WFMU's Beware of the Blog

10 Seconds from Every Top-100 Song Ever + A Free Cut-up Software!

1959 | 1960 | 1961 | 1962 | 1963 | 1964 | 1965 | 1966 | 1967 | 1968 | 1969 | 1970 | 1971 | 1972 | 1973 | 1974 | 1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 | 1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985 | 1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011

In 1959, Billboard began releasing their annual charts of the top 100 songs of each year.  Here are mp3s with 10 seconds of every single top 100 song ever.  Follow the lists along with the music on this site.  There are some errors here, so bear with me and do point out major imperfections in the comments.  If you've been following my column in the past, all of these mp3s are improved versions, with crossfades in between tracks and smarter choices of clips.

I produced these supercuts with a software that Frederic Cornu and I developed together.  Fred is a genius and I'm eternally grateful to him.  This software is VERY SIMPLE to use and 100% FREE.  It simply takes a music playlist of your choice (from iTunes or a similar program), finds the loudest point of each song and stitches all the songs together.  These supercuts are useful to condense information and I think they're totally beautiful too.

In a few minutes, you can easily make supercuts of your music collection, even if you are a luddite.  Download the file below, unzip the folder and click "Run Supercut-O-Matic"...there'll be a button to press in the program to give you further instructions.

UPDATE!  You can get improved versions of the Supercut-O-Matic at this link.  The new version gives you more options, such as changing the size of each clip, the crossfade, and more!

Download Supercut-O-Matic for Mac (2mb zip file)

Download Supercut-O-Matic for Windows (3mb zip file)

Source code for Linux

Once you've made your files, send them to me (contact info is provided in the program's helpme file) and I will release YOUR MUSIC on a CD!  Do you have a completist collection of yodeling music, blues singers, minimal-synth, presidential speeches or tuba solos?  Use Supercut-O-Matic and SEND ME THE RESULTS!  Please do contact me with any feedback.

"Supercuts Supercut", a CD with the best submissions I get, is available to anybody who pledges $75 or more to my radio show in the current WFMU fundraising marathon!  Use the widget below to pledge to the greatest radio station on the planet and help us broadcast for another year.  Also, if you pledge $30 or more to my show, I will remix a top 100 song of your choice LIVE on the air.

WFMU's 2012 Marathon begins next week!

WFMU's 2012 Marathon is approaching! Our annual on-air party throws down Feb 20th - Mar 4th.

Check out the new 2012 swag, featuring our Biker T-shirt designed by Lightning Bolt's Brian Chippendale (left), a truckload of new DJ Premiums, and more!

Pledge early to get our Vintage WFMU Pack or a Prize Account. Early pledgers also get first dibs on adopting a WFMU DJ or fixture!

Yo La Tengo will be playing cover song requests in exchange for pledges on Friday, March 2nd (9pm-mid) on Pseu Braun's show with co-host Gaylord Fields, and WFMU's Hoof & Mouth Sinfonia close out the Marathon on Sunday March 4th with drunken live band karaoke. Don't miss out on our biggest on-air bash of the year!

 

A Joy Division in Nazi Disneyland

Last week the web was wriggling with outrage over The Disney Store Corporation offering for sale a Mickey Mouse™ T-shirt in the graphic style of Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures albumcover -- not that the iconic white-on-black waveform image (plucked from the Cambidge Encyclopedia of Astronomy by drummer Stephen Morris) was any stranger to absurd marketing schemes.

 

Music Blogs React to Megaupload Seizure & Cyberlocker Lockdowns

The day after last week's inspiring protest against overreaching anti-piracy laws, the US Department of Justice demonstrated that they don't need those laws, anyway.  They just went ahead and unilaterally shut down Megaupload, the world's most popular cyberlocker.  Rumor has it that similar sites like MediaFire and 4shared are under investigation and have been deleting files, while FileSonic preemptively disabled all sharing features.

As a result, much of the history of recorded sound has been made inaccessible to the public.  I'm talking, of course, about the music blogosphere.  The best music blogs aren't pirates.  They are libraries, sound archivists and music preservationists sharing recordings that would not otherwise be available.  And now sites like Global Groove, Mutant Sounds, and Holy Warbles have lost large swaths of the material they'd salvaged from obscurity.

Glenn Beck / The Invisible Committee

Oldie but Goodie

Collaboration between Glenn Beck and The Invisible Committee

- - -

Glenn Beck lives and works in Dallas, TX

You can purchase The Coming Insurrection here

The Curse of Brando Island

The ghastly Spectres which were doomed at last
To tell as true a tale of dangers past, 
As ever the dark annals of the deep
Disclosed for man to dread or woman weep. 

-- The Island, Lord Byron

In 1960, while on a scouting journey for locations for Mutiny On The Bounty, Marlon Brando visits the atoll Tetiaroa and falls in love with the former home of Tahitian royalty. Two years later, Brando marries his second Mutiny co-star, Tarita Teriipia, who played his Polynesian wife in the film and purchases Tetiaroa for $200,000 with the intention of making it his home. Little did Brando know what his island paradise would bring he and his visitors, for in acting, one not only brings himself to a role, but the role can transform the actor's real personality, permenantly -- a most dangerous game for friends and family of the 'Godfather' and 'Colonel Kurtz'.

A Germs Whisky Christmas: Cruising For Oki-Dogs

December 23, 1979, Germs play the Masque Christmas Ball at Whisky-Au-Go-Go, performing what would be dubbed on-stage "art" by singer Darby Crash, self-proclaimed "Manimal" and possessor of "television and supervision," who read "every Bible story," and was educated in mind-control by public school Scientologists, an A+ hustler whose world-famous catchphrase was "buy me a beer" and whose demands for "beer and damage" do not go unheeded this night. Watch as Darby, spolight directly in his eyes, eats a lit book of matches, transforms into a panther, demands each audience member "hit the person next to you," sets fire to his (A+) lyrics (balls-on-fire-great teenage Blake) all before guitarist Pat Smear kicks a bouncer in the head (several times+) for crossing number one invisible line in rock n roll: the artists own the stage.

Megaupload's Star-Powered Music Video/Endorsement Won't Censor Itself

You know Megaupload. It's one of those sites you sometimes encounter en route to download stuff. Ads pop up, and you try to avoid purchasing a Premium account, even though if you'd just give in then your download would be done by now.

Megaupload is different from Rapidshare, Hulkshare, and other similar sites because they have this new song w/ video endorsements from P Diddy, Lil John (pictured), Will.i.am, Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Chris Brown, The Game, Mary J Blige, Kim Kardashian, Floyd Mayweather, Jamie Foxx, Russel Simmons...

 

It's a video that the participating artists' labels don't want you to see, because it doesn't fit with their depiction of Megaupload as a "rogue site". The RIAA and MPAA have already convinced Google to censor "Megaupload" searches, and if SOPA and Protect IP pass they'll banish megaupload from the web once and for all. Since this video seems to imply that some of the world's best selling musicians think differently, the major labels tried to censor it under the guise of a DMCA copyright infringement notice. They did not succeed. So go ahead and let the soothing sounds of this song-length mega-mercial wash over your brain, and/or check out the additional celebrity endorsements at Megaupload's website (which looks to have been purged clean in anticipation of this viral campaign).

Some of us may remember earlier incarnations of Megaupload with more obtrusive ads and general sleaziness. In fact, the site was founded by Kim "Dotcom" Schmitz, a notorious sleaze. After his convictions for credit card fraud, computer fraud, insider trading, and embezzlement, Dotcom procured a fake Finnish passport under the name "Kim Tim Jim Vestor" and took up shop in Hong Kong as director of several "Mega-" companies. These include not just Megaupload but also Megavideo, MegaLive, MegaPix, Megabox, and Megaporn.

Cyber Monday your ass over to the WFMU Store

Follow your materialistic instincts to the WFMU Store: new items just added!

From Radio Bear and Good Ship T-shirts to baseball caps to our shot glass or loaded dice, you're sure to find a great gift for the special weirdo in your life!

