You’ve probably heard of Nick Bertke, better known as Pogo in the music scene. We’ve come to know him through his movie remixes such as Alice, Upular and Skynet Symphonic. Recently Pogo has embarked on an adventure of remixing the real world. We want to share this interesting project with you.
Pogo has worked for studios such as Disney Pixar, Showtime, Oprah’s Harpo Studio’s, Art Basel in Miami and many more. He has performed for YouTube Play at the Guggenheim Museum. He further shares his creations and visions on his YouTube Channel, with more than 25 million views (still counting). Now Pogo is remixing the world. In this new project, Pogo will travel the world in search of sights, sounds, voices and chords, and use them to compose and shoot a track and video for each major culture of the world.
The world remix project is going to employ a unique method of funding: every remix will be financed by pledges at KickStarter, funds made by the remix before it, and by prepayments for the next upcoming remix. The music will be released worldwide on CD, DVD, and at PogoMix.net.
Joburg Jam, a remix of sights and sounds filmed around the city of Johannesburg, South Africa, marks the beginning of Pogo’s World Remix project. Next stop is Tibet.
“Making music out of wild animals sounds, ice in Antarctica, gongs in temples, voices in tribal Africa - this is what the world remix project is about!”
Walt Disney’s reproduction of legendary TRON features electronic and symphonic elements from the French techno duo Daft Punk, uniquely blended with futuristic sound effects. SoundWorks Collection is a platform and website that takes you behind the scenes, for a look into the audio post-production of films, video game sound design and original soundtrack composition. This video takes you into the sound design and creation of TRON LEGACY.
When Justin Bieber’s My World Acoustic was released exclusively through Walmart, it was one of many landmarks in his supersonic career that has taken him from webcam sensation on YouTube to one of the biggest pop stars on the planet.
It wasn’t easy though. In spite of a heavyweight co-signer in Usher, the record labels were reluctant to sign an artist without a major platform. In a recent interview with Billboard, Bieber’s manager Scooter Braun explains how the labels told him that Bieber had no way of breaking out through YouTube alone. The common knowledge was that you can’t compete with Disney and Nickelodeon.
In a lot of ways Justin Bieber is a pre-cursor of where we all are heading. Justin Bieber got his break on YouTube, and currently holds the #1 spot on the platform with 400 million views of the music video for Baby. More important than a marquee clip of Baby caliber though, is Bieber’s constant interaction with his fans through lo-fi video messages and tweets.
On a slightly smaller scale the two latest hip hop franchises, Drake and Nicki Minaj, also got their breaks with very little major label backup. Drake’s Best I Ever Had, off his selfreleased mixtape So Far Gone, was an international hit last year. He was the grand prize in a bidding war where Sylvia Rhone and Universal eventually had to back up a very big money truck in order to secure a deal, and he found himself nominated for music awards before he even had an official release out.
Nicki Minaj was featured on pretty much every single remix released for almost a year leading up to her album release. She surpassed 1 million Twitter followers months before her album Pink Friday scored the highest first week sales for a female rapper since Lauryn Hill’s Miseducation of… in 1998.
So do we need to rethink what it takes to break a new franchise artist? What part should the record labels play and is there room for brands to associate with these artists BEFORE they become mainstream? Could Walmart have been an integral part of the Justin Bieber saga in 2008 instead of acting as a mere distribution channel in 2010? If brands are to be a relevant part of music and culture in the future, perhaps they need to step up to the plate and enter the game at an earlier stage?
