I thought the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest was the best in years with lots of great tunes. Although it didn't win, Ukraine's entry from Go_A is an instant banger. Here's their longer version of the song to bop to!
The Pudding published an interactive map that shows which songs reach number 1 in the last month around the world. The map allows the user to see how different songs are popular across different cities and regions within a country.
Scientists and MIT used laser imagery to make 3D maps of spider webs and then calculated the vibrating frequency of each thread based on size and elasticity. Using this information, Markus J. Buehler's team then converted these frequencies into sound and music.
Sound art duo Softday released As I Roved Out One Morning, a sea shanty musical piece in collaboration with Sirius Arts Centre, Hannah Fahey, and the Softday Deep Water Singers that highlights the dangers of the proposed incinerator at Ringaskiddy in Cork Harbour. The duo worked with the Cork Harbour Alliance for a Safe Environment to gather information, field recordings, conversations, and transcripts of An Bord Pleanála oral hearings to use as input to the piece.
Radio Garden is a fantastic website that allows you to surf the globe and listen to radio stations in different countries. The interface makes it so easy to hop around the world listening to music that you can easily spend lots of time listening without realising it.
A Song For Us is a project that captures original and favourite songs during lockdown, and provides a map to submit songs you have written or songs that hold special meaning at this time.
I really came to appreciate music as being the nectar for the soul during lockdown. It also helped that lots of Irish artists picked up the pandemic and ran away with it in terms of fantastic releases and streamed performances. There were so many great streams and the Journal of Music still do a great job at colating everything in their weekly concert planner (which you can subscribe to here).
