ReThink Music (results/review)

[you may want to read my previous post, written BEFORE the event took place.]

you can hear the results of Amanda Palmer’s ReThink Music project here: Nighty Night by 8 In 8
you can listen for free, or you can download the album for a minimum donation of $1. for the first two weeks, the money is donated to Berklee City Music Boston, a program providing kids with an opportunity to explore their musical potential.

read Amanda Palmer’s blog on the results: WE MADE A RECORD AND IT’S OUT (8in8 “nighty night” – it’s aliiiive)

watch their panel discussion about the project:
(srsly, watch it. it’s one of my favorite parts of the whole project.)

rethinkmusic on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

well, they pulled it off. sort of…
it was supposed to be 8 songs in hours (hence the twitter hashtag #8in8),
but ended up being 6 songs in 12 hours.

but honestly… awesome.
epic.

having watched most of the webcast, listened to the album, seen the discussion, i am exploding with ideas, so much i want to say about it…
never gonna get it all down.

i like the whole album. not great songs, i suppose, but good.
“One Tiny Thing” is by far my favorite. just LOVE it.
(there’s really no need for me to do an actual review, is there? you can just go ahead and listen to the thing. for FREE.)

i really didn’t expect to watch the whole 8 hours of the webcast, and i didn’t,
but i did watch a whole lot more than i planned to.
most of it actually. had to tear myself away and force myself to take a break.
watching them in the process of writing and creating and recording was…
well, boring actually. much of the time.
but that is NOT a criticism.

much of creating anything IS boring to anyone not actively involved in the process, and sometimes to the artist as well, quite frankly.
and we got to see that, and it was still as interesting as hell.
as Neil said in the discussion, it helped to demystify the artistic process.

apparently, they’re planning to edit the footage from the webcast and make that available too, so if you missed the webcast, you’ll get to see some of it.
i really hope they don’t cut out ALL of the boring bits.

this project has now thoroughly engaged me for 3 days.
monday, of course, was the webcast.
tuesday, i downloaded the album and listened to it.
and apparently, they performed 4 of the songs at the conference later tuesday and livecast that as well. but i missed that cuz i went to bed early…
today, wednesday, i read Amanda’s blog and watched the panel discussion.
and thru it all, there was twitter… oh my, was there twitter.
during the webcast, #8in8 was the #5 trending topic in the world.

it’s not over yet… they’ve released Nighty Night under a Creative Commons license and so are encouraging fans to create videos, use the songs in stage productions, do covers… whatever they can think of. i’m sure Amanda will be sharing some of these projects with us as time goes on.

the way they have shared so much of this creation with us, including our collective input, is just incredible and would not have been even near possible just a few years ago.

BUT — as Amanda and the others have repeatedly pointed out, this is NOT a recommendation of how music “should” be done, or a suggestion of a model that they expect others to follow. it was simply the way they chose to do THIS project.

but it does open up our minds to the new possibilities and opportunities that we can all explore using our new tools and toys, both in creation and in distribution.

the album? i’ll agree with Damian and give it a B minus.
(except for “One Tiny Thing” — i give that one an A.)

the project itself? i’ll give that an A+++.
or even higher…

awesome. engaging. exciting.
epic.

i’ll end this blog the way i started the previous one:
Amanda Palmer is my hero.

no, wait…

Amanda Fucking Palmer is my fucking hero.

UPDATES:

the first fan video for “Because The Origami”: