I know I posted this to twitter already and my private facebook page but for those of you who missed it I favorited a new video on youtube by @AirtoEdmundo… Another really good artist I found on twitter/youtube singing one of my favorite songs. He’s got quite a few video’s produced on his channel and I think he’s definitely got talent. Hopefully someone in NY see’s him.

It’s Wednesday already and I haven’t written much this week because of all the projects on my plate so I’m posting  a video.

I grew up on Whitney Houston and she had some inspirational music. Now I’m just reminding myself of her work and to take it “Step by Step”, “Day by Day”.

I find that Wednesday’s are the toughest day of the week for me. Half the week is gone, half the week is left. This is grind time, time to keep pushing forward towards your goals. This is not the time to slow down or give up.

So my advice for you is “Don’t give up“! Keep on moving forward, don’t ever stop in your pursuit of happiness. Don’t let the bad days get to you.

Wishing everyone a Happy Wednesday!

This is an obvious choice for a mashup– two of the greatest entertainers writing songs about their favorite city. And as a big Jay Z fan and Billy Joel fan I just had to share this:

Credit goes to Loveandlogicrock’s youtube channel. They’ve got some great stuff going on. Great Start to the Weekend! :)

I have discussed here before how fast media and technology are all evolving at a rate most people over a certain age have trouble keeping up with. Music artists today use new technologies in their music and new tools to interact with their fans than artists had available to them 25 years ago.  ”We Are The World 25” is a perfect compare and contrast to the original “We Are The World“. As someone who was around for the original, I felt this version was very well put together.

Let me do a little comparing and contrasting:

I was a young lad in Jr High when the first “We Are The World” came out and it was big! I had to take the bus to the mall, run to Sam Goody located in the basement and buy it with cash from my birthday money. No gift cards yet. I purchased the state of the art cassette. It was small, portable and went right into my trusty Sony Sports Walkman, all state of the art at the time. Nothing but the best. I then went home and made copies for everybody, LEGALLY! ;) This would take me most of the day.

Fast forward 25 years later. To purchase “We Are The World” this time around I opened up iTunes on my iPhone, went to the top sellers list, touched “buy” next to the “We Are The World” song, typed in my password and the song is on my phone about 30 seconds later. Progress is good! :)

It’s a great song for a great cause and I was familiar with every artist, old and new, but I have heard many of my colleagues say the song should not have been redone. It’s a classic. Why are these artists there? Who are these singers? Why did that kid get to sing the opener?

“Thanks to those who made me feel old“. I couldn’t possibly type out the answers to all these questions but I did find the choice of the opening solo and the closing solo’s interesting.

Let me start by saying I have discussed this kid, Justin Bieber, in the past. He did the opening solo. He is huge and if your not on twitter you might not ever know how big he really is. He could very well be bigger than Micheal Jackson as he will be able to reach more people via today’s technology. He’s the first true musical talent found on YouTube and who actively uses twitter. And, yes, I do believe he has actual talent that will continue to grow. This is a great choice for an opening solo as it grabs the attention of probably every tween and teen in the world and that was the goal of this song, to reach a new generation.

As for the closing solo, T-Pain, Mr Auto-Tune, who is the very last artist to perform before LL Cool J breaks out the rap portion, is a very interesting, controversial choice which kinda makes some sense. Does he have any actual talent? We may never know but he does sound good auto-tuned. This is “his” unique brand.  I have discussed auto-tune in the past in case your not sure what it is. As the first artist to auto-tune everything he has produced he is the original auto-tuned artist and all others will be followers. T-Pain even has an iPhone app which I have bought and had tremendous fun with. Alas, Even auto-tune can’t help my voice. ;) Maybe one day T-Pain will be considered the “Godfather of Auto-Tuned” or some other original title. For this reason alone he will be cemented in music history. He took a risk and the risk paid off despite all the criticism to the contrary.

So technology has really had an impact on the music industry. 25 years ago Justin Bieber and T-Pain probably never would have been able to launch careers. New technologies open up new opportunities.

One more compare and contrast: I also remember crowding around the TV, waiting for MTV to air the original video. Now I’m really laughing (LOL’ing) because we would never had thought about recording the video to watch over and over on our VCR’s but now you can watch the video anytime you want on YouTube. You can watch it anytime on your smartphone, or if your like me, your iPhone. You can even watch it here ;)

I could go on and on about all the differences between the two versions but I do like to keep my postings short. I highly recommend the new version and felt it was a credit to the original version I grew up with. Go out and buy it and remember, it’s all for a good cause.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day! The newest love song by Justin Bieber! What!?! Who is the kid?!? Looks like the kid we would have all been giving constant wedgies to. Whatever… He has talent, the music industry is making a ton of money off of him and rappers love to take him under their wing. A pint sized Vanilla Ice who can actually sing.

Yes, It’s actually a love song, folks, out just in time to grab money from your kids wallets. Let’s just see how long he sticks to the Bubble Gum pop. He is 15…

In this video clip you’ll see a lot of throwbacks to the the 80′s, some of the styles, lot’s of bright colors, the breakdancing, the tribute to Micheal Jackson… but with this new artist comes a new twist. The Bieber fans are huge on twitter (over a million and growing) and the mere mention of your name by the ‘Bieber” could make you a trending topic too. Recently Bieber mentioned Chuck Norris and the Bieber Nation immediately made it a trending topic. Gotta love technology.

Yes, Bieber is the FIRST pure twitter star who was found on YouTube and talks directly to his fans via twitter. He’s blazed a trail for other artists.  His Kingdom is on the internet, the sky is the limit and the girls love him! All just in time for Valentine’s Day.

via [Dipdive] iamwill » Media » A Dream.

Just because I thought this was so appropriate for Martin Luther King Day.

I thought I’d have a little fun with a site redesign and make the site much easier to load and easier for me to update. The last theme I used just had too much going on. New Year, New Theme, Same purpose. To expand my website development skills and Go Forward in my quest as a lifelong learner.

Today I thought I would get this song out of my head and introduce you to something different. I did favorite this song on my YouTube channel but thought I’d also post it. The beat is catchy, so are the lyrics. The video is very clever and well put together. As for actual musical talent… that’s debatable.

Music video by The Ting Tings performing Shut Up and Let Me Go. (c) 2008 Sony BMG Music Entertainment (UK) Limited

I usually have a pretty good ear for music and the video does have over 11 million views. What do you think?

I can sing! Thanks to Auto-Tune technology. Of course if your in the music industry you already know all about Auto-Tune and most likely use it yourself. For the rest of us, here is Auto-Tune 101, actually found this video in my list of subscriptions emailed to me this week and found this video to be incredibly informative.  So much so that I purchased the “I am T-Pain” iPhone app to play with.

The Rocketboom Institute for Internet Studies examines the phenomenon of Auto-Tune with help from special guest Professor “Weird Al” Yankovic!

The “I am T-Pain” Auto-Tune iPhone app is $2.99 and for that price you can’t beat it. Especially if you can’t afford to purchase the full blown Auto-Tune software.

Just do a search for “T-Pain” in the iPhone app store. That’s it! A great toy for the Holidays!

I’m actually testing out WordPress 2 in this posting as an upgrade over the original iPhone WordPress app.

And here are my most recent purchases I’ve made off the iPhone in recent days:

“Amazing song, Amazing video!” Just another great release by the Black Eyed peas! Their official YouTube Channel is here:

Help! I can’t get it out of my head! It’s too catchy! :) Love the Black Eyed Peas!