blogowinn

30 Day Song Challenge – Day 24: A Song I Want Played At My Funeral

owinn — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 11:36:17 +0000

I’m playing catch up again so here’s one more. Actually it’s two more.

When I’m cremated I want to start with a bit of sombre music as I’m going in

A Song I Want Played At My Funeral – The Day The World Went Away (Quiet) – Nine Inch Nails

and then when the curtains go down and the flame is lit…

Song 2 – Blur

lol

-owinn

30 Day Song Challenge – Day 23: A Song I Want To Play At My Wedding

owinn — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 11:03:25 +0000

Okay, this is easy since I’m getting married next year to the lovely Claire. The song below is for our first dance and YES it is a bit corny but HAY, it’s a friggin wedding and also this song was sung at the first gig we both went to together…

A Song I Want To Play At My Wedding : Fields of Gold – Sting

err… sorry wrong video, try this one :p

-owinn

30 Day Song Challenge – Day 22 : A Song I Listen to When I’m Sad

owinn — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 21:31:30 +0000

It may seem like an odd choice until you listen to the lyrics… or read them (provided below)

A Song I Listen to When I’m Sad : Manic Street Preachers – Australia

Lyrics:
I don’t know if I’m tired and I don’t know if I’m ill
My cheeks are turning yellow
I think I’ll take another pill

Praying for the wave to come now
It must be for the fifteenth time
I’ve been here for much too long
This is the past that’s mine

I want to fly and run till it hurts
Sleep for a while and speak no words in Australia
I want to fly and run till it hurts
Sleep for a while and speak no words in Australia
In Australia

Praying for the wave to come now
It must be for the very last time
It’s twelve o’clock till midnight
There must be someone to blame

I want to fly and run till it hurts
Sleep for a while and speak no words in Australia
I want to fly and run till it hurts
Sleep for a while and speak no words in Australia
In Australia

Australia, in Australia
I want to fly and run till it hurts
Sleep for a while and speak no words in Australia
In Australia
In Australia
In Australia

30 Day Song Challenge- Day 21: A Song I Listen to When I’m Happy

owinn — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 21:20:09 +0000

Always when I’m in a good old summery mood

A Song I Listen to When I’m Happy: Levellers – What a Beautiful Day

-owinn

30 Day Song Challenge – Day 20 : A song I listen to when I’m angry

owinn — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 12:29:14 +0000

Last one for today – Still haven’t got out of the habit of listening to loud, angry music when I’m mad instead of, you know, calming myself down with some Ministry of Sound chillout sessions…

So instead I listen to typically angry songs, by angry young men about being an angry kind of fella

So without further ado:

A song I listen to when I’m angry – Nine Inch Nails : Last

raargh

-owinn

30 Day Song Challenge – Day 19: A Song From My Favourite Album

owinn — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 11:49:12 +0000

Playing song challenge catch up today while it’s raining… I’ve recently been looking at all my favourite albums to see which is the definitive fave out of them. It’s a difficult task and contenders have included The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails, Mezzanine by Massive Attack, Six by Mansun and Deltron 3030 by Del The Funkee Homosapien… but the winner is Everything Must Go by Manic Street Preachers. This is an album I never tire of, full of songs that have inspired me, lifted me up when times were hard and generally does exactly what music should do to a person. Here’s a track from the album:

A song from my favourite album – The Girl Who Wanted to be God : Manic Street Preachers

-owinn

30 Day Song Challenge – Day 18: A Song I Wish I Heard on the Radio

owinn — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 11:29:57 +0000

I take it this part of the challenge is about songs you wish you heard on the radio more than you currently do? In that case – catchy hooks, beats and steel drums? It can only be

A song I wish I heard on the radio: Does It Offend You, Yeah? – Dawn of The Dead

-owinn

30 Day Song Challenge – Day 17: A Song that I hear often on the radio

owinn — Mon, 30 May 2011 11:32:28 +0000

So many to choose from but we have a winner, a song that appears to play on a permanent loop on some radio stations here in London:

A song I hear often on the radio :What’s My Name? – Rihanna

-owinn

Gaming isn’t the same word from the 80s

owinn — Sat, 28 May 2011 20:36:00 +0000

Hahahaha Pong

Even though it’s spelled suspiciously the same way as its younger self, gaming has grown up, got a hair cut and has got a brand new job. Whereas my fondest memories as a gamer have been finding all 98 levels in Super Mario World and punching my brothers in the arm for beating me at Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat, the next generation of gamers will more likely reminisce on how big their Farmville farm was and how many levels of Angry Birds they got through on their smart phone. Companies such as Microsoft or Nintendo would label me as a ‘Core Gamer’, one who grew up playing games almost every day of his life since the 80′s or 90′s and have followed the evolution of their favourite titles all the way into another century. We’re dinosaurs who enjoy games for their storytelling and skill.

