Category: Uncategorized

 

I’m as fond of infographics as the next person, but I do think they sometimes make it easy for bad data to get more traction than it deserves.

Here’s a nice infographic on content marketing from Bikini Marketing.  I’m not entirely sure what they do (something about content marketing, but their ABOUT page has an awful lot of words but not much actual information, and though they ask you to drop them a line with your email address, there doesn’t seem to be a ‘contact us’ button), but it’s safe to assume they have an agenda about content marketing.

That’s fine, and they’re right that content marketing is more and more important.  But I think it’s important to read these things with a somewhat jaundiced eye.  When I see stats like “93% of B2B marketers use content marketing”, my first thought is “Yeah, but writing two blog posts in 2013 doesn’t really count as actual marketing.”  And when I see stats like “82% of businesses plan to increase their content marketing budgets next year”, I think: “But increasing your budget from $250 to $350 really isn’t going to give you the buzz you keep talking about in management meetings.”

Ah, I’m so jaded and cynical.

Anyhow, here’s the infographic. Just don’t take it as gospel.

 

I love Schmoyoho.  I love Roisin Murphy.  But cognitive dissonance begins to set in, and suddenly you realize the line between ‘pop’ and ‘parody’ is thinner and blurrier than ever.

I give you Roisin Murphy:

 

And now, Schmoyoho:

Soon, I fear I will no longer be able to tell the difference.

 

As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing better than finding a friend who (a) loves music and is always seeking out new stuff and (b) can be counted upon for good recommendations because their taste in music dovetails nicely with your own.

So when my friend Jono recommended London Grammar a few weeks back, I wasn’t surprised to discover I loved their sound – back in the day, we were both into trip hop, and London Grammar feels like Portishead met Florence and the Machine late one night in the studio.  

But it’s this video for “Wasting My Young Years” that I can’t stop watching.  

I remember years ago hearing an 1890 wax cylinder recording of Tennyson reading “The Charge of the Light Brigade” – it had a strange, eerie quality, as though Tennyson was somehow breaching the space-time continuum to speak to the future, but the connection was bad and everyone on his end died before two-way communication could be established.

The Shot with something like 600+ pinhole cameras, the video has the same eerie feeling – I’d say ‘haunting’ if that wasn’t already overused as an adjective for every female operatic performance.

I know, I know – this is altogether too much expository dialogue and who the hell compares pop music videos to Tennyson poetry?  

Just watch it for yourself.

 

 

Every time I feel guilty that I haven’t written a blog post in a (long) while, I realize why Twitter was invented.

 

 

I don’t know what this piece is trying to tell me, but I decided I didn’t care.  It’s just shot so beautifully – and it’s a good reminder that sometimes we should put down the cellphone cameras and leave the filmography to the professionals.