finally AOL's done something good

July 8, 2005 12:13 AM

Pretty much all of Live8broken up into individual songs, minus the annoying vjs
posted by tsarfan (54 comments total)

Thanks. I haven't even bothered to tune in to MTV's "coverage".

I hadn't realized all my favorite artists were in on this thing! Mmm, Travis.
posted by sian at 12:51 AM on July 8, 2005

Personally I thought the event with the African musicians was by far the most interesting. And not only because its existence as a separate entity exposes (I think) some unpleasant truths.
posted by dickasso at 12:52 AM on July 8, 2005

Ohh I've been looking for this since saturday, thanks.

Pink Floyd was, as expected, as awesome as ever, but what the hell is up with Bjork? I normally think of her as gorgeous, but yeesh....that hair-do makes he look balding and I can't tell if she's wearing make-up or a plastic mask...
posted by MostHolyPorcine at 1:32 AM on July 8, 2005

Yeah, the lighting isn't the most flattering for some of the musicians. But, as expectd, Coldplay was amazing. And Bob Geldof doing I Don't Like Mondays was surprisingly cool.
posted by sacrilicious at 2:27 AM on July 8, 2005

And Snoop?
posted by sacrilicious at 2:28 AM on July 8, 2005

Perhaps this warrants an AskMeFi post, but does anyone know why bands are generally referred to in the singular in North America (i.e. "Coldplay was amazing" / "Coldplay sucks!"), and in the plural / group form in Britain (i.e. "Coldplay were amazing" / "Coldplay suck!").
posted by coach_mcguirk at 2:45 AM on July 8, 2005

Anyone know whether you can get these in MP3 format? Failing that, how I can strip out the music in the MOV's and make an MP3 out of it?

I'd love to stick it on my iPod and listen to it all.
posted by ralawrence at 4:40 AM on July 8, 2005

what a crappy line-up!
posted by dydecker at 4:41 AM on July 8, 2005

does anyone know why bands are generally referred to in the singular in North America (i.e. "Coldplay was amazing" / "Coldplay sucks!"), and in the plural / group form in Britain (i.e. "Coldplay were amazing" / "Coldplay suck!").

Doesn't matter. In troubled times such as these its more important to stress the solidarity and kindred spirit between Britain and the US. We must stand united in our resolve, no matter how it is stated, in our common goal of fighting this aggression. I'm honored to stand next to my fellow englishman from across the pond as we can agree: Coldplay sucks!
posted by hal9k at 5:04 AM on July 8, 2005

if you type in "Live 8" into the Music Videos section of the Winamp Media Library, you'll get a very nice surprise. :o)
posted by lotsofno at 5:19 AM on July 8, 2005

This is definitely nice to have. My girlfriend and I TiVo'd Live8 on MTV and were able to watch all 8 hours of programming in under 2 hours by skipping the commercials, vjs and the other crap.

But at least we are aware now.
posted by clgregor at 6:24 AM on July 8, 2005

I'm honored to stand next to my fellow englishman from across the pond as we can agree: Coldplay sucks!

I completely disagree. I think Coldplay suck!
posted by Robot Johnny at 6:45 AM on July 8, 2005

C'mon, lets come together on this: Coldplays sucks!
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 6:49 AM on July 8, 2005

I keep hearing about how wonderful the Coldplay are. Is there anyone here who actually likes them? Are they any good?

My friend met Coldplay at a bar last night and he said he was rude.
posted by cavalier at 7:21 AM on July 8, 2005

Regardless of whether Coldplay sucks or not (they do)...... Man, Ah-Ha REALLY sucks!
posted by emptybowl at 7:25 AM on July 8, 2005

Regardless of whether Coldplay sucks or not (they do)...... Man, Ah-Ha REALLY sucks!
posted by emptybowl at 7:25 AM PST on July 8 [!]

Agreed emptybowl. But it propels mcquirks' argument: is it "Take on me" or "Take me on"?

(Damn Norwegians)
posted by hal9k at 7:28 AM on July 8, 2005

My cousin and I were talking about this recently, why do people hate ColdPlay so much? They're not a bad band and they have some songs I like but I think, in the end, that they're kind of boring. Can anyone else provide a little more detail aside from Coldplay suck or sucks?

Also, the mov's are nice but it would be far better to have mp3's available to load up on the iPod.
posted by fenriq at 7:30 AM on July 8, 2005

MTV Stung by Live 8 Criticism

The most interesting thing I saw in there was that AOL bought all the rights in the US, and then sublicensed it for TV to MTV and ABC. Online really is taking over.
posted by smackfu at 7:36 AM on July 8, 2005

My cousin and I were talking about this recently, why do people hate ColdPlay so much? They're not a bad band and they have some songs I like but I think, in the end, that they're kind of boring. Can anyone else provide a little more detail aside from Coldplay suck or sucks?

That's exactly it. I can't think of a band that more boring than Coldplay. It's like the music is specially designed to put me to sleep.
posted by emptybowl at 8:02 AM on July 8, 2005

does anyone know why bands are generally referred to in the singular in North America (i.e. "Coldplay was amazing" / "Coldplay sucks!"), and in the plural / group form in Britain (i.e. "Coldplay were amazing" / "Coldplay suck!").