Games took on the epic tales told by movies and books. These day movies are looking to games for inspiration.

In the movie Clueless there is a great line during a classroom scene where one of the students parts with a valuable piece of insight “the way I feel about the Rolling Stones is the way my kids are going to feel about Nine Inch Nails, so I really shouldn’t torment my Mom anymore, huh?” which is a great way of looking at gaming today – gaming has evolved and the new generation of gamers are going to look at the titles we are so fond of and ask “what’s so good about this game Final Fantasy VII?” You just sit there twiddling your thumbs and all you get out of it is 72 hours of time wasted that you could have been enjoying your life with.

This is what mobile gaming used to look like.

Gaming functionality has gone from sitting on your backside either clicking a mouse or moving your thumb on a joypad on your own to becoming a more social and mobile pastime. It’s also become an advertising and marketing dream come true – while the movie industry has its product placement and endorsements it looks on with green eyes at the £65 billion gaming industry which is thriving on micropayments made through their online services such as Xbox Live and Playstation Network. Motor racing games such as Forza and Gran Turismo contain a plethora of adverts and vehicle sponsorships and cars from well-known manufacturers, add to this the ability to buy new cars online and even hold auctions for new cars and car parts from real brands it’s not difficult to see how commerce is alive and well inside this ingeniously designed virtual world.

Micropayments made on consoles online services more than make up for the massive losses the console hardware makes.

The future of gaming, though, is in Alternative Reality Gaming (ARG) and Augmented Reality (AR). Life becomes a game and even now real prizes are being rewarded for the efforts of dedicated ARG gamers – a perfect example is that of the ARG for the afore mentioned band Nine Inch Nails and their album Year Zero. It shows how the modern definition of gaming now means that other media, be it film, tv and music can engage an audience in ways that are both rewarding and innovative. The Year Zero case study can be found here and I would urge anyone to take a look if they are interested in how gaming is spreading into new audiences and how it can be used to attract audiences to new products. This ARG started in 2007 and with others such as Halo 2′s I Love Bees and The Dark Knight they examples of how ARGs got fans out of their chairs and running off on scavenger hunts to get early glimpses of these products while living the product and creating a much larger buzz than would have accompanied a press release or trailer.

I Am Trying To Believe - NIN's Year Zero ARG lead to mysterious websites from our future detailing conspiracies to drug the US water supply to control citizens, giant hands decending from the sky, flash drives hidden in concerts, billboards found in Brixton in London, codes on t-shirts and even playing songs through a spectrograph lead to clues for the game. Eventually culminating in an exclusive secret gig. The buzz around the album was phenomenal.

ARGs have been successful with their niche audiences but it is only now that these kind of real life gaming experiences are becoming mainstream with more brands starting to embrace the buzz created around Alternate Reality Gaming, taking their events out of the homes and into the streets and this is where AR and mobile technology is going to play a big part in what at the end of the day is going to be scavenger hunt style events with real prizes related to check-ins, QR codes, AR codes and social interaction via sites such as Twitter and Facebook. The recently launched Nintendo 3Ds looks innocent enough at the moment but its advanced AR features, it’s improved connectivity, its Street Pass features and it rewards for interacting with others and prizes for actually walking using a pedometer appears to be a package perfectly suited to bringing the ARG technology home.

The applications for Augmented Reality apps on mobile devices are plentiful - coupled with geotagging the future of social gaming is out in the street.

As for Nintendo’s new as yet to be revealed console’s code name ‘Project Cafe’, it hints at a lively social environment and with rumours that the new Nintendo console will now be able to be taken out of the home and on the road with you in a pinch, it will be very interesting to see exactly how Nintendo will capitalise on being an early adopter of social, mobile and AR technology in the home console arena. What we do know is that Nintendo are going to be spending more on marketing and advertising than ever before and if the success of the Wii has anything to go by I would place my bets on Nintendo blowing a hole in the gaming market and revolutionising it further than it’s ever gone before in 2012.

Nintendo's Street Pass is already rewarding players for getting out of the house and meeting people. How this facility can be used in unique ways is yet to be seen.

That said, you can’t beat a good game of Tetris now, can you?

-owinn

30 Day Song Challenge – Day 16: A song I used to love and now hate

owinn — Sat, 28 May 2011 16:54:11 +0000

This is a prime example how a band rises to notoriety on the back of a cover version of a song that held a lot of fond memories for them and for others and then got so over-played on the radio or in advertisements or on Sky sports or some such shit that it lost all meaning and became more like the musical equivalent of Chinese water torture. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Lungs when it was first released and I wish Flo all the success in the world, but this culture of ramming songs down one’s throat until they are forced to believe it is the best song ever really pisses me off. Elbow gets second place for One Day Like This

So without further ado,

A song I used to love and now hate: Florence and The Machine – You’ve Got The Love

-owinn