I’ve long been a fan of Arcade Fire’s refusal to simply settle for a traditional music video. They’ve never been great about creating your typical, made-for-MTV fare. If you’ve never seen their videos for “Neon Bible” or “Black Mirror” go check those out – they’re flipping incredible. Then be fully prepared to have your mind blown into smithereens and scattered about as your watch their music video/browser experiment for their new song “We Used to Wait” called The Wilderness Downtown. I guarantee you’ve never seen anything like it before. It combines multiple browser windows that move around your screen, Google Maps of the street you group on, an organic writing pad, a flock of birds that travels around from browser to browser, not to mention a few different good-old-fashioned videos. I know, right? Amazing. Go. Watch it. Now.

via my iTunes – tracked by last.fm

1. Ra Ra Riot (63)
2. The Head And The Heart (50)
3. Elevation Worship (23)
4. Cee-Lo (11)
5. Ray LaMontagne and the Pariah Dogs (9)

And 5th Runner-Up:
John Mark McMillan
]]> http://ryansworth.com/?feed=rss2&p=2316 0 http://ryansworth.com/?p=2302 http://ryansworth.com/?p=2302#comments Thu, 26 Aug 2010 04:47:58 +0000 Ryan Hollingsworth http://ryansworth.com/?p=2302 When I was growing up, my dad made me pancakes nearly every Saturday morning. After a while, he even got fancy and started writing our initials with pancake batter. Who doesn’t want to eat an ‘R’ pancake? It was one of my favorite parts of my childhood. And I imagine that had I stayed a kid long enough, he would have started doing what Jim Belosic does for his 3-year old daughter Allie every Saturday morning. I’m not sure what Jim does during the week, but based on some of his creations, he should be some sort of structural engineer or a sales rep for Bisquick. Personally, I’m still on page 2 of the pancake workbook – I believe this week’s recipe is “Just don’t burn the freakin’ thing. Please.” See more of Jim’s creations here.

The ol’ softball team has come a long way. This past Fall, we lost every game. Every. Game. In the first 7 games we were outscored 127-30. And we lost epically. In our last game, we blew a 5 run lead with only 1 out to go. Then came the Spring, where we made a respectable showing, won a few games and ended up playing in the winner-take-all tournament at the end of the season, coming in 3rd. Not too shabby. But yesterday, we finished our worst-to-first, feel-good story of the year by winning the Cactus League Bricktown Championship in a thrilling come-from-behind victory – and by ‘thrilling’ I mean, probably more exciting than anything else going on in sports in the middle of August. Not a whole lot of competition there. Nonetheless, you can read the game summary here if you’ve got some time to kill. Fun fact: this is the first baseball/softball related championship I’ve won since my first year of organized baseball in 3rd grade. How about it.

1. Ray LaMontagne and the Pariah Dogs (37)
2. Bon Iver (33)
3. The Black Keys (28)
4. Elevation Worship (28)
5. Ra Ra Riot (11)

And 5th Runner-Up:
Black Kids

1. The Social Network. If you were one of the few Americans who didn’t see Inception, then you might have missed this dark, based-on-a-true-story trailer, complete with the haunting Scala & Kolacny Brothers cover of “Creep.” And then add the fact that David Fincher (Fight Club, Zodiac) is directing and my favorite screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (Charlie Wilson’s War, West Wing, Sports Night). Plus, while Jesse Eisenberg may be the poor man’s Michael Cera, he does have an uncanny likeness to Facebook bajillionaire founder Mark Zuckerberg.

2. I’m Still Here. Whether or not you think Joaquin Phoenix’s social meltdown (see: his trainwreck appearance on David Letterman) was real or some sort of elaborate hoax, this looks like an incredibly intriguing movie documenting this time in Phoenix’s life. And if it is a hoax, it’s the greatest all-time hoax since the Loch Ness Monster.

1. Shake It Out – Manchester Orchestra
2. I’ll Tell You What – J Roddy Walston & The Business
3. Sun Hands – Local Natives
4. Nobody Gets Me But You – Spoon
5. The Cave – Mumford & Sons
6. Your Easy Lovin’ Ain’t Pleasin’ Nothin’ – Mayer Hawthorne
7. Age of Consent – New Order
8. So Insane – Discovery
9. Heartbeats – The Knife
10. Back In Your Head – Tegan & Sara
11. Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) – Arcade Fire
12. Ageless Beauty - Stars
13. Dog Days Are Over – Florence + The Machine
14. Be Healed – Paper Route
15. Holy Ghost – Flagship
16. Marathon – Tennis
17. I’m On Fire – Bruce Springsteen
18. Blackest Hair, Bluest Eyes – Chris Staples
19. When the Lights Go Out – Dan Auerbach

Click here to download.

* Cover photo via riftdweller
*And if any of the bands on here don’t want their music on the mix, just let me know and I’ll remove it promptly. Thanks.