For Your Ears For Your Eyes #18

Hi – It’s Dave here at Mumubl.com, welcome to our recommendation email where I give you some tips on what’s great to listen to and watch in the world of music.

It’s been busy recently, personally I’ve had a family holiday, yes a very nice time thank you. Normally this gives me chance to digest some music related stuff but it was a jam packed break. There appears to have been a glut of releases to catch up on as well, principally for me Ben Folds and the Foo Fighters have been on repeated plays but I’ve heard good things of the new High Flying Birds’ album as well as wanting to check out Janelle Monáe’s new album – I really enjoyed “Dirty computer” when that came out.

So much music so little time, a great problem to have. But do read on for some not purely album related recommendations.

If there’s any things you think I should be listening to, reading or watching then let me know, shout out on the Mumubl.com social media wherever you reside.

As always – tell all your friends – every little share helps

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Currently checking out – Loads! Mostly “But here we are” from the Foo Fighters and “What matters most” by Ben Folds

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In this edition

The Muppets / Like a rolling stone / The Art of Longevity / #BrokenRecord / Music Ally / Inspiration Liverpool / MUMUBL.COM

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Muppets Mayhem

I imagine most people know by this point in their life if they enjoy the Muppets, if you do this is them as good as they have ever been, albeit without the obvious names of Kermit and Miss Piggy. I shall start by saying I am a big fan of The Muppets, don’t know why, I’ve just always enjoyed them. But outside of me and my unique cross over interests of The Muppets and the music industry I can see why some people are struggling to understand who the audience is for this show. There are so many references and jokes that will go over kids heads but the tone has a younger feel. It feels like it’s there as family entertainment, will keep the kids engaged but enough nods and jokes for the adults to enjoy, which feels very much like a viewing space that doesn’t exist anymore.

That said I’ve found the series enjoyable so far as we look at one record company workers attempt to get The Muppet band “Dr Teeth and The Electric Mayhem” to make a contracted album that they should have delivered decades ago. Its enjoyable, easy to watch, non essential viewing, but if you are in any way not disposed to muppetry then steer clear. In fact if you didn’t already recognise the name of the band that boast Animal as it’s drummer it might not be for you. Maybe try the kids with it though.

There’s plenty of meme-worthy content, it is a good family watch with jokes for all and if you wanted to know Animal’s back story then make sure to tune in. There’s a vast host of famous cameos as well see The Mayhem making music with artists from all over the musical spectrum.

Like a Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone is a titan in music industry publishing, it is THE magazine, it’s also something I know mostly by reputation and very rarely from reading. Strangely even in my years when I would devour publications like NME, Melody Maker and Q I never picked up Rolling Stone – which looking back has left me wondering if it was available much in the UK?

Subsequently I didn’t really know of journalist Ben Fong-Torres, I did happen across this documentary though on Netflix that serves both as a story of his life and a brief history of the early days of Rolling Stone and the people involved. An esteemed figure in the musical press circles Fong-Torres comes across as a genuinely caring, thoughtful, nice person and the documentary nicely takes you through his story as the child of immigrant family in America.

It’s a couple of years old now but well worth your time, especially if you want to fill in some of those blank spaces in the history of one of America’s publishing giants as well as introducing yourself to a great journalist in the shape of Ben Fong-Torres. You can catch it on Netflix in the UK.

The Art of Longevity – Ben Folds

Since the introduction of this podcast there has been one artist I knew I’d love to one day listen to on it. The most recent episode saw Keith (a.k.a The Song Sommelier) get to chat to that very artist in the shape of Ben Folds.

Ben Folds is someone who seems to have thought a lot and deeply about many things in life and in music both generally and in his own career. The podcast as always provides some great insight into all that with the relaxed interview and I really feel like you could easily have a hours long conversation with Ben Folds on so many of these topics.

If you’re not a Ben Folds fan (why would you not be!?) then do have a scroll back on the podcast feed and check out some of the older episodes in the series.

#BrokenRecord

You may have heard of the #brokenRecord campaign for fairer streaming terms, headed by Tom Gray of the fantastic band Gomez. I personally mention it a lot when it comes to talking about streaming but often my thoughts about streaming are more questions than answers – the recent editorial piece “Is it time for streaming to grow up” as a prime example.

Tom Gray recently gave an interview to Music Business Weekly – “I love streaming, I just hate the remunuration system sitting inside it” and it answers so many questions I’ve asked here, how does a changed system look? Should everyone be able make a living from streaming?

For anyone interested in the streaming question this is a must read.

Music Ally – Streaming platforms in 2023

Speaking of streaming, Music Ally published their quarterly report “The State of Music Streaming” which you can read on their website. To go along with it they extended their normally short (and always interesting) podcast for a great in depth episode that looks AI, streaming as it is now and what’s likely to come in the future.

There’s some great insight from Music Ally editor Joe Sparrow and Head of Insight Stuart Dredge. Broadly grouped in “music” v “audio”, price rises, artist support, Interfaces and AI, Mid tier streamers and innovation. There’s some great interesting talk about the opportunities for AI and the direction of streaming in the future.

Inspiration Liverpool

As I line up some new artists and music figures for the Inspiration Liverpool site you can catch all the current posts over at the site. If anyone is interested in joining in please let me know.

Have a read of that and the archive of old interviews on the site and keep an eye out on our social media for a heads up on new pieces coming up.

From Mumubl.com

The Mumubl.com website continues to get new posts and one of these days you’ll get some new stuff from me as well. Head over to check out the latest pieces on there and also don’t forget you can sign up to add your own and share your musical loves.