Bi-Weekly-ish newsletter #32 w/ Squarespace's Singularity ⚡🕳️ , Levi's👖, Burt Bacharach🎵🎹🎤, David Guetta🎧 , Andrew Yang ∑ ∏ √, and Grauzone🌫️ !
Dear reader!
Edition number 32 here of the bi-weekly-ish newsletter by me, Marcel Alexander Wiebenga. This time on a Sunday.
Please do enjoy this curated collection of mystical music, terrifically terrifying tech, and monstrous media-related newsworthy items.
Marcel
1. Squarespace's Singularity Sparks a Super Sassy Super Bowl Spot
Watch Squarespace and Adam Driver Go to Infinity and Beyond
It's Super Bowl time. AKA, the time of year when insane budgets are being spent on famous people to appear in commercials. Squarespace's "Singularity," featuring heartthrob Adam Driver in a journey for truth, the absolute truth, and nothing but the truth, around a website that makes websites, is no exception and a great example to watch.
The in-game spot recognizes Squarespace's history as a pioneer in website building. In the campaign, Adam Driver, playing multiple versions of himself, is struck by the idea that Squarespace is a website that makes websites. As he follows that line of thinking down the rabbit hole, reality begins to unravel, triggering a singularity event.
The spot provides a moment of fun and is true to form for Squarespace in its willingness to stand out with quirky humor and high-quality cinematic execution. There is also funny behind-the-scenes footage right here.
2. I Am Blue - Da Ba Dee Da Ba Di
Levi's Continues its Music Tradition in new Commercial Series
This year marks a milestone in fashion history with the 150th anniversary of Levi's 501 Jeans. These iconic blue pants have served as the blueprint (pun intended!) for all other jeans and have been worn by a diverse range of trailblazers, game-changers, visionaries, and normal people for a decade and a half.
Levi's has also been the trailblazer brand that used music to its full potential. BBH's founder Sir John Hegarty, in the 80s, 90s and 00's responsible for all Levi's campaigns, once famously stated: "You can't change the clothes. So we used the communication as a way of saying: we're discovering music; we're ahead of fashion."
It's excellent that Levi's continues this tradition with music in a series of new commercials created by Droga 5. One of the commercials is titled "One Influential Island in the Greatest Story Ever Worn" and features the music of Toots and The Maytals'.
3. Burt Bacharach is no More.
Bu(r)t His Timeless Melodies Live on
Burt Bacharach, arguably one of the most influential songwriters in the history of humankind, died last week at the ripe age of 94. Bacharach was born in 1928 in Kansas City, Missouri. He grew up in New York City, where he began his career as a pianist and arranger before becoming a songsmith of copious amounts of compositions, by some described as "unlistenably easy-listening" by others, like yours truly, as “pure genius”.
As a songwriter, Bacharach became a multiple Grammy- and Oscar-winner as he penned timeless tracks like "What the World Needs Now Is Love," "Walk on By," "I Say a Little Prayer," “Alfie” and "What’s New Pussycat." A section of elegant melodies that dominated pop radio for several decades, songs that became hits first and timeless standards later on, as the compositions through the years kept being reinvented by artists like B.J. Thomas ("Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head"), Herb Albert ("This Guy's in Love With You"), the Carpenters ("[They Long to Be] Close to You"), Dusty Springfield ("The Look of Love"), and the Fifth Dimension ("One Less Bell to Answer").
My favorite Bacharach composition and recording is linked below. Love's interpretation of "My Little Red Book." Click and enjoy a moment of beautifully arranged and poetic heartbreak. Rest In Publishing Burt!
4. David Guetta's AI Adventure
The Birth of Robot Rapper "Emin-Ai-em"
David Guetta, the French DJ that ended racism, is the most recent celebrity exploring the potential of AI. Guetta, in the film below, looking mesmerized with an almost child-like wonderment, explains how he had an AI write lyrics in the style of Eminem and consequently had another AI replicate the voice of Eminem for one of his songs.
Guetta debuts the track during a live performance, calling it "Emin-Ai-em". The generated voice sounds eerily similar to Eminem's real voice, delivering the line, "This is the future rave sound. I'm getting awesome and underground."
The producer/DJ stated that he would not be commercially releasing the track after some Twitter users raised concerns about the ethical use of AI in music. Apart from this concern, this film shows the impact (creative) AI currently already has, while 99% of the population hasn’t even discovered it. Watch below.
5. Are We Gonna Be Out of a Job Soon?
Andrew Yang's "The War on Normal People" Now More Relevant Than Ever!
A friend of mine recently noted that we all thought AI would replace taxi drivers, security guards, data entry specialists, or other highly repetitive jobs. It was unimaginable that AI would interfere in the domain of creative professions. Something that is all of a sudden happening at lightning speed, with no end in sight of where this will end. A message reinforced by another friend who stated she believes her creative PR team could be halved within a year due to various new AI applications, taking away much of the leg work. All this begs the question… are half of us (creatives) going to be out of a job soon?
This trend is not new! Geert Mak, in his book "Hoe God verdween uit Jorwerd," explains how automation in cow-milking, already in the early 1900s, resulted in a transformation of work systems and local farmers having to move to the cities for alternative work. More recently, robots took over countless factory jobs in car manufacturing cities like Detroit, leading to devastating consequences in unemployment, poverty, and an environment that allowed populist politicians to spread xenophobic rhetoric (As always: Fuck you Trump!)
In the 2020 presidential race, a democrat named Andrew Yang ran for office with a core message that AI would wipe out almost all jobs. His solution to this problem: Universal Basic Income.
In his book "The War on Normal People, The Truth About America's Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future," Yang outlines how AI will impact all aspects of life and argues that to "avoid a situation similar to the French Revolution, there is but one answer to keeping people from revolting against the ruling class of billionaires… Universal Basic Income.”
Due to recent developments, a message that is urgent and more relevant than ever.
The audiobook is available on YouTube and is linked below. Trust me, spending six hours and a bit, listening to this is time well-spent; there's also a decent summary.
6. Grauzone
If February were a festival, it would be Grauzone!
Grauzone is a festival that presents a diverse and cutting-edge program where music, film, and art complement each other and features young talent and established names rooted in or influenced by the underground music scene from new wave, electronic to psychedelic and experimental.
I went this Friday. I saw a performance of Jim Jarmusch's band Sqürl performing a score to four silent films by American Dada and Surrealist artist Man Ray, a band called Lambrini Girls who were angry and awesome and a group I'd describe from their looks as Business Goth called Lebanon Hanover; followed by Holland's finest nihilists De Ambassade whose lyrics "Waar gaat het heen? Nergens naartoe!" (Where does it all go? Absolutely nowhere!) pretty much sums up February and Grauzone as the perfect festival to celebrate beautiful nostalgic sadness.
Tickets for today (Sunday) are still available; if this is too short notice, see you there next year.
Thank you for taking the time to read this far!
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Best regards, Marcel
And once again -,thank you, Marcel -just one point in your LEVI TEXT - I think you meant ONE and a half CENTURies and AND NOT ONE DECADE... 150 ans ;-)