Bring on the trumpets!

I think this might just be the funniest advert I've ever seen.

Brand Power!

A very postmodern experiment is going on at www.brandtags.net.

Taking the principle that branding is an abstract concept that exists purely in people's perception, they are inviting people to tag brands to generate a tag cloud. I particularly enjoyed the enormous word 'evil' that featured on Starbucks' cloud.

Music!

Hey Hey,

Been listening to a lot of new music recently and I thought I'd take the time to share some of it with you!

Noah and the Whale - happy-go-lucky nu-folk stylings from this Twickenham-based band. Highlights include '5 years time' which you in the UK may well have heard (as it's everywhere), others include '2 bodies 1 heart' a slightly twee but very sweet love song and 'You can call me Al' a nice cover of the Paul Simon classic.

Girl Talk - crazy mash-up attention-deficit insanity. Latest album is available on a Radiohead-style pay what you want system. Check it out here.

Flobots - Handlebars (DJ Shadow remix) - currently very popular on the fantastic Hype Machine, this remix of Flobots' Handlebars is very hard to resist with a more pronounced beat and slightly more...fully-formed and threatening feel to it.

Finally, Sondre Lerche (official site with more tunes here). Great Norwegian singer-songwriter, with great voice and great tunes. Became aware of him as the composer of the 'Dan in Real Life' soundtrack, the end title track being 'My Hands Are Shaking' which I'm currently very much addicted to. By turns slightly folky, by turns a touch more contemporary jazzy. I love it.

Right. Better go back to endlessly applying for jobs now...

Laterz!

Mamma Mia!

So I went to see Mamma Mia the other day. Not a great film, but quite fun in it's cheesy happy-go-lucky fashion. What struck me about it was how cleverly it is aimed at it's target audience.

Based on the songs of ABBA, the main target audience are the ABBA generation: people that were young in ABBA's heyday, though of course they don't want to rule out any young people that may want to jump on the disco bandwagon. Therefore the main characters are three middle-aged women (around the current age of the original ABBA fans), three middle-aged men, and a young couple. The story centres around the preparations for the young couple's wedding on a Greek island. Unbeknownst to her mother Donna, the young bride has invited three potential 'fathers', men from Donna's past who she slept with in quick succession back in the glory days.

The effect of this is as the audience get all nostaligic with the ABBA tunes they know and love (which have been largely left as they are), Donna is confronted by her past. There are almost two eras taking place simultaneously as the daughter prepares for her wedding, having her own youthful adventure, Donna is reliving hers periodically regressing into an almost teenage state (particularly in her rendition of Mamma Mia).

All angles are covered! Men and women of the ABBA generation get characters they can identify with as do the new generation. Rather than restricting the proceedings to pure nostalgia, flashbacks or simply being set in the past, the film simply draws parallels between the events of the film and the events from the past they are celebrating.

The Winner Takes it All is the highlight.

Hello.

Hi Everyone!

Welcome to my second blog. My first one was an attempt to create a serious, tightly-focussed blog on a specific subject, but I couldn't really every be bothered to write on it as it always seemed too daunting...so I thought I'd start another one with no particular agenda where I can just generally rant and rave about whatever happens to enter my opinionated head.

I decided to call it Cultureshock Rampage pretty much on a whim. I hope you enjoy it. I'm Tim by the way.