No question of greatness for true American icon:
Obamas honor Stevie Wonder

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama honored legendary artist Stevie Wonder 2/25/09 at the White House for a Library of Congress award. Wonder played many performances on the Obama campaign trail as "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" became the theme song of the campaign. Wonder is Obama's favorite artist, according to CNN. You'll even see the President start to funk out at the end of this video. This is quite a departure from the last commander-in-chief who had two left feet yet couldn't stop moving too far to the right.

Obamas honor Stevie Wonder

Social Networking in Plain English

Here's a more simplified explanation of social marketing presented by Commoncraft and hosted by Lee Le Favor. Learn this so we can get past it because this is something every marketer (including sole musicians) should know. For example, if you've never heard of MySpace or FaceBook chances are you've been hanging out too much in the old world. The great thing is, is that it's not too late to learn this super simple stuff that gets so mystified by the media. If you're still confused after watching this simple video, then you might as well just live in the past and hope someone saves you.

Social Networking in Plain English

In case you haven't heard of social networking

Cyperspace, once the wild west, is quickly falling in line with the highly structured Web 2.0 revolution, which includes social networking. This funny animated video gives us some insight as to how one can waste their life away on a social network, which allows you to make enough online friends to fill a high school gym. There's no guarantee any of these people will ever listen to your music or whatever you're trying to pitch, but it does guarantee you'll get a lot of people pitching you on their goods.

Super News! Social Networking

Would someone please explain Web 2.0?

Lately there's been a lot of talk among web gurus about "Web 2.0." You see it everywhere while you're at work, surfing onCraigslist, looking for better work. Of course, ideally you would like to work at home so you ask yourself what kind ofwork can be done at home, and the first thing you notice is your computer. Then you think about the web and the gurus whorun it, and it turns out they're all talking about this new thing called Web 2.0. It's no surprise that the original pioneersof the web don't want to talk about Web 2.0 just like people who grew up in the Big Band era don't want to talk about Elvis.What is Web 2.0? It could all just be a bunch of hype or maybe this video from ExplainingComputers.com has some clues.

Explaining Web 2.0

Missy Grillone "Looking" to stimulate music scene

From Salt Lake City here's a free-sprited approach to piano and vocal by Missy Grillone. Her song is called "Looking." It's anexample of honest musical expression (in case the world forgot that's the key to great music). She has been writing songs for twelve years. In those twelve years has the music world really embraced very many artists of this talent level? Let's just sayif this is what the music industry focused on instead of the disposable unmarketable generic stuff they chose to promote,the music industry would not have led the world into the second great depression. Luckily, though, this music is far from depressing.

Missy Grillone: Looking

"Nothin' Left To Lose" sums up the current recession

More and more songs are bound to be written about the market crash of the past few years. One of the best so far is called "Nothin' Left to Lose" by Marc Mann and Paull E. Rubin (Bear Bros.) of Santa Barbara, California. It came out during the previous administration(the one that ran up the biggest debt in history and finally admitted the market was crashing when it was too late). That probably gives it a more cynical feel, but that's a case in which sometimes opinion can just be a pure reflection of fact. It kind of sums up the problem: the rich are getting richer (and b*tchier) while the middle class is no more as it joins the poor. How convenient is that for the aristocracy? Listen to more at www.rubinwood.com.

"Forgotten Presidents Song" reminds us nobody's perfect

All our lives we've heard that "nobody's perfect." Missing from this popular phrase are a few more words: "including presidents."This song reminds us that you can make it to the highest office in the land and be forgotten or remembered as a failure (which iswhat happens to most presidents except the ones on Mt. Rushmore and a few others). So to celebrate President's Day enjoy this song by Slaters Garage called "Forgotten Presidents Song." The song is over a year old which is why Obama is not included.

"Baby-Bear" gift invites spiritual mood

Peter Peli was given a gift from a friend that he shares with us. The simple percussion and strong vocalproves that sometimes simple music can be more powerful and even spiritual than complex studio music. Perhaps songs like this one willinspire artists who have been scared away from pursuing music by the costs of expensive instruments, recording gear and all that other stuff that doesn't necessarily bring a return on investment. In other words,sometimes music isn't just about money.

A Sirius look at how satellite radio failed

Here's a funny video called "Farmer Mel" brought to you by www.c3sr.org about Mel Karmazin, the head of Sirius Satellite Radio, a financial fiasco. Not even Howard Stern could attract enough audience to get this loser out of debt. The merger with XM, which made things worse (because loser plus loser does not equal winner), created a monopoly that created a mountain of losses for shareholders. Here's how Mel led the company to financial disaster.

Barenaked Ladies song addresses origin of life

Not that anyone has ever proven where humans come from, on the 150th anniversary of Darwin's theory of evolution here's a song by the Barenaked Ladies called "History of Everything." It's the shortest musical science lesson you'll ever experience that covers the theorietical history of planet Earth. Even though recent polls show an overwhelming majority of Americans don't believe in evolution, this song begs the question: are humans dumber than apes?