The Filter: Team Blog

Glitz, red carpet, golden statuettes (if they haven’t all been stolen), long speeches and a lot of tears, oh yes, The Oscars are just around the corner and already everyone is speculating as to who the winners and losers will be on Hollywood’s biggest night of the year.

Could there be a few surprises? Maybe Fincher’s thought-provoking Curious Case of Benjamin Button will end up whipping the bookmaker’s favourite Slumdog Millionaire? Who’ll blubber the most? oh god, please not another wimpering Winslet performance. Anyway as we’re getting into an Oscar frenzy we thought we’d give you The Filter’s top tips for the 81st Annual Academy Awards:

Best Picture

Slumdog Millionaire

Certainly an enjoyable cinema treat, low budget and beautifully shot, this inspirational drama unfolds the story of a poor orphans epic journey to winning 29 million rupee.  This stunning modern day Indian fairytale will inevitably strike gold.

Best Actor

Mickey Rourke

Down and out star Mickey Rourke who almost became invisible on the Hollywood circuit appears to be a force to be reckoned  with,  given his grand comeback as Randy “The Ram” Robinson. An Oscar win for Mickey would definitely mirror the glorious story of The Wrestler.

Best Actress

Kate Winslet

2009 appears to be the year that Kate Winslet will finally get her hands on the best actress award for her outstanding emotional performance in the post Holocaust drama, The Reader.

Supporting Actor

Heath Ledger

It would be brilliant to see Heath Ledger, who tragically died last year to be awarded a golden trophy given that only one actor has managed to achieve this feat from the grave. His psychotic and thoroughly disturbing role as the iconic Joker in The Dark Knight without a doubt deserves recognition from the movie community.

Supporting Actress

Taraji P Henson

Taraji should get acknowledgement for her powerful acting as Queenie in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which tells the haunting story of a man who ages backwards.

Also we’ve just time to wish good luck to our supporter Peter Gabriel, who is nominated for the best original song “Down to Earth,” which appeared on the movie WALL-E. We’ve crossed our fingers and toes.

Okay, Okay, Okay. Snow has hit the British Isles and the whole country has gone hysterical, simply unable to cope with a weather condition that isn’t rain, wind or the dreaded rain+wind combo fusion. The Filter office is not excluded in the mass-hysteria, and I’m sorry to have to report that basically all of the development team - including the CEO have run home - terrified that the snow will render the roads useless and that they’ll have to spend the night digging in the ground for nutritious fresh plant shoots.

I’d like to add that the snow hasn’t really started to settle properly here in Bath - I even went outside to try and take a picture of the office building to try and prove that it was snowing - but to be honest you couldn’t actually see any snow when I took the picture. So, I had to steal a picture from The Gruaniad.

Here’s a playlist/random-bunch-of-songs-about-snow that I threw together to celebrate the fact that it isn’t rainy or windy.

The Twilight Sad - Cold Days From The Birdhouse
Mirah - Cold Cold Water
Elbow - Snowball
Animal Collective - Winters Love
Aloha - Ice Storming
Damien Rice - Cold Water
The Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal
Shearwater - The Snow Leopard
Scott Walker - White Winter Nights
Death Cab For Cutie - The Ice Is Getting Thinner

According to Mathematician’s, today is the most depressing day of the year. It’s Monday. You’ve broken all of your new years resolutions. It’s a billion years from Pay Day. U2 are about to release a new album.

The press have dubbed it Blue Monday, which I would find amusing/clever were it not for my hugely depressed state.

So, firstly, congratulations to all of our readers to making it through to 11 AM on the most depressing day of the year without breaking open ten packets of paracetamol with shaking hands.

I was going to post a list of happy, joyous songs to help us break out of our collective lull - but to be honest, I’m too depressed. What does sunshine look like? What do puppies smell like? When will Bono stop singing?

Being a bit of a math’s wizard myself, I formulated an equation to dive through the entire catalogue of recorded music since 1956 to pick out the ten most depressing songs ever written, by anyone, ever.

