Nants ingonyama bagithi baba! It's been nearly two decades since that glorious savanna sunrise, and once again
The Lion King is
at the top of the box office. It's a good chance to revisit what made the original the capstone of the
Disney Renaissance, starting with the music. Not the gaudy show tunes or the Elton John ballads, but the soaring, elegiac score by Hans Zimmer which, despite winning an Oscar, never saw a full release outside of
an unofficial bootleg.
Luckily, it's unabridged and high-quality, allowing one to lay Zimmer's
haunting,
pulse-pounding,
joyful tracks
alongside the original video (
part 2,
3,
4), revealing the subtle leitmotifs and careful matching of music and action.
In addition, South African collaborator
Lebo M wove traditional Zulu chorals into the score, providing
veiled commentary on
scenes like this; his work was later
expanded into
a full album,
the Broadway stage show, and
projects closer to his heart. Speaking of expanded works, there were inevitable sequels -- all of which you can experience with
The Lion King: Full Circle (
download guide), a fan-made, three-hour supercut of the original film and its two follow-ups.
Want more? Look...
harder... [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Oct 1, 2011 -
22 comments
Once upon a time, Van Morrison had a record contract with Bing Records which he
wanted to escape. Since the contract required him to produce thirty-six original songs, Van Morrison sat in the studio for a single session and recorded a series of nonsensical non-tunes that are still in his distinctive style.
Three of them are available here.
posted by dzkalman
on May 9, 2011 -
53 comments
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of his awesome abstract compilation album
Miniatures,
Morgan Fisher (of Mott the Hoople fame) has started going through
the 51-track masterpiece from the beginning in, well, minute detail, updating readers on the current status of the featured band, providing relevant links, explaining his compilation process, and, of course, streaming each track.
So far the first 7 tracks are featured, but start here with the bonus track added to the 1994 CD re-issue of Miniatures –
"The Miniatures Miniature".
[more inside]
posted by carsonb
on Jan 6, 2011 -
11 comments
Interpol have a new, self-titled album coming out September 7 (the 13th in the UK). Hey, guess what! It sounds like Interpol, so this is the kind of thing you will like, if you like this kind of thing.
"Lights" (and
here in HD) already has me imagining doing a thousand-yard stare out of a bus window on a cold, late November night.
The second video, "Barricade" is
here (
and here in HD).
posted by jackrational
on Aug 30, 2010 -
43 comments
9 Countries was recorded on location in Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Tibet, India, Egypt and Greece between October 2005 and March 2007 by Tom Compagnoni. What you hear has been entirely assembled from these field recordings, no additional samples used.
A mashup / sound-collage / ambient / documentary album by
Wax Audio.
posted by flatluigi
on Dec 21, 2009 -
6 comments
Shareese Renée Ballard, or
Res, put out an album in 2001 titled
How I Do. Santi White, a.k.a.
Santigold (formerly
Santogold) helped out with the lyrics. A mix of R&B and rock,
How I Do scored one hit single, "
They Say Vision". Label politics stalled the release of her second album, so Res was let go from her contract. After touring with Gnarls Barkley and forming Idle Warship with Talib Kweli, Res continued to write and record. Putting together new songs with material from her unreleased album, she posted
Black.Girls.Rock! on her website for free. (
MP3 ZIP,
PDF Booklet.)
[more inside]
posted by NemesisVex
on Dec 18, 2009 -
7 comments
"Hello, I'm Johnny Cash." On January 13, 1968, Johnny Cash played two concerts at
Folsom State Prison with June Carter, Carl Perkins, the Statler Brothers, and his band, the Tennessee Three.
At Folsom Prison, drawn mainly from the first show, is often ranked as one of the best albums of all time and
turned Cash's career around. Reporter Gene Beley covered the concert and
recorded some songs from the audience.
