Best Of MetaFilter

Mikel vinyl by aspitos4kids (cc by-nc)

Fun question in Ask Me: You spin me right round baby right round like a what? "I need songs with specific lyrics which I can play for my daughter which represent antiquated technology that she has no real understanding of."

Delia Derbyshire

A polyphony of music past recently in the blue:

11+ documentaries on the history of electronic music; Larry Chung talks about and plays a 1934 Gibson L-5; A three-hour mixtape of Goth history, nearly 50 tracks of early-to-mid eighties Goth classics; Pitchfork's 200 Best Songs of the 1980s; Anton Karas plays the Theme from the Third Man, on zither; Using Spotify plays to quantify how old music has stood the test-of-time; "massive chords of intemperate savagery" – the strange story of Jón Leifs' Organ Concerto; great highlights from This is Tom Jones, a variety show that ran from 1969-1971; "Old Weird America", you say? I got some right here for ya

Laputa: Castle in the Sky / 天空の城ラピュタ（バルス後） by Tatsuya Tanaka

Recently on Mefi, people and places around the world, enchanting, mysterious and magnetic:

World Jollof Rice Day, you say? Jollof rice is a traditional West African dish, but not a humble one

From the Persian for "eyebrow," Ebru (paper marbling) has a long tradition in Turkey

The villagers of Kannauj have inherited a remarkable skill: They can capture the scent of rain

Au Revoir, Mogadishu Vol. 1 — Songs From Before The War: '70s and '80s Somali sound

Since April 20, 2011, Japanese artist Tatsuya Tanaka has created tiny dioramas with common household objects as landscape for tiny people, one every day

Chiara Vigo is the last master of weaving the sea-silk cloth bysso and showcases her art at Museo del Bisso in Sant'Antioco, Sardinia

shackle_originales_07 by carmela alvarado art (cc by-nc-nd)

Aw yeah! The results of the Mefi Music challenge for May/June, with the theme City Songs, are queued up and ready to play! The MetaTalk thread discussing the effort and the tunes that emerged from this 77th (!) MeMu Challenge is here. Enjoy!

Kozyndan Nakano In Spring detail

Recently on Mefi, people and places around the world, enchanting, mysterious and magnetic:

The Banjo Bands of Malawi is a video clip featuring three different performances of a certain strain of folk music from the small African nation.
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From the 1920s to the 1960s, German people loved to pose with actors dressed as polar bears.
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LA-based art duo kozyndan posted an immersive "VR" experience of their 2009 Miyazaki-esque piece "Nakano In Spring".

Edgewood

Sad news: long-time Metafilter community member edgeways, Edgewood Smith, passed away last week.

His family and friends have been posting photos and memories on his facebook page.

He hosted a weekly radio show called "The Local", under the handled DJ-E, on Duluth public radio station KUMD; they'll be running a special tribute show for him tomorrow, Weds July 22nd, at 5pm Central time, if you'd like to listen in.

edgeways was a thoughtful and conversational fixture on Metafilter, steadily around and active on various parts of the site over the course of eleven years, with dozens of posts to the blue and the green and the grey and thousands of comments and answers shared with the community. He also produced and posted one of my favorite tracks ever on MetaFilter Music, a haunting reworking of You Spin Me Round as a wrenching acoustic duet.

I never got a chance to meet him personally, but I was glad he was here and I'll miss his presence on the site, and I know a lot of folks here will likewise.

Let's dance Mommy by W. Visser

Mefites share memories of moms and their music in the current "What is Mom Rock?" thread.

Listen carefully... by sadmafioso (cc by-nc)

Music-lovers of Metafilter, we would like to extend an invitation to you all to join us over at MeFiMusic for the latest challenge: record a song about a city.

Now discussing on Metatalk, City Songs: the new MetaFilter Music Challenge. The Mefi Music thread is here.

They Might Be Giants - John Flansburgh by CLender (cc by)

In 1990, They Might Be Giants released their classic album "Flood". Over the last few months, musicians on MeFi Music have been posting cover songs for the entire album, which was recently completed, and all tracks can be heard here just in time for the 25th anniversary.

trombone by evoo73 (cc by)

Lokheed explains how playing a trombone works, in layman's terms.

Big Eight Track by Wyscan (cc by-nc)

Have you ever felt the need for more enervation in your playlists? glhaynes is here to help, with their Ask Me post, "I'm a boring person and I want boring music to go with my life." Mefites rise to the challenge.

From the archives: three years ago, metafilter member Miko put together an exhaustive post about Thanksgiving classic Alice's Restaurant, which is basically the perfect thing to disappear into if you need to gird yourself for family or ruminate in a postprandial stupor.

2013-06-01 15.50.14 by ℤoḁsterboy (cc by)

Eyebrows McGee talks about listening to her great-grandmother's piano rolls.

My great-grandmother, under a false name, recorded several piano rolls during the Depression to help feed her family. This is one that she played, Never Again, that has been rereleased as a historically important recording and they're making new copies of the roll.

It makes me a little teary to be listening to my great-grandmother playing piano via the magic of the internet. The gentleman who collects, curates, and re-releases this got in touch with my family several years ago because he'd managed to track down my great-grandmother's real name, and wanted information to add to her biography, as she recorded a LOT of rolls and was fairly well-known for it. The curator was able to send us audio files of a bunch of her rolls playing on the roll piano, and my grandfather, who was quite elderly at the time, was able to hear his mother play piano again before he died last year. It meant an awful lot to him, and to us, and it makes me teary to be able to listen to this one on YouTube.