New Album with Old Music

Looks like a beautiful collection of ancient Mesopotamian poetry set to the original lyrics (relatively, of course) with close-to-original instruments.

I’ve always wondered what the Hymn to Nikkal (the world’s oldest song that we’ve recovered) might have sounded like.

Of course, we don’t really know what ancient Sumerian, Babylonian, Akkadian, or even Attic Greek really sounded like, but we do know that these languages were inherently more “musical” than English.

What did ancient Babylonian songs sound like? Something like this.

Ordered!

Who Is Paul McCartney?

I hope that many of these tweets are people just trolling us old folks…

Kanye West’s emotionally charged new single, “Only,” is dedicated to his late mother and 18-month-old daughter. It’s become an instant hit, with a little help from another musical genius, Paul McCartney, on keyboards.

Based on their tweets, it appears that some of West’s younger fans don’t’ know who the Beatles legend is.

via Who's That Guy Paul McCartney? Some Kanye West Fans Apparently Have No Idea – Yahoo.

Apple’s Marketing Problem

I suspect the rapid decline of Apple’s software is a sign that marketing has a bit too much power at Apple today: the marketing priority of having major new releases every year is clearly impossible for the engineering teams to keep up with while maintaining quality. Maybe it’s an engineering problem, but I suspect not — I doubt that any cohesive engineering team could keep up with these demands and maintain significantly higher quality.

via Apple has lost the functional high ground – Marco.org.