Orders placed by Dec 16th will arrive in time for Chrimbus. Consume!!!

 

Attention, Shoppers!

Good news this year as the Wal-Mart Shopping Season revved into high gear on the Friday after the Macy's Day Parade: Although there were plenty of police-on-shopper beatings, shopper-on-shopper violence, and in-store tramplings, at least no one died this year, as did Jdimytai Damour, a Wal-Mart temp employee, when he was trampled to death by a bargain-frenzied crowd in 2008.  (Well, actually, Walter Vance of Charleston, West Virginia, did die in a Target store this year, but that was from a heart attack and at least it didn’t impede any of the other shoppers, who just stepped over him and continued scooping up those half-price Cars 2 videos.)

Shopping: The Most Dangerous Sport is a relatively new phenomenon, but now Scientists and Financial Experts have an explanation: It’s just a manifestation of The New Prosperity! Yes, Americans—especially Americans without jobs—are rethinking their options, and redefining their values, such as the importance they’ve placed on things like food, clothing, and shelter. “Let’s get off this hedonic treadmill!” they cry, as they go to live in a cardboard box outside Penn Station. Scientists at the Ministry of Prosperity say that if we just redefine our terms, everything will be fine. Poverty is Prosperity! War is Peace! Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Who wouldn’t pepper-spray another person for the chance to buy a $2 waffle iron?

 

 

The Lambeth Walk and Its Permutations

The Atomization of The Image

May you live in meme-ingful times.

Gallery: "Casually Pepper-Spray Everything Cop" meme. Endless pics. (Well, as of last count, 502.)

This collection of images is noteworthy for a number of reasons. Let's get the obvious ones out of the way first — sort of clear the quad of the passive resisters, as it were:

1. Holy Hell! There must be a LOTTA people out of work, or slagging off while AT work! (Duh.)

2. Humans are creative things, once given a fun theme to riff on.

3. Humans demonstrate a persistent need to distance themselves from the heinous.

4. Gee, that cop's had his share of donuts.

5. Lotta art majors among the out-of-work creatives mashing photos up...

200 Public Service Announcement Videos

 

I have collected 200 Public Service Announcements into a playlist on youtube.  Everything from vintage to present, serious to silly, disturbing and nonsensical.   Drug abuse, sexual abuse, forest fires, littering, drinking and driving, texting while walking, bullying, farting, menstruation, and more.  Take a walk down memory lane or learn a thing or two along my little detour of the information superhighway.  It could make you delirious.

Downtown Soulville voted Best Radio Show by Village Voice

Congrats to WFMU's Mr. Fine Wine, whose Downtown Soulville radio show made it to the Village Voice's Best of 2011 list! Read all about it here.

You can catch Downtown Soulville every Friday, 8-9pm on WFMU, or subscribe to the podcast here. Mr. Fine Wine also DJs at Botanica in Manhattan every Wednesday night.

In other good press news, Tom Scharpling, host of the Best Show on WFMU, was profiled by Spin magazine, along with his partner in crime Jon Wurster. Tom will be on a panel at WFMU's RadioVision Festival on Saturday, Oct 29th, along with Ira Glass and Marc Maron (ticket info here).

And of course, let us not forget about DJ/Rupture, who landed on the cover of Wire magazine...

I must say this is a damned good week for your freeform radio pals!

We'll All Be Magick Supermen: The “Paul is Dead” Videos of Iamaphoney

The “Paul is Dead” hoax/conspiracy/legend/myth/mystery, certainly one one of the stranger tales in the annals of rock 'n' roll, only gets weirder as time goes by. Rumors that Beatle Paul McCartney died in 1966 in a car crash and replaced by a lookalike “William Campbell” began circulating amongst heads in the UK and US throughout the late sixties, culminating in October 1969 broadcasts from Detroit's WKNR and NYC's WABC detailing not only the myth but also the “clues” left in Beatles album art, lyrics and proto-heavy-metal “backmasking.” There's the famous “I buried Paul” lyric from “Strawberry Fields Forever,” the “funeral march” depicted on the cover of Abbey Road, “Revolution #9” played backwards repeating “Wake me up dead man,” not to mention basic confusion over who and what “The Walrus” represents.

