scorner may sneer at and witlings defame her,
Still our hearts swell with gladness whenever we name her.
Hurrah! Hurrah! The Old North State forever!
Hurrah! Hurrah! The good Old North State!
Tho' she envies not others, their merited glory,
Say whose name stands the foremost, in Liberty's story,
Tho' too true to herself e'er to crouch to oppression,
Who can yield to just rule a more loyal submission?
Hurrah! Hurrah! The Old North State forever!
Hurrah! Hurrah! The good Old North State!
Plain and artless her sons, but whose doors open faster
At the knock of a stranger, or the tale of disaster.
How like the rudeness of the dear native mountains,
With rich ore in their bosoms and life in their fountains.
Hurrah! Hurrah! The Old North State forever!
Hurrah! Hurrah! The good Old North State!
And her daughters, the Queen or the forest resembling
So graceful, so constant, yet the gentlest breath trembling.
And true lightwood at heart, let the match be applied them,
How they kindle and flame! Oh! none know but who've tried them.
Hurrah! Hurrah! The Old North State forever!
Hurrah! Hurrah! The good Old North State!
Then let all those who love us, love the land that we live in,
As happy a region as on this side of heaven,
Where plenty and peace, love and joy smile before us,
Raise aloud, raise together the heart thrilling chorus.
Hurrah! Hurrah! The Old North State forever!
Hurrah! Hurrah! The good Old North State!
A rather disturbing ditty, no? A perfect example as to why state songs should no longer be or should at the very least be updated. I feel that I can say so because I am concussed and from New Jersey, and therefore know better.
- report from still SMPT correspondent, Kyoung Kim, who feels as though she's just discovered that all this time she's been living in a parallel universe and as a result needs a bit of chocolate (that last bit's a lie. well, less lie, more excuse)
Goodbye gray skies -- Hello blue!
Grooving all week with you, television theme songs help you take the good, and take the bad. They make you realize that the world don’t move to the beat of just one drum and that you don’t want to wait for your life to be over, that you want to know right now, what will it be.
You sing along when your life gets turned all upside down; when your job’s a joke, you’re broke, your love life’s D.O.A; when you think “gimme a break, I sure deserve it;” during temporary lay loffs, easy credit rip offs, scratchin’ and surviving, and hangin in a chow line; when you’re just flying away on a wing and a prayer. And then suddenly, believe it or not, you’re walking on air, showing that smile again, not wasting another minute on your cryin’, knowing that you’ve gotta be one of the luckiest dreams who never quit dreamin’, feeling that it’s all the most sensational inspirational celebrational of good times and happy days.
So I’d like for you to take a moment, just sit back down, and travel down the road and back again, and say “welcome back” to that same old place that you laughed about.
- report by SMPT correspondent, Kyoung Kim
Jingles: The Unsung Sung Anthems of America
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Ah, America. How you love your food. How you love to talk about it. To praise it. To give it a face, legs, arms, a bubbly personality, and force it to jig jig jig whilst singing a twenty-second tune that bores into your soul forever and a day about how wonderful it would be for you to eat it. Ah, America. You country of normalcy, you.
At Robin Johnson's Advertising Jingles site relive the gloriousness of the jingles of the 20th century, conveniently categorized a la coin-op style by "drinks, breakfast foods, snacks, meat & cheese, and miscellany", and remember once again what it means to be a "proud American."
www.geocities.com/Athens/Rhodes/4190/jingles.htm
- report by SMPT correspondent, Kyoung Kim
Hamsters breaking down leading cause of mental breakdown
Remember this late '90s hit? It drove away co-workers you liked. Attracted those you didn't, as well as more forwards of wide-eyed cats in baskets than you could shake a stick at. Relive the experience. www.webhamster.com
Somewhat amusing spin-off: www.greymatter.org/satanichamsterdance/
Less-amusing-far-more-upsetting spin-off: www.newgrounds.com/assassin/hamster/
- report by SMPT correspondent, Kyoung Kim
Elephant Electronica?
No, this isn't the album cover of the latest indie band to hit the underground hipster scene of Williamsburg, VA (where they wear clothes from colonial times!). It's one of two albums by an actual orchestra in Thailand comprised of actual elephants. Hence the name, Thai Elephant Orchestra. Jammin’ is just what retired pachyderms do at the Elephant Conservation Center, along with painting, bingo, yahtzee, and trunk-ogling. Download Dumbos' experimental new agey tunes on the Mulatta Records website, www.mulatta.org/Thaielephantorch.html, including smash hits “Thung Kwian Sunrise” and “Ganesha Triumphant”. Release date of “DJ Mammoth Dex FX” forthcoming.
- by SMPT correspondent, Kyoung Kim