Here’s the results:

1. Morrissey - Every Day Is Like Sunday
2. Morrissey - I Know Very Well How I Got My Name
3. Morrissey - Boxers
4. Morrissey - Dial A Cliche
5. Morrissey - We’ll Let You Know
6. Morrissey - I’ve Changed My Plea To Guilty
7. Morrissey - Dear God Please Help Me
8. Morrissey - Angel, Angel, Down We Go Together
9. Morrissey - I Am Hated For Loving
10. Morrissey - Seasick, Yet Still Docked.

My coffee’s also gone cold.

So, the world’s worst mobile telecoms network (it took them about three months to give me my PAC code so that I could move to o2 and get an iPhone, the inept fools) have announced the nominees for this years Rising Star awards. Last year it was won by Shia LaBeuf, who ruined my life last year with the ultra depressing ‘Into The Wild’; a movie that made me want to give my life savings (about 28p) to Oxfam and run away to Scotland where I could be eaten by wild dogs, I’ve only just been able to get over it…

This years nominees are Michael Cera, someone who probably is a star already after playing high profile roles in Juno and Superbad. He will clearly win it, as he is the only actor that most people will have heard of. I’d urge you to look further, as the Orange Bafta website shows that all the other actors have some degree of beard/facial hair (except for the lady) - so can probably method act.

Then there’s Toby Kebbell, who has an amusing surname. He played Anthony, Paddy Constantine’s brother in the absolutely awesome Dead Man’s Shoes a few years back. Again, I’d urge you not to vote for him because he’s going to be starring in a romantic drama directed by Stephen Frears with Michelle Phiffer as the lead role. It’s not the 90’s any more, i think he should stick to playing dead people in gratuitously violent films. It could be a whole new genre.

Then, there’s two actors that have been in either Causalty or Holby City. I have a personal vendetta against these programs. If you haven’t seen them they are British soaps set in hospitals, basically the low-budget UK equivalent of ER. I don’t like these programs because they show operations and blood and death and guts and it makes me feel sick and unmanly because I have to close my eyes during these scenes. These actors are Michael Fassbender (hopefully pronounced Face-Bender) and Noel Clarke.

Finally, there’s Rebecca Hall - I haven’t seen any of her new films, but she was in Frost/Nixon… but not as David Frost. The Daily Telegraph thinks she’s “Wonderful”, “Excellent” and “Engaging”. But then, The Daily Telegraph has also been giving lots of coverage to the idea that a UFO has hit a windturbine.

So, that’s a thorough analysis of these years contestants. You are now qualified to go and vote (and thus win things) at http://bafta.orange.co.uk - but remember that this is the careers of talented actors that you’re dealing with, so don’t just vote based on who has got the funniest surname, who has the best facial hair, or whether or not they’ve been in low budget UK TV shows that you don’t like.

Lucky us, we’ve been selected from over 100 entries to attend Digital Mission, a sort of trade mission comprised of the UK’s digital talent. It’s more exciting than it sounds because they are actually flying our representative to Austin, Texas to attend the South by South West Interactive conference, which if you don’t know is an event that showcases hundreds of music acts from around the globe. Unlucky is it’s our CEO who gets to go to Texas, the worst music offender in the office. So while he’s busy doing networking things, here’s a few music acts we’re very sad we’ll be missing.

White Lies - This dark rock band is tipped to do great things in 2009 by NME.

Ra Ra Riot - A personal favourite of mine, fresh indie-pop tunes from a band a bit like Vampire Weekend.

Ida Maria - I bet this Norwegian Bjork will be a cracking live act.

LA Riots - Wishing we were in SXSW tearing up the dance floor to this duo.

Primal Scream - a classic headliner, the band of my youth.

Happy New Year!

We’re back in the office today, the team here are all drinking dangerous levels of coffee to push themselves through the day and make The Filter the ultimate destination for entertainment discovery in 2009. We’re all rocking out to the new full track radio stations that we’ve managed to blag from our friends at We7. Just go onto any artist page (such as the undeniably awesome Bill Wither’s) and click the gigantic “Start Artist Radio” button to get your own personalized music stream.

There were some interesting stats produced today in USA Today, which looks at how 2008 was a record year for the music industry. It sold more tracks than ever before, a whopping 1.5 billion tracks - but of course, album sales were down by another 14% from 2007. And this is traditionally the industry’s big earner.

