The Daily Spread

A collection of thoughts on music, culture, and advertising from the fine folks at Butter music and sound

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Hot Coffee, Buttered

Butter Music + Sound, covering all of your butter related news. In today's addition: Butter Coffee.

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The Sound of Noise

This is a neat track written by French Wikidrummer Julien Audigier. It's a pretty standard groove but what he does with his environment is what makes this piece really stand out.

It reminds me of a foreign movie that I saw back in 2010 called the Sound of Noise. The tracks in the movie are a little more slick than Julien's organic piece but it's still an interesting take on old sound and our musical atmosphere.

(via The Daily Dot)

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Deciding to be Grumpy about Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" Official Video

The people around Bob Dylan have released what appears to be the official music video of his classic song "Like a Rolling Stone." It's a pretty neat technical feat and we here at Butter love interactive videos and have even posted about them before.

However I can't help but feel grumpy about it. Here is why I'm grumpy:

Bob Dylan is no where to be seen except in an old clip of him from 1966 playing the song with the Hawks. No interviews with him, just the CEO of Interlude.

No - I will not watch Duck Dynasty, thank you very much bearded dudes on the History Channel.

Each video on it's own is impossible to watch, boring and terrible.

Did I mention that its weird that Bob Dylan had nothing to do with this? No cameo other than old footage? No Bob Dylan in the background of that shitty tennis match?

Ultimately what are they trying to accomplish? The attempt at an artistic statement is made in this way: "I'm using the medium of television to look back right at us... you're flipping yourself to death with switching channels [in real life]."

Seems cheesy enough and entirely original... sure but it seems they missed even that cheap shot at our for good-or-ill saturated pop-culture. Interlude's final product implies that our televised mosaic is something to indulge in, not mediate. The participation of Pawn Stars, The Price is Right, and Property Brothers wouldn't be the case if it was about moderation! These throwaway shows are built entirely around a production philosophy that encourages easily and voraciously consumed packets of disposable viewings.

Do I believe "Like a Rolling Stone" deserves better? Not really, I'll love the song no matter what. Do I believe that we deserve better. Yes.

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Jimmy Page wanted to be a Biologist

Over on Open Culture they have a retro video of Jimmy Page playing skiffle with a skiffle band. It's pretty tight, but the best part might be that Jimmy Page proudly announces that he wants to be biologist when he grows up and declares he doesn't have the brains to be a doctor. Good luck with that Jimmy Page.

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Butter Mayor

It is no secret that we love Butter here. You could say that our veins run thick with the stuff. When we saw that Darigold and Wexley's School for Girls created Butter Likenesses of the Seattle Mayoral Candidates we just couldn't wait to share with ya'll!

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Morrissey Gets A Job

Morrissey Gets a Job is ancient in internet years but honestly nothing makes me happier than the The Pope of Mope and how well his most sardonic lyrics translate to the most common of workplace scenario.

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"Don't Let Me Down (Acapella)" as Performed by John Lennon

John Lennon's isolated vocal track in "Don't Let Me Down" is almost too intense of a listening experience, especially in context of the Beatles' imminent demise. Open Culture has more about the miasma surrounding the Beatles' recording of "Don't Let Me Down" along with an amazing quote from Paul McCartney.

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Grantland's Battle for the Best Song of the Millennium

I was arguing with my friend about subjectivity v. objectivity once. I'm not well read in the philosophy of either, but as I understand it these throughly entrenched ideas find themselves as odds. So my friend and I discussed the revolt against empirical style of philosophy for this relativist style. This was before I heard Chomsky criticize Foucalt. I said something to the effect of: "Maybe whatever is true is both objectively and subjectively so." Which is ridiculous, but not really:

Enter Grantland's Battle for the Best Song of the Millennium.

This bracket competition is incompetently neither but it points to a day when we might all come to understand ourselves and others better in context of a delightfully machinelike world.

I hope ya'll enjoy voting and learning a little more about yourself.

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Dolly Parton's Jolene as Performed by Slow Ass Dolly Parton

Whereas the original has a frenetic and desperate energy, this version feels haunting and deliberate, reserved even. Could be the painstakingly written lyrics... or most likely that Dolly sounds a little like Cher.

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Dancing Your Youth

Ever wanted to dance? But where? How?

Skymear.

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Patrick Rondat's Vivaldi Tribute as Performed by a Bored Teenager

She is Tina S. Some where along the way she face-melted her last name away.

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Friday Playlist: Summer Jams

Hey ya'll! We love the summer jams - u don't e'en know. You only live right now and in the present time. We've been hitting the hotter months with the spins you'll hear on our Summer Jams playlist at the link below.

Friday Playlist: Summer Jams

Sure we'll hate them next year and then we'll appreciate them again in 2020. We'll all have kids and stuff then and you'll get all nostalgic and that wry smile'll come to your lips. Looper.

If you don't want to think about it go and watch Hard Ticket to Hawaii ironically instead.

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The very cool SAVAGES has allowed a very uncool typographical blunder on its LP cover: Helvetica Narrow (weight loss is the worst thing that can happen to an iconic font, aka iOS 6). Also can we talk about the weird italics (unnecessary affectation, and very un-British), cramped leading (totally unforgivable) and unnecessary line break? Who the Fraggle designed this?

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On Spotify v. Radiohead

I've been moderately interested in the recent kerfuffle between Thom Yorke, Nigel Godrich and the Spotify Public Relations Dept that's been simmering for the last few days. Artist griping is nothing new (and almost always justified) and Radiohead in particular is crotchety and ornery with the man, man, but this particular injustice and Yorke's dissent has the potential to bubble over.

I sure hope it does and in an effective way.

We should wholeheartedly support Spotify and the service they're providing. Spotify is a powerful tool not only to discover music, but to fall in love with music. Not only have I discovered bands like Lotus Plaza, but I've been able to dwell within the music in a way that is fulfilling for myself and, I'd like to imagine, the band. I downloaded their album to my phone and listen to their album Spooky Action at a Distance in full using Spotify. Spotify revolutionizes streaming because the artists' vision is complete and whole in format.

So what is the problem?

Spotify is prey to the same obligatory greed that is prevalent in the system at large. Here is a good site to start learning: http://inequality.is/real. Yorke called the pattern of rising production quality and stagnant wages the "old rope" and we've been hanged by it for a while now. Health insurance is another way to illustrate how the system is broken. As less people buy into the system the more expensive music tends to get. Except instead of driving the costs up for the people that actually buy in, the burden ultimately rests on the artists.

I'd probably pay $15-$20 bucks a month for a subscription to Spotify and I don't know how ridiculous the money'd have to be for me to get frustrated.

Finally, Yorke should relax on Spotify and take the fight to the hegemonic structures at play in music, business and beyond. Let's work with Spotify to change the distribution patterns. I don't get the vibe from Spotify that they've anything except their arms tied behind their backs. I'd recommend reading responses like this one from John Paul Titlow over at FastCoLabs. He gives some practical ways that Spotify can get on the musicians' side while taking the long-term strategy of building and mending relationships within the music industry. It is not so much about destroying the old rope, which is how we talked about these things in 2008 or so, but renewing and redeeming the elements within and without the industry for a more holistic listening and creating experience.

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Ultimate Johnny Galecki Fan Video

tl;dr - I can't post anything without getting on my soapbox and please enjoy the Ultimate Johnny Galecki Fan Video.

l;r - Sometimes a video, a viral video, comes along that sits above the meme-ified white noise. It might be a inexpensive, unassuming little edit or an epic and mindbendingly surreal piece, as handing over the reigns of production and post-production to a wider berth of creative types has stretched our perceptions of what can and is funny.

Take the video above - it has an audio-visual dissonance and wry humor in what you see and hear beyond what you get in a typical lyric or celebrity sings the fill-in-the-blank music video. Instead of getting a been there done that feel, the above video brings meaning and insight to two things that had very little meaning to before I watched it.

Because, for me and maybe tunz others, Get Lucky is a subpar Daft Punk* song and Galecki is a subpar actor on a subpar television show. Allows me to enjoy this video so much - and perhaps that's why totallyjk (Joe Mande) made it.

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Lou Reed on Yeezus

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Now Yeezus might be by far Kanye West's worst - according to some anonymous sources (not me) about the Butter Music and Sound studio - but how can you not love an album when Lou Reed tells you so?

Classic Lou Reed - he showers West's newest album with praise and states that maybe West should murder Taylor Swift along the way?

Not gonna lie - this is my favorite Lou Reed related thing since this happened.

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We Won Gold!

Check it out! We won Radio Gold at Cannes this year for our work on Ragu with Barton F Graf 9000! We are beyond honored to be part of such a fun and creative campaign.