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Tag: Gotye

  • Gotye Claims Spotify’s Top Track of 2012

    Gotye Claims Spotify’s Top Track of 2012

    Another day, another year-in-review from a popular site or app. This time it’s Spotify’s turn to unveil the top tracks, artists, and albums of the year, according to their streaming and sharing stats.

    Congratulations Gotye, your song “Somebody That I Used to Know” is Spotify’s most popular track of the year. Spotify tracked the top songs in 15 different countries, and Gotye topped the list in six: Sweden, U.K., U.S., Spain, France, and Switzerland. It was also a good year for Carly Rae Jespen and Fun, who both had tracks in the top five in most countries.

    Here’s what the top ten looks like for the U.S.:

    (image)

    Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” also won the title of most shared track of the year. But he wasn’t the most-shared artist of 2012. That honor belongs to Adele. He wasn’t the most popular male artist either, as that crown belongs to David Guetta. He had the year’s most popular album and the most shared album with Nothing but the Beat.

    Rihanna was named most popular female artist and Coldplay named most popular band.

    Two newer features, Spotify Apps and Spotify Radio, also have a spot on the year-in-review. TuneWiki is the company’s top app of 2012, and Pop, Hip Hop, and Dance are their most popular radio genres of the year.

    In 2012, Spotify gained two million paid subscribers, pushing the total to 5 million. The service currently has 20 million total active users. Based on extrapolations from previous subscriber figures, we can project that Spotify is growing by a rate of roughly one million paid subscribers every six months.

  • Gotye Makes His Own “Somebody That I Used to Know” Supercut

    Offline, it’s been nearly impossible to avoid “Somebody That I Used to Know,” the infectious breakout hit for Australian singer Wally De Backer, better known as Gotye.

    And online, it’s been equally as difficult to avoid the hundreds of covers that have popped up on YouTube.

    Although “Gotye supercut” may not interest you immediately, it will probably help to know that this one was crafted by none other than Gotye himself.

    “All audio and video in Somebodies is from the YouTube user videos featured, each of them a cover or parody of Somebody That I Used To Know. No extra sounds were added to the mix, but I used some EQ, filtering, pitch-shifting and time-stretching to make the music,” says Gotye.

    It’s somehow done the impossible and made an overplayed song fresh again. Check it out below:

    “I avoided using any existing remixes of the song, or any covers from tv talent shows.
 As comprehensive and extensive as I tried to be with my downloading of source videos, I know there are many clips that I missed. Tay Zonday’s cover for instance, no internet mashup should be without him.”

    Good work, Wally. For a full list of all of the YouTube covers he used in the supercut, you can check out his blog.

  • “Call Me Maybe”, Gotye Hook Up In Mysterious Video

    Two of the year’s most popular, stick-in-your-head-until-you-want-to-stick-something-sharp-in-your-ear songs have now come together in a force of nature so powerful you might start booty-poppin’ at your desk. I’m serious. It’s catchy.

    Pomplamoose–even the band name is catchy–have mashed up the infamous Carly Rae Jepsen song “Call Me Maybe” with Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used To Know” and set it to a video steeped in action and mystery. When singer Nataly Dawn receives a strange gift on her doorstep, a fight ensues between her and Jack Conte–the other half of the band–over whether or not to use it.

    Check it out, and try not to chair-dance too much.

    *Tip of the hat to Gawker for the vid.

  • Gotye Dead? Nah, Just A Victim Of “Citizen Journalism”

    You can’t believe everything you see on the interwebs. That goes double for anything you see on a breaking news site that allows average Joes to post stories without the intervening hand of….well, anyone.

    So, despite what you may have seen on Twitter, 32-year-old singer Wouter De Backer, better known as Gotye, is alive and well. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t a victim. Gotye is a victim of the latest fake news generated/social media powered celebrity death hoax.

    The story first popped up on CNN’s citizen journalism site iReport, which allows anyone and everyone to upload photos, videos, etc. without any sort of screening and fact-checking. Of course, the purpose of iReport is to give people a venue for breaking news from their own backyard – an interesting idea in theory. But, as you can see, if one “citizen journalist” goes rogue and starts a death rumor – it can spread pretty fast, partly because everyone sees the CNN logo and immediately gives the story more credibility.

    Here’s what the story looked like as it spread across social networks (it’s not up anymore).

    The story read that Gotye shot himself:

    At 4:32 AM EST, it was reported that Gotye had shot himself in the head with a 9mm handgun. He was pronounced dead at 4:45 AM, and the investigation concluded that the cause of death was suicide. It was confirmed shortly after by family and friends. He was quickly taken to the Central Montmorency Hospital, but died from his injuries shortly after. His family has stated that they plan a closed funeral.

    Gotye took to Twitter to refute the rumor:

    The fact that celebrities are having to actually come out on Facebook and Twitter and tell the world that they actually aren’t dead is a testament to just how fast these death hoaxes can spread on social media. And they are becoming so prevalent these days that as a celeb, you’re just not cool unless Twitter has killed you.

    The “CNN” tag on this story made it particularly potent, virally speaking. As always, the advice for social media users is simply this: double check before you share.

    [Via Sophos Naked Security]

  • Here’s The Star Wars-Themed Gotye Parody You’re Looking For

    Because f*ck George Lucas, apparently.

    Many Star Wars fans can relate to the notion that the Star Wars of old has been dumped on, tainted, over-modified, and generally fouled up by a little too much hands-on action in the decades following the series’ debut. To these maligned fans, they may often sit back and wonder just what happend to the Star Wars they used to know.

    Oh, someone has now done a song specifically about this? It’s actually called “The Star Wars That I Used To Know?” It’s a parody of that ridiculously popular Gotye song? Good, I was hoping for that.

    Courtesy of Teddie Films, check out the back and forth between Darth and George, complete with wonderful stanzas like:

    Now and then I think of when I was in power
    Like choking people with the Force until they died
    But then you told them all my history
    And took away my masculinity
    And had my character portrayed by subpar actors.

    You are now addicted to an overuse of graphics
    And making Greedo shoot first? Han shot first.
    So when you tried to have the Force make sense
    You introduced the midichlorians
    And what’s the deal with having me be dubbed over (Noooooooooo!)

    “It’s a story of heartbreak to which Star Wars fans everywhere can relate. And even with all that heart ache, it’s still a better love story than Twilight,” says Teddie Films.

    Now, get that unstuck from your head sometime within the next year. Good luck with that.

    [via Geekologie]