In many ways the Industry should be thankful that the downturn is happening now, rather than a few years ago. While a few labels and distributers have gone under (as well as a few music stores) things could have been a lot worse in the dismal years at the start of the decade. Many companies made massive job cuts then and started to readdress business models, so hopefully we wont see Paul McCartney busking again.

Obviously, at The Filter we’ve been feeling the power of the album drift slowly away for a long time. We’ve had thousands of users preferring to make playlists daily with our Mac and PC software rather than listen to that Prog Rock triple album, so I was a little surprised that the decline wasn’t greater than 14%.

Anyway, if you’re looking for some song recommendations today - I think you should try out our Taste Mixer, if you haven’t already. Simply head over to a profile page (here’s our CEO’s - apologies for his dreadful taste in music) You can mix your music taste with his to get song recommendations of things that you’d both like - and you can then listen to a radio station of full tracks. Give it a go, and let me know what you think in the comments.

I’ll be honest, these records haven’t been rocking the entire office stereo, we have one of these old-school Georgian buildings that are split onto about six million floors - so they’ve been blurting out of my tiny Mac speakers, annoying my co-workers on my individual floor - the basement of doom.

10. Flying Lotus - Los Angeles

The most bass heavy record in the world. This can seriously disorientate you if listened to on headphones. Dark electronic music that crackles and skips its way through 43 minutes of largely ambient music. Rich in texture, a must for anyone who enjoyed last years Burial album.

Key Track - RobertaFlack

09. No Age - Nouns

Loud and gritty, and a little shoe-gazey - this is an exciting and visceral release from No Age. A lot more cohesive than Wierdo Rippers. This is one to listen to loud.

Key Track: Eraser

08. Animal Collective - Water Curses

Animal Collective again prove that they are the most enchanting, exciting and original band of this decade with the release of a four track EP, that tidies up leftovers from Strawberry Jam. The title track would be at home on SJ, but the other tracks are where the magic (and repeated listens lie) with the Animal Collective’s ambient gentleness - something that was mostly absent from SJ.

Key Track: Street Flash

07. Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer

Amongst the Wolf Parade fanbase, Mount Zoomer is generally considered a disappointment because it isn’t as good as it’s predecessor - ‘Apoligies to the Queen Mary’. This may be the case, but I still think there’s plenty of good stuff here - the rock songs dig in and don’t let go. A far better second effort than The Arcade Fire’s. I hated this when it first came out, but it has grown to be one of my most listened to records of the year.

Key tracks: California Dreamer

06. TV On The Radio - Dear Science,

A near faultless release from one of rocks most exciting and creative groups. Dear Science is a leap away from Return To Cookie Mountain, and sees the band exploring genres and pushing the boundaries between electro, pop, rock and funk. I see Dear Science as being as exciting as the funky stuff that David Bowie was doing in the Berlin era, it’s bloody good.

Key tracks: DLZ

05. Erykah Badu - New Amerykah Part One

This album is incredible, I find that, rather like a Rorschach test - what you bring to this album is what you get, which is amazing because it changes every time. Whatever your mood is - this album can reflect it. It’s crazy, sad, happy, chilled and upbeat. Dive in and see what you get out of it.

Key track: The Healer

04. Portishead - Third

Chinese Democracy wasn’t the only hugely anticipated, massively delayed follow-up to be released in 2008.

Third isn’t your average comeback. This isn’t an album that distills all the successes of the past and repackages it for the fans - this is a genuine forward step for the band and a challenging reassessment of their sound. Gone are the jazzy trip-hop beats, replaced by Kraut-rock driven bass. This is scary music, this is music that makes babies cry.

Key track: Machine Gun

03. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

One of the first releases I bought in 2008 was Fleet Foxes Sun Giant EP, so I was hugely looking forward to this album.

It’s warm, timeless and otherworldly. It’s Crosby Still Nash and Young without any of the cheese or hippy sloganeering. It’s an absolutely gorgeous folk/rock record that everyone should own.

Key Track: Blue Ridge Mountains

02. Hercules and Love Affair - Hercules and Love Affair

Glamourous DFA produced NYC house music, fronted by Antony Hegarty. Perfect.

Key track: Blind

01. Deerhunter - Microcastle

Microcastle is Deerhunter’s most conscise and considered release to date. Marking the middle ground between Cryptograms and Atlas Sound - this album finds Deerhunter caring less about creating environments and more about crafting songs.