Shock & Awetober Listener Meet-Ups

Shock & Awetober continues on WFMU! Tune in for amazing special programs this month and don't miss out on our many social activities. We've got tons of listener meet-ups lined up, and hope you'll join us for some extracirricular fun:

Tuesday, Oct 11th - Jersey City Barcade Night
Get your beer on at Barcade in Jersey City (163 Newark Ave) with Beer Hear! hosts Bob W. and B.R. (4-9pm). Make new friends (or enemies) over Frogger or Asteroids! Barcade is generously donating all tips from the evening to WFMU, so drink up! info/RSVP

Tuesday, Oct 18th - Aerial View Beer Pull
Join Chris T. and WFMU's resident Beer Baron Scott Williams (6 PM) at Pilsener Haus & Biergarten in Hoboken (1422 Grand Street) for a LIVE Aerial View Beer Pull and WFMU listener meet-up. Use the secret word LIEBERSTRAUM during the broadcast to buy one beer and get one free! Auf wiedersehn! info/RSVP

ALSO Tuesday, Oct 18th - Shut Up, Weirdo! Meet-Up
Come have an awkward drink with Andy, Frangry, and the rest of the weirdos at the first ever Shut Up, Weirdo Meet-Up (Luca Lounge, 222 Ave B, Manhattan)! There won't be any games or cotton candy, just some booze and a whole lot of regret. info/RSVP

Thursday, Oct 20th - WFMU Rock Jock Listener Meet-Up
Come down to Maxwell's in Hoboken to celebrate WFMU's Rocktober festivities (7-9 PM)! WFMU DJs Terre T, Joe Belock, Evan "Funk" Davies, Gaylord Fields, Mike Sin and the one and only Todd-O-Phonic Todd will be in the house, and you can expect free food and drink specials! info/RSVP

Friday, Oct 21st - Underwater Theme Park Happy Hour
Join Underwater Theme Park host Meghan at Full Circle Bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (318 Grand St), for free skee ball, extensive happy hour specials, and good times (7-9pm). info/RSVP

Tuesday, Oct 25th - Thunk Tank Trick-or-Treat Meet-Up
Join Bronwyn, Jay, and Thunkers galore at Jo's, 264 Elizabeth St., NYC  for a live remote broadcast and scary story hour featuring readings by DJ's Amanda Nazario, Kurt Gottschalk, Bronwyn C., and Jay B. (6–9 PM, live broadcast from 7–8). There'll be treat bags o' swag for all, and Jo's will introduce the Thunk Tank Signature Cocktail! Costumes, masks, and furry outfits encouraged, because you gotta dress up to be on the radio! info/RSVP

ALSO Tuesday, Oct 25th - Antique Phonograph Music Program Live Broadcast
The Antique Phonograph Music Program will be hosting a listener meet-up and broadcasting LIVE from 7-9pm at The City Reliquary Museum in Brooklyn (370 Metropolitan Ave). Join MAC, his phonographs, and cheap beer for this gathering including records highlighting New York and other disc delights. info/RSVP

 

Shock & Awetober on WFMU!

Shock & Awetober is in effect on WFMU!

We've got tons of live guests and listener meet-ups, plus Singles Going Steady Week, our annual Record Fair, and WFMU's first-ever RadioVision Festival all happening in October (full event listing here).

It's 31 days of raucous fun on top of a month of stealth fundraising (online/mail-only): make a pledge and snag our new "Radio Es Amor" T-shirt (below) or our Sun Ra remix CD (left).

This Fall, we're experimenting with silent fundraising, with hopes that it will be successful enough to prevent us from needing to fundraise over the air more than once a year.

We encourage you to pledge to specific radio shows on WFMU to help your favorite DJs reach their individual goals by Oct 31st.

We hope to hear from you!

