A New Moon's Muse

(from a guest editorial piece i wrote over at 17tracks.blogspot.com)

This past weekend the newest addition to the Twilight franchise, New Moon, opened in pretty much every theater in the country, and filled their seats with gleeful tweenie girls (and the few unfortunate boyfriends). These hordes of fans gave the sequel to last year's hit Twilight the 3rd highest opening weekend in history, clocking in at $140 million for the three day period. Only The Dark Knight and Spiderman 3 have been able to do better business in a single weekend. The marketing presence of this behemoth studio picture was felt everywhere in the week leading up to the premiere, and one of the best techniques put into good practice was that of the movie's soundtrack.

With it's leading single by Death Cab for Cutie, "Meet Me at the Equinox," becoming a hit heard often on the airwaves, and prominent well-respected artists such as Thom Yorke (of Radiohead) and The Killers lending their talents to the soundtrack it has become a very successful media entity in its own right, and has followed in the footsteps of soundtracks like Juno and Little Miss Sunshine as a launching pad for relatively unknown independent artists. But it went a step further and spent a good extra penny on producing exclusive and original new songs, creating almost as much hype for the soundtrack as the film itself.



It peaked on Billboard's Top 200 list of albums at #1 and has stayed in the Top Ten since it's release on October 16th, with it's early release 3-day sales of 115,000 and first full week's 153,000. The original Twilight soundtrack eventually sold over 2 million copies last year, and its sequel looks to do even better.

Some of the highlights on this mellow and warm album include Grizzly Bear's "Slow Life" featuring the lovely sounds of Victoria Legrand of Beach House, Bon Iver and St. Vincent's "Rosyln" duet, and Lykke Li's frail "Possibility" ballad. These impressive tracks are streamed below.

In the end, this soundtrack has made even the most passionately anti-studio hipster appreciate the artful purpose of such a collaborative piece. While at first glance I felt as though many of my favorite indie artists were essentially selling out to the by-product of a "Team Edward v. Team Jacob" media campaign, upon a thorough listen of this production I have been led to believe that they simply found inspiration in the love-torn story that is presented in New Moon, and created their own unique visions to help tell its encompassing tale.

	Grizzly Bear - Slow Life (Feat. Victoria Legrand)
	Found at skreemr.com

	Bon Iver & St. Vincent - Roslyn
	Found at skreemr.com

--Drew

Monster Beats

It's another summer and one of the best ways to remember present and past times enjoying the sun, hanging with friends, and reflecting on the state of things tend to be pairing each year with a music playlist that signifies the current "vibes" of the season. Each summer is unique and brings new experiences and interesting changes.
I decided to make a post with a few songs that have summed up Summer '09... so far.

	Band Of Horses - Weed Party
	Found at skreemr.com

Weed Party - Band of Horses

	Fever Ray - I'm Not Done
	Found at skreemr.com

I'm Not Done - Fever Ray

	Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins - Rise Up with Fists
	Found at skreemr.com

Rise Up with Fists - Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins

	New Order - Age Of Consent
	Found at skreemr.com

Age of Consent - New Order

	Passion Pit - I've Got Your Number
	Found at skreemr.com

I've Got Your Number - Passion Pit

	Grizzly Bear - Deep Blue Sea
	Found at skreemr.com

Deep Blue Sea - Grizzly Bear

	The Velvet Underground - All Tomorrow's Parties
	Found at skreemr.com

All Tomorrow's Parties - The Velvet Underground

mm tasty ear candy. peace.
Drew

The Imagery of an Uprising

The big global news story (and rightly so) these past few days has been the alleged fraudulent reelection of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against reformist opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi. This fairly apparent stolen election has caused supporters of Mousavi to take to the streets in numbers unseen in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The government's reaction to this populist movement was brutal and they soon decided to disband any foreign reporting in the country to try to contain some really bad PR the incumbent administration's harsh fists are collecting all around the world. This is on top of negative attention already gathered by Ahmadinejad's resolute stance on having a nuclear-armed Iran. The future of the country and the choices and actions yet to be made by everyone from the president, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and those rallying on the street presents a historic tale of a disenfranchised public creating an overnight uprising against a government clinging to what little power they still have over the country's people. Such a climactic event should be well documented and exposed to the eyes and hearts of the rest of the world, and the choice to censor foreign and local reports has caused an even stronger uproar among the masses.

Human ingenuity, especially in the face of government crackdowns, provides our present day societies with surplus ways to communicate with others around the world, almost instantaneously. Against the fear of consequences of a vengeful ruling dictatorship, some Iranians (including many Iranian students) have gotten their stories told through hidden internet proxies and websites such as Twitter and Youtube. But some of the best ways to document and understand a historic moment in time is a technique that has been in practice for almost 200 years: photographic journalism. And although even that is being censored in Iran, we in the western world are able to see visually the events taking place in an emotional and profound way, simply by the capture of a singular moment in time. I've decided to link several of the best photojournalism resources out there about this explosive current event:

Boston Globe's Big Picture - Iran's Disputed Election, Iran's Continued Election Turmoil







NY Times Lens (Visual Journalism) - Dateline: Iran
(images below were taken by award-winning photojournalist Olivier Laban-Mattei)









For continued live coverage of the situation in Iran, check out these live-blogging sites:
HuffPost's Live-Blogging the Uprising
NY Times' Lede Blog - Latest Updates on Iran's Disputed Election
CNN's iReport - Following the Iran Election


Peace,
Drew