Pop Art Lab – Top 50 Albums 2012!

Here is our list of 2012 favourite albums! It has been a great year and we could easily expand it to a Top 100! Please note titles ranging in Top 15 to Top 50 have been almost impossible to rank – All titles are strongly recommended within their respective genres! The list do NOT include EPs! Lastly – Please note we cover a wide range of genres from more independent to multimillion selling artists! Pop Art Lab specialize in what’s HOT and NEW and we believe this list reflects the most breaking NOW sounds of 2012.
All albums leads you to direct free streaming via Spotify.

Pop Art Lab wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Thanks for all your suppport!
Editor in Chief,
Claus Uriza aka Claus Frisenberg Povlsen

1. Teen – In Limbo

2. Chromatics – Kill for Love

3. Anna Von Hausswolff – Ceremony

4. Grimes – Visions

5. Cat Power – Sun

6. Bat For Lashes – The Haunted Man

7. alt-J – An Awesome Wave

8. Melody’s Echo Chamber – Melody’s Echo Chamber

9. Holy Other – Held (not available in full)

10. Beach House – Bloom

11. First Aid Kid – The Lion’s Roar

12. The XX – Coexist

13. Father John Misty – Fear Fun

14. Efterklang – Piramida

15. Grizzly Bear – Shields

16. Ane Trolle – Honest Wall

17. Daughn Gibson – All Hell

18. Blondes – Blondes

19. Tame Impala – Lonerism

20. Julia Holter – Ekstasis

21. The Walkmen – Heaven

22. Taken by Trees – Other Worlds

23. Crystal Castles – (III)

24. Arial Pink’s Hanted Graffiti – Mature Themesi

25. WhoMadeWho – Brighter

26. Lianne La Havas – I Your Love Big Enough

27. Cold Specks – I Predict a Graceful Expulsion

28. Kendrick Lamar – Good Kid m.a.a.d City

29. Jacob Bellens – The Daisy Age

30. Laurel Halo – Quarantine

31. Animal Collective – Centipede Hz

32. Actress – R.I.P.

33. Raveonettes – Observator

34. Django Django – Django Django

35. Killer Mike – R.A.P. Music

36. Flying Lotus – Until the Quiet Comes (not available in full)

37. School of Seven Bells – Ghostory

38. Hot Chip – In Our Heads

39. Frank Ocean – Channel Orange

40. Andy Stott – Luxury Problems

41. Bear in Heaven – I love You, It’s Cool

42. Teengirl Fantasy – Tracer

43. The Shins – Port of Tomorrow

44. Passion Pit – Gossamer

45. Rihanna – Unapologetic (not available in full)

46. Lana Del Rey – Born to Die

47. Diagrams – Black Light

48. Rebecca & Fiona – I Love You, Man

49. Norah Jones – Little Broken Hearts

50. Alicia Keys – Girl on Fire

51. Madonna – MDMA

Updates from the lab + Skylight views

Linden Labs Skylight test have been running few weeks now and we’ll recommend everyone to try it out via this link (a lightweight Second Life accessed via webbased cloud rendereing). By now only highspeed connections gets an enter email option bottom of site while running the streaming video.
I tested this several times and must say it’s awesome, fast and an easy way of showing newbies a teaser of what SL have to offer. My good friend Chantal Harvey made a nice post after testing it in our lab and Cyberloom have a good write-up as well. And mentioning Cyberloom please make sure to check out her blog which also featured Bryn Ohs Art Breaker installation lately.

As Skylight test is currently in Beta we’ll have to wait and see how and if Linden Lab wants to develop and expand this service in the future. Judgeing on first few weeks of visitors accessing PAL this way we certainly have to make changes in the way these newbies “meets” our sim. We have seen quite a few stumbling in our cubes which tells us many aren’t familiar navigating using the fly/jump option. Also a noteworthy amount seems to leave as they don’t see an ongoing live event or meet a lot of socializing people. As our lab is pretty much based on auto greeting giving out notecards and chatlines telling what to do we are currently not set to give this type of visitors an optimal arrival. If and as soon as Linden Lab gives us more info on the future plans of Skylight we’ll take steps to improve all this. This can be done by putting up visual signs telling how to access our content. By now testers can’t recieve info through inventory given objects, can’t access our fully lined up 9-12 destinations via teleport centrals (eg. able to see our Art Breaker installations) and can’t see where or when events are happening.
Still though I’ve met very satisfied testers as well and with just a little tweaking we believe PAL can be an awesome landing point for newbies. Let me put in a quote that left me quite optimistic made by Elitär und Spaß dabei (draxtor.despres): “if i show folks the [SL] web version i will either go to Insilico or PAL”.