 

 

WFMU at the Atlantic Antic this Sunday

Hello Brooklyn! WFMU will be holding court at the Atlantic Antic street fair this Sunday, October 2nd, Noon-6pm.

Your favorite freeform station will be parked between Clinton and Henry Streets on the south side of Atlantic Avenue (closer to Henry) in Brooklyn, where we'll be hawking swag, exchanging high-fives with listeners, and stocking up on mozzarepa tubesocks.

Stop by the WFMU tent to say hi!

Try to Remember the Days of September

  

I skipped all the coverage of the 9/11 commemorations today. The message seems to be “Never forget,” but what is it that we’re supposed to remember?

I remember 9/11 very well: the immediate realization, when the second plane hit, that this was no accident, the WTF moment when we heard the Pentagon was burning. I remember trying to get to WFMU to do my first show afterwards, and being turned back by NJ State Patrol officers until I figured out an alternate way into Jersey City. I remember insisting that Sluggo and Dog Baxter go with me to the station, because I did not want to be separated from them again … just in case. I don’t remember exactly what I said on that first show, but I know that one longtime Listener was so upset by it that I had the archive deleted. So now I never will know for sure, but I can’t imagine I expressed anything except bewilderment and deep anxiety. 

I remember seeing TV news reports—with video—of the small plane coming from the west, hitting the west side of the second tower, the man with the British accent describing it to the female reporter as a small plane, like a Piper Cherokee or Dakota. I haven’t looked for that footage on the 9/11 Television News Archive because I suspect it’s not there.

Like the TV archive, lots of information is suddenly appearing on this 10th Anniversary: the Marine Major who was in the command bunker under the White House when Robotic Lord Vice-President Cheney gave the order to shoot down Flight 93. (But then the passengers crashed the plane, so they didn’t have to shoot it down after all. >Whew!<) The “eyewitness video of the Flight 93 crash site,” released only now that the anonymous videographer has died—shot from a hilltop 15 miles away and showing some smoke on the other side of faraway trees. The audio of all but a big missing 30-minute chunk of FAA and NORAD recordings made that morning. The FBI explaining that they simply forgot to tell anyone about the wealthy Saudi family who, shortly before 9/11, disappeared without a trace, leaving their luxury home and all their luxury belongings—except for a computer and the contents of a safe— after meetings with Mohammad Atta. Do you remember how no airplanes were allowed to fly for days after the attacks? Do you remember reports that President Bush made an exception for a planeload of wealthy Saudis who wanted to return home? Because I do. I remember that.

We are supposed to Never Forget, but there are also things we are never supposed to remember. The former “Freedom Tower” is now “One World Trade Center” because, says Chris Ward, director of the Port Authority, the name Freedom Tower would be likely to recall “painful memories of the 9/11 attacks.” So, never forget that we were attacked, but just make sure you remember those events in a way that’s not, you know, in any way uncomfortable for you. The Port Authority and Mayor Bloomberg are working hard to “rebrand” Ground Zero. It’s the World Trade Center now—and don’t you forget it. 

The Cerberus of September from David Zung on Vimeo.

 Thanks for reading my blogpost this time, and may God bless.

 

It Takes a Nation of Billions - Adam Curtis' The Century Of The Self

By Scott Tienken

Watch more on Network Awesome (Plus the other 3 parts of this doc!)

Adam Curtis’ 2003 Documentary The Century of the Self  gets right to the business of reminding us what a mass of consumeristic sheep we have been molded into.

He provides us with the story of Edward Bernays(1), the nephew of Freud who adapted his uncle’s theories concerning animalistic drives and deeply-sunken baser motives for the purposes of propaganda and, far more pervasively, advertising and politics. We are relentlessly reminded of our tendency toward self-interest, vile competitiveness, shallowness, and weak-minded caprice.

This is not unfamiliar territory in that we’ve been reminded of our tendencies towards conformity, self-gratification, and egoistic drives well before Freudianism put the whammy on our way of thinking about ourselves. What makes this a very valuable document is that the level of conversation is a bit more