The 2005 Wired Rave Awards

smack-pot writes "March 2005 issue of Wired Magazine features The 2005 Wired Rave Awards announcements. The 15 categories include Films, Business, Science, Architecture, Medicine, Games etc. Some of the winners are Brad Bird for The Incredibles, Danger Mouse for The Grey Album, Burt Rutan for SpaceShipOne, and Pete Parsons for Halo 2."

Comments

Rave Awards?

[Leroy_Brown242]

This years "Best use of glow sticks" award goes too . . .

Oh, not that sort of rave?

Jon Stewart

[fraudrogic]

I don't know. iFilms is great and all, but I think Jon Stewart should have won for Television. He did something (and continues to) that no one else on major television stations would dare do, and that is be brutally honest and be intelligent about it. When it comes to those qualities, he's my hero. Oh and the humor aspect is pretty good too.

Re:Jon Stewart

[PopeAlien]

Uh yeah.. especially since it was Jon Stewart that helped boost iFilms page views. Jon Stewart creates tv content, iFilms simply distributes clips of it.. It seems a strange choice for winner of the 'television' category.

Re:Jon Stewart

[PopeAlien]

for them that know not:

Jon Stewart is the host of a satyrical news show called 'the Daily Show' that plays on comedy central. some clips can be viewed on thier greatest moments webpage

he also gained some fame as a guest on 'Crossfire' were he tore the pants off of and humiliated co-host Tucker Carlson

Re:Jon Stewart

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever even watched the Daily Show? Virtually every episode since the elections has slipped in at least one joke about democrats sucking it up in the election, including making fun of Kerry directly and the party in general. Beyond that, what can he make fun of them for? They don't control enough to actually do anything stupid..

Re:Jon Stewart

[Illserve]

You know, the sad part is, I don't think he was embarassed.

I think he thought he tore Jon a new one.

I think he thought that this "comedian" was out of his league on a real hard-hitting news show.

At the end Jon just bites his tongue. It's like letting a child think they've beaten you because it would do no good to tell them otherwise.

Re:Jon Stewart

[RatBastard]

but he is definitely biased towards the left and has admitted as much.

Explain to me how admitting to being biased makes him less honest politically? I'm really trying to make that work but it just doesn't wash. Not being "brutally honest about politics" would be him not admitting his bias. I've watched a lot of his show and he has never hidden his bias nor has he pretended to not be biased, like many cammentators/journalists/pundits who are biased towards the right.

I don't know what word you want, but I don't think "honest" is it.

Re:Jon Stewart

[poot_rootbeer]

[Dangermouse] is the DJ equivalent of a Score: 1 Slashdot comment in an RIAA rantfest and he's the future of music?

I'm guessing you haven't actually heard the Grey Album, or if you have you didn't like it for valid subjective reasons.

But objectively, the album is a significant accomplishment. Not only is it the latest in a line of legitimate and coherent works of art built entirely on borrowed source materials, but it also brought an entire sub-genre of hip-hop -- eg, mash-up -- into mainstream consciousness.

It changed the way I think about music, just a little, and I can't be the only listener that it had that effect on.

Re:Jon Stewart

[generic-man]

As media personalities go, Jon Stewart holds about as much weight as a lifelong Usenet poster. He's self-deprecating, sarcastic, and likes to call people names when they mock him. Yet after all is said and done, people wish they could be like him.

Re:Jon Stewart

[geoffspear]

Being "brutally honest and intelligent" is (a) highly inappropriate for a satirist

Uhh... yeah.

It's a good thing Swift and Voltaire were neither honest nor intelligent, then.

Re:Jon Stewart

[Deadstick]

Carlson's confidence may have suffered somewhat when CNN fired him and killed the show...

rj

Re:Jon Stewart

[bitrott]

Not even. The only legitimate question he asked was "Why the softball questions?". Anyone who watches the show KNOWS that NO guest, no matter their orientation, is going to get mostly softball questions.

Jon was dead-on-right questioning WHY that dork was trying to compare Daily Show to a legitimate news channel's programming.

Jon's attitude at the end of the interview was really just shock. He, like many people, realize that there's NO ARGUING with pedantic rhetoric dicks in bowties. It's like trying to argue there is no God with a person of faith. In fact, it's just like that. What can you do when the host won't even respond to simple, irrefutable logic, like "explain how BS talk shows like this HELP public discourse in America"?

Action Animation Movies?

[ackthpt]

Inability to put characters in jeopardy?

