A weekly update on all things music, advertising, and technology coming straight to you from Anthony Vanger at MassiveMusic. #TWIM
ARTIST OF 2022: LANA LUBANY
This year in 2022, TWIM produced 40 blogs and reviewed 40 artists ranging from pop to experimental. Overall the posts have been viewed 10,757 times on LinkedIn and the blog and viewed 41,899 times on IG, generating 2,423 likes and 200 comments, some of them favourable! Combining data with a big dollop of subjectivity, my 2022 top 5 artist list goes like this: 5. Hania Rani “Buka” 4. C. Tangana “Tiny Desk” 3. Bonobo “Shadows” 2. Robert Plant & Alison Krauss “Can’t Let Go” and 1. This year’s decision was much harder than last year’s. Not because there was no stand-out performance, but rather because there were too many! However, the prize for the top TWIM 2022 artist must go to Lana Lubany because of her stunning voice, her songwriting chops, and the way she broke on TikTok singing a combo of English and Arabic. Check out the full clip “SOLD” here: https://youtu.be/n1oC_i8sTNI.
Happy Holidays everyone, thanks for following TWIM will see you all in 2023!
@lanalubany #lanalubany #thesnake #sold #beatnickcreativehttps://youtu.be/n1oC_i8sTNI
STEVE AOKI JOINS CREW FOR FIRST ALL-CIVILIAN MISSION TO THE MOON
Steve Aoki has joined the crew for the first all-civilian mission to the Moon.
The week-long mission is scheduled to fly next year on a rocket developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company and will mark the first private, all-civilian trip around the Moon.
Musk and Japanese multi-billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, who reportedly bought every seat on the shuttle, first announced the trip in 2018, and Maezawa put out an open call last year.
Aoki is among the eight newly announced passengers that also includes K-pop rapper Choi Seung Hyun, aka T.O.P from the South Korean boy band BIGBANG, Irish photographic artist Rhiannon Adam, and British photographer Karim Iliya.
“Since I was a little child I was dreaming of going to the moon. It’s becoming more and more real every day. Still hard to believe but very excited and grateful for this amazing once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. To the moon!”, said Aoki.
Speaking about the project, Maezawa said: “I’m very thrilled to have these amazing people join me on my journey to the moon and excited to see what inspiring creations they come up with in space”.
Watch the announcement video of the dearMoon project and Steve Aoki’s introduction video below. Find out more about the dearMoon project here.
LONG LOST MICHAEL JACKSON SEGA GAME DISCOVERED IN CAR BOOT SALE
Live-action footage from an old Sega game containing Michael Jackson has been uncovered at a car boot sale after it was scrubbed from the original release.
Their most obscure collaboration was for something called Scramble Training, which featured FMV footage of Jackson and has recently come back into the spotlight after said footage was recovered and shared online.
Given its status as an arcade title released in 1993, it was never going to be preserved particularly well and the original game has been largely lost to time, let alone the version that was supposed to have Michael Jackson in it.
Shortly ahead of the game’s original launch, the first allegations of child abuse were made against Jackson. Sega still wound up releasing the machine worldwide, but with all references to Jackson cut.
Since this is the first known copy of Scramble Training’s contents, the actual game itself remains an enigma. Given its significance among preservationists, we imagine the tape’s seller must be kicking themselves for not bumping the price up.
THIS MICROPHONE LETS YOU “LISTEN TO LIGHT” USING A SOLAR CELL
A new microphone from UK-based company CLIP Sound and Music lets you “listen to light” using a solar cell.
The Photon Smasher uses a solar cell as a microphone sensitive to wavelengths in the infrared and visible light parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, which then uses those wavelengths to generate sounds.
The hexagonal microphone was originally created during a series of CLIP workshops with young people. This updated model includes a 3.5mm line-level mono output, which can be inserted into a modular synth, for example.
The microphone is priced at £50, with all proceeds going to support CLIP’s work as a social enterprise. Watch the demo video below and find out more on the CLIP site.
Written by Anthony Vanger
Additional research and reporting by Adam “Badger” Woolf