[more inside]
posted by kirkaracha
on Oct 23, 2009 -
22 comments
To promote their soon-to-be-released album, In This Light and On This Evening (coming October 27), British indie rockers
Editors have made an interesting hack of Google Maps Street View. If you go to the Editors website
here, you can wander through the streets of London looking for landmarks set out by the band.
[more inside]
posted by rocket88
on Oct 19, 2009 -
9 comments
It's Seurat by me. Iconic album covers by the Beatles and the Clash. Mixed media (a metric buttload of Rubik's cubes shown in Dailymotion video). (
via)
posted by maudlin
on Jul 3, 2009 -
11 comments
70s/80s Soviet album covers. Until today, I had no idea Soviet hair metal existed. Prepare for keytars, mall hair and proof that 80s cheese was not solely a product of degenerate kepitalist decadence.
posted by DecemberBoy
on Jun 23, 2009 -
54 comments
Omaha rockers Cursive are selling their new album for just $1... No wait, it's $2... $3... $4... WTF?? In yet another twist on the whole, name-your-price (
Radiohead), fan-financed (
Jill Sobule), take-shrooms-and-cruise-hollywood (
Josh Freese) tiered pricing experiment being carried out by what's left of the music industry, Cursive are increasing the price of their new record by $1 each day until its "official" release. Given the popularity of sites like
Did it Leak (and the corresponding file-sharing forums that I won't link to here) it seems to me like this is a pretty good way to reward well-intentioned but impatient fans who might otherwise resort to less honorable means of getting the latest stuff from their favorite bands. Or maybe it's just another hare-brained scheme that will only hasten the end of record labels as we know them. Either way, they got my $1... And that was after I already got my hands on the mp3s!
posted by idontlikewords
on Mar 2, 2009 -
23 comments
“In the condition I was in, it assumed at the time the quality of a beacon, a light on the far shores of the murk; what's more, it was proof that there was something left to express artistically besides nihilism and destruction.” Lester Bangs on the topic of
Van Morrison's Astral Weeks which began recording exactly 40 years ago today in Century Sound Studios NYC.
[more inside]
posted by philip-random
on Sep 25, 2008 -
36 comments
Before Alex Steinweiss invented the album cover in 1938, at the age of 23, all albums came in plain brown wrappers. Steinweiss's idea to create a package that had something visual on the outside to lure the consumer was a huge success. A
tribute show for the 90-year-old Steinweiss will be held at the Robert Berman Gallery in Santa Monica, California, until February 23, 2008. More about Steinweiss
here and
here.
First link via.
posted by amyms
on Feb 19, 2008 -
13 comments
The 23rd Century is a sweet band that just released their new CD, "Take A Trip Though Time With...The 23rd Century",
for free online in mp3 format. The album was created by metafilter user
tcobretti and his cousin. You can purchase the album
here to support them, or you can buy their tshirt, obviously inspired/ripped off from the
John Titor insignia. There is also a cool schematic-based navigation to the site, presumably from the same great mind who brought us
runoffgroove.com. [via
mefi projects]
posted by banished
on Mar 17, 2006 -
12 comments
November is National Solo Album Month! So, for the purposes of NaSoAlMo, what exactly is a solo album? An album of music you have written, played and recorded entirely by yourself. The shortest inarguably awesome album that a lot of people have heard is the first Ramones album, which is 29:09 long, so your solo album must be at least that long. Beyond that, its form and content are up to you. Sorry to wait until the last minute, but if you sign up today you'll still have 30 days to write and record your masterpiece!
posted by mcsweetie
on Nov 1, 2005 -
52 comments
Art rock/metal band
A Perfect Circle are releasing a
new album consisting of mostly politically orientated covers, including John Lennon's
Imagine. With
so many bands pumping out the politics recently why is this strange? Because for so many years the band, and frontman Maynard James Keenan (also the lead singer for Tool) have usually kept right out of politics, opting for a more mysterious and individualistic approach to their music.
Interesting to read what some of their
fans think?
posted by Jase_B
on Oct 19, 2004 -
16 comments