(resisting the joke about rendering Alex Trebek) I think anyone who says that is nuts, as nuts as the producers who need star-power to keep them warm at night. Bird just did the job right. There were some pretty insightful comments back in the Discworld movie topic, regarding writing a movie you can make. I become more a cynic when I read people's opinions that such and such can't be done. It's an illusion, dumbasses. Bird's gifted enough to take the intelligent approach. To see the wrong approach taken again, watch Tom Cruise in Spielberg's WoW. Or see a class act, the Pendragon version late March. Bug your theater to carry it! Hopefully it'll live up to expectations and make Wired's list next year.

Re:Action Animation Movies?

[astrokid]

I agree with most of your points, however, I wouldn't bash Spielberg's adaptation of War of the Worlds just yet.

Atleast wait to see it before you do.

I'm very happy for Brad Bird, I really don't think The Iron Giant got as much recognition as it should have. It's definately one of the better efforts put forth from an American Animation studio in a very long time.

wow

[rd4tech]

"Burt Rutan for launching the private space age"
I for one, welcome...

"Mark Fletcher for making bloglines the Internet's news network (RSS Reader)"
Neat, now more people can autocreate blogs targeted for adsense...

"Robert Lanza -for eye-opening work on embryonic stem cells"
See your future, it's right here ...

"Steven Squyres for keeping Spirit and Opportunity roving"
Where is the rest of Nasa on this one??? But that's humanity, always picking up one who holds the stick

The rest... boring, BTW there are also bunch of research in DNA, materials, and compsci which are changing the world arroung us constantly, why not mentioning anything of those fields?

grey album

[tsunamifirestorm]

for those who don't know, the grey album is a remix record using beats from the beatle's white album with vocals from jay-z's black album it's available at http://www.bannedmusic.org/ and is hosted by http://www.downhillbattle.org/. DJ Dangermouse was the DJ who made this mix.

Re:grey album

[Metapsyborg]

I realize that a lot of /.ers are not big fans of hip-hop. Still, JayZ/Rocafella never tried to stop DM from distributing the album (to my knowlege). It's a common practice for major-label hip-hop artists to release mixtapes and other free content to their fans. 50Cent made his name from mixtapes, and many others have realized that these free albums are great marketing tools. Yes, a lot of people here hate hip-hop, but they've got to respect the copyright holder's generosity...and the fact that they encourage some of their works to be freely distributed.

I don't have a problem with a Dj winning an award like this; I do have a problem with a Dj winning an award for mixing together 2 over-hyped albums. Someone else mentioned the X-ecutioners; sure they use samples, but they practically create their own beats out of these samples. Their premise is a "band" where each instrument is a Dj with a turntable. They use the scratches to create beats.

Dangermouse just rode Jayz's overhyped "hip-hop" to success. An outfit like the x-ecutioners is more deserving of an award than this guy. Heck, I can think of a dozen dj/producers more original, people like blocktop, rjd2, buck 65, Mr. Dibbs, etc. Dangermouse doesn't deserve jack for doin' something that could easily be replicated with a computer and some wavs.

Re:grey album

[_ph1ux_]

what about Skinny Puppy and Front 242 or Front Line Assembly...

All three of these have contributed orders of magnitude more than this guy.

Remix record using beats from the Beatles. How quaint.

Skinny Puppy is the most sampling band ever (actually I believe they were surpassed by the other two I mentioned), front line assembly being extremely deft at it.

and this was in the late 80's and early 90's.

I love how all these genre's and youngins attempt to take credit now for doing things that Industrial pioneered 15+ years ago....

suspect statement

[Savatte]

"Until The Incredibles, the conventional wisdom was that animators can't do action," Bird says.

umm..anime?

Re:suspect statement

[Golias]

Anime is considered by most of the world, and Hollywood in particular as nonconventional, and thus not to be taken into consideration.

It's too bad, because the fact that it's "nonconvetional" is the best thing about it.

There will probably never be a TV show in the US quite like "Haibane Renmei."

"Azumanga Diaoh" is the best comic fiction about kids since "Peanuts" was in its prime, with the possible exception of "Calvin & Hobbes."

"Last Exile" is exactly what Lucas probably wishes his Prequel trilogy could be, if he were only a better writer/director.

Re:suspect statement

[bitrott]

It's alittle something called 'wit'. The wit in that movie is in every scene, every idea, every reference, almost every line. No joke was easy, they were earned. Compare that to the Shrek movies: crappy, unfunny pop-culture references, lame visual gags, bathroom humor.

