Morning Music Notes – And Now For Something Completely Different

Apparently, the President of the United States Has Some Sway

People can be such sheep. If someone cool or powerful does something or listens to something, we want the same. The latest example? US President Barack Obama sings couple of lines from Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together, and then the sales go up almost 500% (via NME). The track is from 1971, back when they didn’t have electricity or cars.

16,000 downloads occurred for the week ending January 22, which was a 490% increase from the previous week, when apparently people were still randomly buying the track. You can watch a video of the president singing the song, and then be convinced to buy the track yourself.

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Internet Websites Grew from 255 Million to 555 Million in 2011

2011 saw an increase of 300 million internet websites, from 255 million to a massive 555 million (via Digital Trends). PeteHatesMusic is 1 in 300 million! The report came from Pingdom (get it?), who also had some other interesting facts to chew on, including:

– 3.146 billion – Number of email accounts worldwide.
– 360 million – Total number of Hotmail users (largest email service in the world).
– $2.6 million – The price for social.com, the most expensive domain name sold in 2011. (2012 will be PeteHatesMusic.com)
– 2.1 billion – Internet users worldwide, with 922.2 million – Internet users in Asia, compared to 271.1 million – Internet users in North America.
– 800+ million – Number of users on Facebook by the end of 2011, with 200 million – Number of users added to Facebook during 2011.
– 82.5% – Percentage of the U.S. Internet audience that viewed video online.
– 76.4% – YouTube’s share of the U.S. video website market (December 2011). This is surprisingly low in my opinion

Monty Python Stars To Reunite for a New Movie (Voice Work Only)

The 5 living Monty Python members are going to reunite for a new animated sci-film film, directed by Python Terry Jones (via NME). The film is called Absolutely Anything, and will feature voices from John Cleese, Michael Palin, and Terry Gilliam, with Eric Idle not yet committed to the project. The film is about a group of aliens who give a human huge powers, which leads to chaos (see, you just can’t trust humans).

Hopefully, there will be classic Monty Python silliness and singing (see – music related!). Check out a video of a Monty Python song below (I had a tough time deciding which one to run with – went with the obvious).

Monty Python – Always Look on the Bright Side of Life
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