If you miss the old Deerhunter - the chaotic noise mercenaries of before, then you’ll love ‘Weird Era’ the bonus disc that comes with the record.

Key Track: Nothing Ever Happened.

Christmas is nearly here and that means two things; watching Muppets Christmas Carol and spending time with the family. This can be dangerous territory for any music fan. Last time I went home my dearest mother played Girls Aloud on the kitchen stereo, which resulted in a little bit of me dying inside. There’s little you can do in moments like this, it’s not like I can whip out Dilla’s version of Fuck The Police or anything, that would bring unsavory language to the kitchen…

So, how can The Filter save Christmas for millions of music fans?

Well, we’ve invented something called The Taste Mixer… and it goes a little something like this:

On the new profile pages, there is a shiny box called The Taste Mixer. What happens in this shiny box is very special. You get a chance to mix your taste with the taste of your friend/family member.

So, if I want to listen to Fuck The Police - and my Mother wants to listen to Sounds of The Underground on Christmas Eve, all that needs to happen is that I need to get my Mother to sign up to The Filter and mix our tastes on my profile page. The Filter will then do some geeky maths (I hear words like Neural Networks, grok, Artificial Intelligence, however I just imagine robots coming to kill me) and what comes out is a playlist that both parties will enjoy. It’s the playlist of where their tastes meet.

And you can then listen to a radio station of all of that. Yes, that’s part two of the new features on The Filter - you can now listen to recommendations radio thanks to a deal we’ve done with We7.

There should also be more news, as Idolator (great site, check it out) have let us use a bunch of their news stories on The Filter.

Anyway. Check out the new features, let us know what you think of them and have a happy holiday.

Video Blogger Daisy Whitney has riffed about online video recommendations in her latest ‘Media Minute’

“What if online video was more like Amazon or Netflix? Imagine video-centric sites like Hulu or NBC.com actively recommending videos just for you…The future of online programming could get a lot more personalized as video sites develop the brains to predict and serve up shows tailored for an individual viewer’s tastes, reports the New Media Minute. For details on what this future might look like, check out this week’s edition.”

This is exactly what we are predicting at The Filter, and although the technology is still in our fabled labs, we’re working hard on it.

This past year has seen online video evolve considerably. For the first year, ever, I haven’t solely watched clips of cats (although this one is particularly good) but I’ve also enjoyed lots of ‘premium’ content online thanks to services such as Hulu, iPlayer and even the iTunes Store. And you can be sure that YouTube will catch up with its own exclusive premium content programming next year. With all this access to quality programming it will be a challenge for a user to navigate it all and find new things that they enjoy - which is where a recommendation engine like The Filter can come in. We’re currently tailoring our music recommendation engine to work for online video because we think that our way of doing things will really benefit everybody’s experience of online video.

Anyway, that’s one of the things that should escape our recommendations factory in 09.

Here’s Daisy’s video in full:

If you subscribe to our Twitter feed then you’ll already be aware that we have released ‘The Taste Cloud’ (as previewed in this post)

When you log-in to your home page, you’ll see a “mini” taste cloud with six flashing dots.

Don’t be alarmed, what all this flashing is about is to alert you as to what bands/movies that you like were chosen by The Filter to generate your recommendations. (You can see from my image that The Silver Jews and The Darjeeling Limited are two of the six items being used to generate my recommendations)

More on this: The Filter doesn’t actually generate recommendations based on all of your tastes. Otherwise, you’d get the same recommendations every day. Instead The Filter chooses three artists that you like from your Taste Cloud and generates a set of recommendations from these artists. The Filter then has applies a second layer of filtering and adds your personal profile to these recommendations - taking away the stuff we know you already own, or don’t like etc.

So, it is really important that you keep your taste cloud up-to-date and accurate. The more interesting and accurate it is - the better your recommendations will be. You can keep your tastes up to date by pressing the “edit taste cloud” button, on the Taste Cloud.

We’d love to hear your opinions on The Taste Cloud - so please drop any thoughts in the comments area.

Also… you might have noticed that when you log-in you’ll be asked to choose a new username - this is because the next thing we are tackling on The Filter is a redesign of the profile page, so you’ll have a cool place to show off your music tastes.