I hadn't noticed a continental difference, because the mistake of giving a plural verb to a singular entity (in this case a band named Coldplay) happens here in the states, too.

"Coldplay suck" or "Coldplay are charitable" are flatly incorrect. "Coldplay" or "Radiohead" or "R.E.M." are singular entities and it's grammatically wrong to assign them a plural verb. If, in fact, you're referring to the members of Coldplay or Radiohead, you need to stipulate this: "The members of Coldplay suck" or "the constituent human parts of the band Radiohead are unimpressive musicians".

Because it sounds awkward and, hence, somehow daring to indie scenesters, it's become a bit of an urbanism to talk about singular bands like this, but it's still incorrect.
posted by gramschmidt at 8:07 AM on July 8, 2005

I haven't really been into U2 since college. But that was damn impressive, and any pitchfork reviewer can lick me.
posted by bardic at 8:15 AM on July 8, 2005

And Coldplay really does suck.
posted by bardic at 8:16 AM on July 8, 2005

Check out this MetaTalk thread...

"It's an issue to do with collective nouns. Americans tend to treat band names, company names, etc. as "singular", thus requiring "is", while many Europeans treat such as "plural"....

American Heritage Book of English Usage: collective noun....

"Different U.S. publications have different editing rules for this. I was once a copy editor at Billboard, where a band would be considered singular if its name wasn't obviously plural -- 'Radiohead is working on a new album' and 'The Strokes are working on a new album' were both correct. Then I copyedited at Spin, which would say 'Radiohead are working on a new album' (or more likely 'Radiohead are hunkering down in the studio, fretting over their latest masterpiece')."

posted by ericb at 8:16 AM on July 8, 2005

And by the way, which one's Cold?
posted by stevil at 8:19 AM on July 8, 2005

I kind of like Coldplay. They're a bit dull to listen to a whole album, but each of their CDs has had two or three songs that I like a LOT. The rest is just kind of pleasant background noise.

Then again, I still really love U2, so my musical tastes might be kind of suspect around here.

Just saw this morning that MTV and VH1 are airing 10 hours of the Live 8 performances on Saturday. 10-3 on MTV and 3-8 on VH1, or something like that. Almost makes me wish I had full cable TV.
posted by corianderstem at 8:20 AM on July 8, 2005

Why are we linking to this guy's page when AOL already has it broken out by city and performer? Are we friends with this guy?
posted by thanotopsis at 8:22 AM on July 8, 2005

And by the way, which one's Cold?

The sensitive, brooding one. Oh wait...
posted by gramschmidt at 8:22 AM on July 8, 2005

The drummer is discretely hot. The bass player is a tool.
posted by bardic at 8:28 AM on July 8, 2005

Do AOL has individual downloadable files, or streaming crap?
posted by mecran01 at 8:28 AM on July 8, 2005

I'm eating shoe-leather re: Coldplay. That was cool to do Bittersweet Symphony. So now, I aim my snarkgun at Ashcroft for going solo and totally sucking.
posted by bardic at 8:37 AM on July 8, 2005

The drummer is discretely hot.

There are quanta of hotness?
Hotons!
posted by wilberforce at 8:40 AM on July 8, 2005

A hoton consists of two charms and strange, if I'm not mistaken.
posted by gramschmidt at 8:47 AM on July 8, 2005

I thusly re-monniker Travis: "The Not-Coldplay."

They remind me of the alternate universe Southpark w/ goatees.

And Coldplay still sucks. But Travis really, really sucks.
posted by bardic at 8:50 AM on July 8, 2005

The reason people hate coldplay is that it's basicaly pop-music with the pretense of intelectualism. Unlike Radiohead, it's enjoyable by "the masses". Unlike the backstreet boys it's complex and diffrent enough to be enjoyable by the elites.

Also, the music is so non-confrentational. It never touches the hard and angry emotions, just glides over them, like living your life hopped up on prozac and codine, or something. Like living in a gated community or whatever.

So it's annoying that people only listen to "radiohead light" and not radiohead proper. I guess.
posted by delmoi at 8:50 AM on July 8, 2005

Thanks for the tip, lotsofno.
posted by ddf at 8:50 AM on July 8, 2005

does anyone know why bands are generally referred to in the singular in North America ... and in the plural / group form in Britain
...
"Coldplay" or "Radiohead" or "R.E.M." are singular entities and it's grammatically wrong to assign them a plural verb.

Next, gramschmidt opines on all those "our" and "ise" mis-spellings.
posted by dhartung at 9:08 AM on July 8, 2005

Coldplay isn't awful, they just tend toward mediocrity, and yet the media and portions of the public tend to worship them, hence the backlash.
posted by ludwig_van at 9:09 AM on July 8, 2005

I've tried Radiohead "proper." While I like The Bends, I find a lot of what came out after that unlistenable.

