The mp3 had a spectacular rise…the tech was everywhere…it brought music and the industry into the digital era. But like almost everything in this universe, it has a finite lifespan…it’s still with us and in many ways is still ubiquitous in some circles, but things have changed.
And yes, it did kill the music industry—at least the old one that insisted on selling fans their music on pieces of plastic
I’m going to try to tell the story of how mp3 technology came into our lives—and how it is slowly leaving it. It’s a story with all kinds of twists and turns…there are heroes and villains…there are casualties and survivors…and one thing is for sure: music has been forever changed in a billion different ways.
This is the rise and fall of the mp3.
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45:10
The History of Concert Sound
Ever been to a concert and wondered "How do they make all of this work?". "How have I not gone deaf?" or "Why does the dude on stage wearing what looks like a pair of ear-buds?"
Well we're here to answer those questions and more as we delve deep into the history of concert sound...
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36:38
Legendary Gigs
Maybe it was the first time you saw your favourite musical. Maybe they played a set list that you thought was perfection. Maybe you were front and centre and the singer crowd surfed right over your head!
So sure...an absolutely legendary gig!
But what about those gigs that redefined alt-rock? Those concerts or shows that stand out as legendary for what came after them? The bands they inspired or the lasting legacy of that show on the audience?
Well we're going take a look at 8 of them and try to explain why they are so legendary in the history of alt-rock
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31:45
The 100 Greatest Rock Moments of the Millennium So Far - Part 10: (10-1)
People who study such things say that the human brain—this folded lump of mostly fat—has a pretty good hard drive…the average adult brain has a capacity of about 2.5 petabytes…put another way, that’s 2.5 million gigs…that’s a lot.
We’re talking personal memories, facts, academic education, learned behaviors, and muscle memory…there are also special places where things like musical memories and lyrics are stored.
Some memories remain rock solid, barring some kind of injury or illness…but because we’re always experiencing new things, we forget other stuff as new experiences crowd out the old stuff.
As a result, things fade…significant details about something can start to fade away within days—even hours or minutes, depending on circumstances surrounding that memory…some will become corrupted—which is why eyewitness accounts are often considered unreliable in court…and it’s not like we can download a backup of our memories—at least not yet.
This is why it’s a good idea to a little maintenance on the hard drives in our head…and that can be as simple as doing a refresh…how?...but stopping for a little history…a quick study on where we’ve been, what we’ve done, and what’s happened to us…think of it as pressing “F4” on a keyboard a bunch of times.
John Lennon said “life is what happens when you’re making other plans” …and the more time goes by, the more plans we might have made…inevitably, we forget some of life.
And that’s why if we want to know why things are the way they are—and where things may go in the future—we have to hit “F4” every once in a while.
This is such a program…it’s part ten of the 100 greatest rock moments of the millennium so far…how many of these things do you remember?...and have you even thought of them in this way?...let’s find out with moments 10 through number 1.
Songs in this episode:
The Strokes - Someday
Linkin Park - One Step Closer
Metallica - St. Anger
U2 - Vertigo
BoyWithYuke - Toxic
The Tragically Hip - Ahead By A Century (live)
Sum 41 - Over My Head (live)
Pocket Gods - Who Do I Have To Sleep With To Get On This Spotify Playlist?
U2 - Where The Streets Have No Name
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53:49
The 100 Greatest Rock Moments of the Millennium So Far - Part 9: (20-11)
We’ve been talking about life beyond earth for decades…and one of the best places to look (for starters) are the moons of Jupiter and Saturn…wouldn’t it be cool if we could land a probe on one of them to have a little look around? ...but that won’t happen for decades, right?
Wrong…it already happened…in 2005, the Huygens probe descended to the surface of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn…it was a monumental achievement in space exploration.
Oh…forgot that that one, huh? ...okay, let’s try another.
Anyone remember when an entire country went bankrupt? ...you would if you were from Iceland…in 2008, the entire Icelandic banking system collapsed forcing the nation to declare bankruptcy…but Iceland recovered by actually holding bankers accountable and initiating a series of financial reforms that are worth studying by other countries.
Don’t remember, huh?... One more.
What about the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010…it was the largest marine oil spill in history and cause an incredible amount of environmental and economic damage…they even made a movie about it along with a bunch of documentaries.
My point is that news and world events come at us so fast and from so many angles, they occupy all our attention for a hot minute…but then we either become overwhelmed, bored, or distracted by something else…we move on and forget—or bury the information deep.
I sometimes think we’re approaching the human limit of being able to process all the information that comes at us every second…and if we can’t do that, we can’t learn any lessons from the past, we can’t understand why we are where we are now, and we can’t even predict where we might go in the future.
That’s why it’s important for us to stop, look back and to see what happened…this is chapter 9 of “the 100 greatest rock moments of the 21st century—so far” .
Songs in this episode:
Moby - Porcelain
Chris Cornell - Nothing Compares To You
Linkin Park - In The End
The White Stripes - Blue Orchid
Thea Gilmore - Mainstream
U2 - Until The End Of The World (live)
Jack White - Lazaretto
Eagles of Death Metal - I Love You All The Time
Man With No Name - Teleport
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Ongoing History of New Music looks at things from the alt-rock universe to hip hop, from artist profiles to various thematic explorations. It is Canada’s most well known music documentary hosted by the legendary Alan Cross. Whatever the episode, you’re definitely going to learn something that you might not find anywhere else. Trust us on this.
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