The incredibles was touching, often hilarious, ALWAYS mindblowing. Also, I'd hardly call him easily amused... obviously HE was watching the movie with his brain turned on, as evidenced by the many things made-fans walked away appreciating.

Re:suspect statement

[bitrott]

How can you even put Shrek in the same category as Toy Story? Because of the graphics? PLEASE, people. Toy Story and The Incredibles are amazing movies because they're good stories told well because BRAIN came before cheap pop-culture references and lame, embarassingly lame visual gags.

I've always maintained that Shrek doesn't even rate as a fine example of what animation is capable of, when 99% of the gags won't make sense to anyone in 5 years time.

Re:suspect statement

[Golias]

Your comments reveal that you simply miss the point.

The appeal of anime is a direct result of the fact that it's cheap to make. The low cost means it is a low-risk investment, which means that an Anime creator has far fewer studio pressures than somebody making a US movie or TV show.

Like I said in another comment, "Haibane Renmei" could never be made for US television. Not because there's nobody writing for TV who's as smart as ABe, but because no TV writer or director has the power to realize a vision which is so unique and fails to fit into any easy-to-sell "genre."

The same is true of "Kino's Journey," a show which is a hybrid of a road buddy picture, and a smarter, more spiritual "Twilight Zone."

If you can't follow the plots of such shows, I would not suggest bragging about it.

Is 99% of anime as good as the stuff I just mentioned? No. Then again, neither is 99.999% of US media.

winners

[Fox_1]

The Rave Awards

Film: Brad Bird : Business: Shigeyuki Hori

Science: Steven Squyres : Medicine: Robert Lanza

Architecture: Rem Koolhaas : Music: Danger Mouse

Television: Blair Harrison : Blogs: Kevin Sites

Books: Jeff Hawkins : Industrial Design: Burt Rutan

Technology: Mark Fletcher : Art: Jennifer Kevin Mccoy

Games: Pete Parsons

"Best use of glow sticks" award goes too . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Ron Popeil for Ron Popeil's Pocket Proctology Polyp Fisherman.

Is Danger Mouse that important?

[sielwolf]

I guess it's basic 15-second mainstream digestible keystone of mash-up'dom.

Of course this is old as hip-hop itself. Dancehall exists on the idea of a riddim becoming popular itself and multiple deejays rap/sing over it. Now hip-hop, R&B and Reggeton artists get in on it. An example from '04: Pitbull "Culo", Mr Vegas "Pull Up", Nina Sky "Move Ya Body" and many others all used the Coolie Dance Riddim.

The pop culture clash of using a very recognizable outer-genre instrumental (the "mash-up") got big in clubs two years ago (making this Wire award a bit like John Wayne's Oscar). A popular one was Whitney Houston ("I want to dance with somebody") over Kraftwerk ("Numbers") forming ala Voltron to Girls on Top's "I Want to Dance with some Numbers". Nigh unreleasable due to copyright considerations but interesting none the less.

Of course now MTV is in the Official Mash-up business by creating things that aren't Mash-ups at all (that Jay-Z and Linkin Park thing is, due to original parts by both artists, a collaboration).

I still think Chopped and Screwed is going to hit the mainstream consciousness soon as T.I.'s disc just got the treatment and it sold amazingly. And kids are chop n' screwing all sorts of tracks now. Many on laptops and then distributed into the public conscious via P2P (so Wired could give it an award and be a bit ahead the bellcurve). Of course this is a decade old style too.

Re:Is Danger Mouse that important?

[Jakhel]

NOW they get in on it? What do you think remixes are? In fact, what do you call band and orchestra "arrangments"? This concept is nothing new, it's just being applied to a more modern form of music.

Also, riddims only involve using the same beat with different lyrics. More originality is required to do this.

As far as mashing up is concerned, it's essentially (this may be a little off topic but I threw it in anyways so fuckit) the same as playing a song with a different instrument than it was originally performed on. Like a flute or guitar player playing the lead in Take 5 instead of a trumpet (or saxophone, i forget) player.

Reading over these Awards

[JMPrice]

I can't help but think of those who got left out--i.e. the rest of the members of the teams the highlighted individuals work with. Anyone else get the feeling that some of these awards should have gone to the whole team and the selection of a single individual was rather arbitrary?

Penfold, shush!

[RatBastard]

I prefer my Dangermouse to be animated and British, thank you very much.

I hate stuff like this

[Quiet_Desperation]

Articles like this just make me feel like a big loser. :-( My life is one of squandered oppurtunity. I was one of the best and brightest when I was younger. What the fuck happened?

Hey, I'm honest, at least.