A Daft 5 Days : Jubilee Line Ticket Barrier Sings Blur's "Song 2" Update

Firstly, yes, I've had previous for creating low budget, fan made viral videos over the years, mainly for others benefit including ( Eric Prydz vs Pink Floyd 'A Global Warning', Sonny Jim 'Can't Stop Moving', David Ford '40 Years Of Hurt', Embrace 'Celebrate', James 'Hey Ma', Butch & Sundance Forever for Blackbud and my first for Adrian's leaving card from Independiente "My Way",) most of them were eventually taken down over copyright claims, and in the case of A Global Warning, taken down when it was the 12th most discussed video of all time on YouTube, which was quite annoying (and a false claim).

However, Blur's Song 2 was the first time I'd created one just for fun, and put my name to it, and the last week has been quite a ride.

The video has now had over 763,000 views, it was created on Monday 28th January, uploaded over night, made live on Tuesday 29th January after agreeing to Blur's copyright on the track (YouTube's T&C's). I then started the seeding.. firstly uploading to b3ta of which I've been a active member for years, this got it started and it was quickly featured on the b3ta homepage (yay), which was picked up by usVsth3m, then it went mad The Metro (and was featured on Page 2 in the paper Wednesday 30th, The Guardian, Gigwise, NME (my elbow once featured in the NME), The Independent, Time Out, Huffington Post, Digital Spy, Shortlist, Contact Music, The Poke, The Mirror, The Telegraph, The Canary Wharf website, Gizmodo, LBC, BBC America (thanks Fraser!!) and The Sun. At some point during Wednesday, through a mutual friend, I contacted Blur's management to notify them, and hope they'd be ok with it.. a few hours later the response came back "Thought it was really funny actually - all good! We've tweeted it and will add it to the site". *phew*

It was also played on air, and discussed on BBC Radio Two with Jo Whiley, BBC Radio One with Fearne Cotton, part of a daily feature on BBC Five Live with fellow listeners calling in with their own machines singing happy songs, including a washing machine that does Abba, chatted about on XFM, who's photocopier likes to sing Wu Tang Clan's Gravel Pit, and Sky News, who asked for an interview.

It also featured on ITV's This Morning on Thursday 30th (Philip Schofield commenting that it was 'just genius', but most people were more excited about Holly Willoughby saying my name) and the first episode of the second series of the award winning The Last Leg on Channel 4, the hosts finishing the show performing the track with a ticket barrier and oyster card on Friday 31st. It ended the week as The Metro's "most shared".

The stats behind the video were interesting, though I'm not going to reveal all here, the day with the most views was Wednesday, the day of all the radio coverage. The site providing the most referrals was not Facebook or Twitter.

One of the highlights of the week, whilst in a brainstorm with the creative director of Ogilvy & Mather, who had included the barrier in one of his ideas, not knowing I was in the room. Another highlight was watching 30-40 French exchange students queueing up to go through the happy barrier, each singing as they went through. Oh, and one last one - a colleague (who shall remain nameless) attempting to take credit for the idea, and the video - whilst I was in the room. Amazing the bullshit some people come out with.

There will be a new video..

Jubilee Line Ticket Barrier Sings Blur's "Song 2"

#WooHoo. I may have mentioned this before, but yesterday had the chance to film this talented barrier at Canary Wharf, and was pleasantly surprised to find it sings almost in key with Damon. It's the 4th barrier from the right as you go down into the tube station, not the 2nd as previously mentioned.

I made this btw.

Thanks to everyone that has shared / tweeted / posted - especially @BlurOfficial for seeing the funny side (please don't take it down, the ad revenue is all yours). I feel under pressure to make a follow up, the difficult second album.

Apple 30th Years Of Innovation

Now there's a headline to get a debate going..

Here's the original 1984 advert. Blimey. 1984 was 30 years ago.

In other news, Samsung's quarterly profits are down for the first time in 2 years.

Found on The Drum

Noel Gallagher's Director Commentary

It's been posted and shared loads of times, been said to have "gone viral" (really, with only 100k views?) but I want to stick it on this blog as it's a place to save stuff I like. And it's funny.

Definitely Maybe was released 25 years ago this year, and I think if it was released for the first time today, it would have the same impact.

Originally spotted on b3ta.com

The Stig Vs. Google Street View Car

Doing the rounds today, Google's Street View Car racing round the Top Gear track against The Stig in a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG. The famous Surrey track is now available on Street View.

Posted on Mashable

Norway's Northern Lights

Northern lights - never seen them, even though I've been to Norway 6 times. It's a bit like going to Ireland, went 5 times last year, passing through Dublin and didn't see Bono anywhere.

sixth element from Level 4 on Vimeo.

London in 1927 & 2013

A shot by shot comparison of Claude Friese-Greene original short film showing the London of 1927 in colour, alongside footage from last year. Amazing how some bits of Big London haven't changed much at all.

London in 1927 & 2013 from Simon Smith on Vimeo.

Thanks to Kieron for sharing, full article on The Londonist