I do, however, really love "Karma Police" and "Everything In Its Right Place," and appreciate what they do. It's just not for me.
posted by corianderstem at 9:29 AM on July 8, 2005

Mark Morford on Coldplay.
posted by JT at 9:34 AM on July 8, 2005

To those trying to break these out into mp3s: it's not as easy as it should be.

QuickTime pro doesn't seem to be able to edit them (grr). So I couldn't just extract the audio tracks directly and recompress them. I've had to use Audio Hijack to record the audio output to mp3s, and that's working pretty well. Better than I expected, even - Audio Hijack is more sophisticated that I might've expected. I havn't had to trim a single second of silence...

Like someone else here, I only wanted to do this so I could stick them on my iPod. But it's not like they can cry foul too hard, given that all of these were aol links to the mov files.
posted by flaterik at 9:56 AM on July 8, 2005

suggest that people check out neil young's new song "when god made me" on this list ... it's very good
posted by pyramid termite at 9:56 AM on July 8, 2005

Why are we linking to this guy's page when AOL already has it broken out by city and performer? Are we friends with this guy?

1. i found that page through stereogum who linked to it yesterday.

2. i havent found myself dialing up AOL, well, since i had dialup back in the day

3. coldplay blows
posted by tsarfan at 10:23 AM on July 8, 2005

3. coldplay blows

Thank you!
posted by gramschmidt at 10:35 AM on July 8, 2005

Too bad it's impossible to download these.
posted by kenko at 10:40 AM on July 8, 2005

kenko, right-click, Save Link as.... Or option-click.
posted by pmbuko at 10:59 AM on July 8, 2005

Dear Paul McCartney,

Please stop fucking the dead corpse of the Beatles. You sing worse than your ex-wife.

Love,
Everyone
posted by jewzilla at 11:03 AM on July 8, 2005

MTV's coverage was just laughably bad. When they cut away from the solo in Comfortably Numb to a couple of babbling VJ's, I seriously wanted to hurl objects at my TV. I assumed that they committed this travesty so as to make people buy the DVD when it came out, but it turns out that MTV would have nothing to gain by doing this since they don't own any of the rights. They just made a ridiculously incompetent decision.

That said....

I want to take this opportunity to recognize the Floyd as not just a band who got back together for a charity gig, but simply as four guys who have always delivered the goods. They gave a performance that was truly deserving of their legacy, and the shout-out to Syd was the icing on the cake. A class act all the way.

Oh yeah, and...

Coldplay sucks. They're kinda like Radiohead, only with twice the "forlorn," and none of the "rock."
posted by afroblanca at 11:23 AM on July 8, 2005

afroblanca, I was also very pleased by the Pink Floyd clips. It was neat to see Roger Waters having so much fun up there. Didn't these guys want to kill each other a few years ago?

The Cure was disappointing though. Fat Bob needs, like, 13 stylists. They looked a hell of a lot older than PF, which is saying a lot.

And I've never gotten Muse. With longer hair, they're pretty much Frampton Alive! all over again. Wanky as all fuck.

REM is jumping the shark for the fourth or fifth time over.

Roxy Music was way cool. Annie Lennox is hot.

/end rant
posted by bardic at 11:35 AM on July 8, 2005

designed specifically to put me to sleep

That's why I like Coldplay. When I listen to their music, in the right environment, I get woozy and dream-like.
posted by sian at 11:52 AM on July 8, 2005

I can't believe I bothered to find out what U2 doing "Unchained Melody" would sound like.
posted by kenko at 11:53 AM on July 8, 2005

pmbuko, I meant because it's so ... fucking ... slow.
OTOH I know a page that might be a target for wget when I get home.
posted by kenko at 11:54 AM on July 8, 2005

afroblanca,

i totally agree on all points.

mtv cutting away from comfortably numb so that they could rush to their regularily-scheduled commercials was the lowest.

the vj's (some of whom might actually like floyd) had nothing at all to add to the moment, so they turned their back to the history being made behind them and said

"wow this is amazing... we'll be back to london after this break"

wtf!

next time i hope Geldoff has the forsight to allow C-SPAN to (also) broadcast it because it seems like the only people who made money off the concerts were the ticket scalpers and MTV.

meanwhile, i hope that every FPP turns into a Coldplay Sucks gangbang.

because they suck.
posted by tsarfan at 1:52 PM on July 8, 2005

Martin Short once did a terrific send-up of your typical Greatest Hits TV commmercial pitching a Perry Como Still Alive album (on SCTV). His crooning Perry Como used the typical cuts of a live performance, in front of a fire, on a snowy field, etc. but in every scene and song Como was wheeled around and prone on a bed, tousled head sideways smashed deeply into a pillow with tired eyes half-open, singing into the mic out of the side of a drooling mouth. That's pretty much Coldplay.

Coldplay. The chamomile of rock. Sting-lite but at that point you might as well leave your stereo off altogether.
posted by hal9k at 4:01 AM on July 9, 2005

I'm seriously impressed with Pink Floyd. After all this time they're still able to produce excellent sound. Now to Roxy..
Thanks very much for the link tsarfan.
posted by peacay at 5:43 AM on July 9, 2005