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
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
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
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
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
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
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
One hundred established graphic and fine artists were approached to create the definitive album cover of their favorite recording artist. Each chose an iconic musical subject from the 1940s to the present and from the genres of rock, blues, jazz, country and soul music. The result is an original and highly creative collection of contemporary art.
The Greatest Album Covers That Never Were.
posted by riffola
on Nov 16, 2003 -
25 comments
The Eminem Show reached #2 on the
Gracenote charts last week, even though the album was not officially released until Sunday.
Gracenote doesn't give exact figures on traffic, but it said the No. 2 slot in its charts represented a total figure of listeners in the "mid-tens of thousands" over the course of the week.
posted by ry
on May 28, 2002 -
15 comments
Gee, this a good idea (NYT reg req) - The New York Times discusses the growing popularity of .zip whole album downloads on Audiogalaxy. The article is also kind enough to include a step-by-step how-to for idiots like me who want free music but haven't thought of this before. Thanks!
posted by dydecker
on Feb 25, 2002 -
37 comments
