Bi-Weekly-ish Newsletter #55 w/ 🥊Knockout Chaos🌀, 🇪🇺👴 Europapa, 🎶🧠Live Music and Brains, 🔥💀Minor Threat and 🎥🎸🎤SXSW.
ˈə͡ʊlə readers,
Edition number 55 of the bi-weekly-ish newsletter on culture, music and tech, brought to you by me, Marcel Alexander Wiebenga.
This edition is filled with a fantastic recent boxing promo, the future winner of the Eurovision Song Contest, research that provides attending concerts is good for your brain, Minor Threat’s 'Minor Threat' turning 40 and yours truly at SXSW in Austin, Texas.
Yi!
Haa!
1. I'm Starting To Believe The Hype (is a Sequel!)
Or actually, it's a third installment in the series, but that doesn't have a specific name!
Promo videos for big boxing bouts are becoming increasingly extravagant! Last week, BigTime Creative Shop unveiled another highly explosive boxing promotional video titled "Knockout Chaos," crafted by Roman Chassaing from Academy Films.
"Knockout Chaos" is their third endeavor in less than half a year, following the successful "Day of Reckoning" and its sequel (there it is!) "Ring of Fire." It extravagantly promotes the upcoming fight between Anthony Joshua, the former unified World Heavyweight Champion, and Francis Ngannou, the ex-MMA Heavyweight Champion turned Heavyweight Contender, on March 8th using the strongest emotion of all: nostalgia! More specifically, nostalgia for 80s and '90s 8-bit video games.
The promo/trailer/commercial, whatever you want to call it, is perfect for a couple of reasons that this guy described very accurately:
1. 🏅 It's f̶u̶c̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ cool to look at. It's just dope gamification. Cool CGI & VFX.
2. 🫀 Emotional resonance: By evoking memories of unforgettable days gone by on the Sega Megadrive, it seamlessly blends the adrenaline-fueled action of boxing with the beloved characters & vibrant aesthetics of a gaming classic.
3. ⏳ Bridging generations: Boxing has a unique ability to bring people together across generations. By incorporating nostalgic elements into campaigns, it helps to bridge the gap between older fans (purist pugilists) & younger fans who want to see cool sh*t like this.
Usurping more nostalgia, the agency produced a 8-bit video game that lets you smack the living bejeesus out of each other using the main protagonists of the night.
All in all: a must-watch/play.
2. Here’s Your Eurovision Winner!
Neo-Gabber Greatness
"I'm very excited about the Dutch entrance at this year's Eurovision Song Contest" is a sentence I never thought I would write.
Yet here we are!
The Netherlands this year will be represented by Joost Klein, a multifaceted Dutch artist known for his unique blend of music, YouTube content and digital art. Emerging from the online world with a distinctive style, Klein has carved out a niche in the Dutch entertainment scene combining humor, very personal and fragile storytelling and a candid online presence engaging a wide range of fans with tracks like "FriesenJung."
His Eurovision song, titled "Europapa," is partly a tribute to his father, who passed away when he was a child, and a celebration of Europe. Musically, it is a mix of his tried and tested party-like-there's-no-tomorrow w/ four-on-the-floor singalongs. Simple and effective, but ticking all the boxes to make it a hit and a guaranteed "douze points for the Netherlands".
The video and song are viral, like a recent pandemic, utilizing a nostalgic (there is that word again) nod back at o.g. Dutch 90's cultural phenomenon Gabber and will surely have all of Europe do the "hakken dans" come summer. The video sports multiple cameos like DJ Paul Elstak, the godfather of Dutch Hardcore Gabber and is beyond meme-able as per this sign language interpreter. Above all, the song has a unifying pan-European message in a time when, with all that's going on, we so much need a pan-European message, making this song not just a Dutch entry but a European entry.
Success gegarandeerd!
Europe, let's come together!
It's now or never! I love you all!
Welcome to Europe.
Stay here until I die.
Euro-pa-pa, Euro-pa-pa.
3. Sonic Social Network
Live Music's Creates a Collective High
And who would have thunk it... Going to live shows is a healthy mental experience, which might be one of the reason the Eurovision Song Contest is so popular.
Recently researchers found that live music elicits stronger emotional responses than recorded music, likely due to increased activity in the brain's left amygdala, which processes emotions. This finding stems from research where participants listened to live and recorded pieces while undergoing MRI scans. The live music, adaptable to listener feedback, consistently activated the emotional processing region more than recordings. This suggests the dynamic nature of live performances enhances emotional experiences, highlighting the unique power of live music to connect and move us.
Hearing live music may be more stirring than listening to a recording of the same tune as it triggers greater activity in the part of the brain linked to processing emotions. "Recorded music is not adaptive to how a listener is responding, but live pianists often adapt the music to the audience to get the best response from them," says researcher Frühholz.
The findings show that live music intensifies our emotional response, probably due to its free-flowing, dynamic nature. Frühholz concludes: "If you go to a live concert, you're not alone and this intensified emotional experiences as they are also a social experience."
Here's Santana at Woodstock, where the collective amygdala is going into overdrive, which might have been the Mescaline.
4. Minor Threat a Musical Milestone
Four Decades of Fury
It's not a live performance (I wish), but a record that always gets my amygdala running is turning 40 today.
"Minor Threat" (also referred to as "First Two Seven Inches") is a seminal compilation album by the American hardcore punk band Minor Threat, released on March 8th, 1984, through Dischord Records. This album combines the group's first two extended plays, "Minor Threat" (originally released in June 1981) and "In My Eyes" (originally released in December 1981). The compilation showcases the band's raw power, uncompromising lyrics, and the influential cover depicting vocalist Ian MacKaye's younger brother Alec, an image that has inspired countless punk bands and some brands since.
Minor Threat's music, especially songs like "Straight Edge," inspired a movement that promoted a drug and alcohol-free lifestyle within the punk scene. Their tracks "Out of Step" and "In My Eyes" further reinforced the band's stance against substance abuse. Today and till the end of time, the band's impact on punk music and culture is gigantic.
If you're one of the billions of people who have never heard of this band, the Spotify link is below.
5. I'm At SXSW This Week!
Ain’t No Party Like a Texas Party
And finally! Apart from planning on indulging in tacos and BBQ, being surprised by all sorts of once-in-a-lifetime impromptu musical collaborations, and diving into a wealth of knowledge and the serendipity of random meetings that propel careers and companies forward – something everyone talks about - I'm beyond excited (and nervous) to announce that I'm an official speaker at the SXSW 2024 festival.
On March 14, 2024, from 2:30 pm – 3:30 pm, in Room 15 of the Austin Convention Center, I'll be joining human extraordinaire Nitzan Hoffmann, Dani Deahl from BandLab Technologies, and Markus Schwarzer from Cyanite.ai in a conversation titled "The Future of Music Sync: A Billion-Dollar Industry."
We'll discuss how new platforms (spoiler alert: Ringo and Cyanite.ai) are reimagining the sync space, an industry with a potential revenue surpassing $8 billion that’s servicing over 3 million placements annually, by simultaneously scaling search and licensing capacities to meet the needs of a new media age.
I look forward to seeing you front and center if you are around. If you want to meet up beforehand, shoot me a message!
Thats it for this edition.
Marcel