Ok on to coming actions. We have planned weekly 6 hours events featuring DJs to be hosted down in our club. First of these starts coming Friday November 26 running 12pm-6pm. There’ll be a strong focus on electro, drum’n'bass, dubstep but also touches of indie and underground hiphop.
Have a look below to see location and how last event looked like just before closing.

On coming Pop Vox TV we are currently close getting set up for a December show. More on this as soon artists have confirmed.

As previous mentioned here 2011 will see an increased focus on promotion of Danish artists and music. Few real life meetings with major music orgs have already taken place and two more are confirmed start of December.
When this puzzle is solved expect some serious rockets to hit the grid first Q 2011!

*Update*
Forgot to post full lenghts videos of my speak recently given in Lahti, Finland on “Music and Culture in Second Life”

Also there’s a great panel from there feat. Kenny Hubble, Karl K. Kapp, Bill May, Ian Hughes/Epredator, me and more. Go check it out here!

Both files are Windows so you might have to convert for MAC!

Meanwhile go explore Pop Art Labs 4 streams of constantly changing cool new albums, attend our events or simply have a chill during busy real life of next weeks Thanksgiving and the coming Xmas craze.

Pop Vox feat. Redzone

Wednesday April 28th 1:30-3:30 PM PDT/SLT at Pop Art Lab

We are pleased to announce our next Pop Vox TV show is close.
The show is broadcastet real time live by Treet.TV throughout the grid or you can watch it live at Treet.TV

Pop Vox Presents Redzone

Hamlet Au, New World Notes “They play for steampunks and post-apocalyptics and their metaverse band headquarters is the wreckage of a Soviet troop chopper abandoned in the desert. They’re a British trio called Redzone, and of all the many bands who regularly play in Second Life, so far they’re my favorite”

Redzone
Redzone is Cabaret Voltaire (vocals/electric violin), Red Xu (guitar/bass guitar/samples), and Avomatsur Rustamova (synth/electric double bass/theremin). Redzone have a unique and original sound, fusing industrial, hiphop, musique concrète, electronica, classical, alternative and ambient influences.  Fast and tight – tender and evocative – their unique songs and sounds hijack your soul, activate your reward circuits and energize your entire being. Talented, committed, passionate – this band have the confidence and energy to rock an audience. Redzone have been compared to Collide, Bjork and Recoil among others, but defy categorisation. Redzone were credited by Wired and Reuters as being the first band to tour in Second Life.

Plz note the show is limited to 40-50 seats. The sim will be agent limited due to lag control and to ensure a safe operation.

1:30 PM SLT Set up meet’n’greet (Teleport)
2:00 PM SLT Interview in Pop Art Lab TV Studio (20-25 mins)
2:45 PM SLT Live concert (45 mins) (Teleport)

After the interview we head to our brand new underground club and the concert starts when we all ready and set.

Pop Vox is presented by Pop Art Lab in partnership with Treet.TV

Pop Art Lab Machinima Contest 2010 : Contest rules

Pop Art Lab will launch brand new sim design mid April and therefore decided to set up a machinima contest at our “old” sim design as it looks now. By doing this we capture the memories more than 25.000 visitors have seen and quite a few praised since our opening back in 2008.  Pop Art Lab is a music sim streaming each weeks best new albums in pop, rock, electronica and r&b/hiphop.  At the grand opening of our new sim the old one will be completely removed and we will host a huge weekend party where we announce the winner of the machinima contest, screen the best films and have lots of live artists, DJs etc.

CONTEST RULES
The maximum film length is 5 minutes. The theme of your film is entirely open. The only requirements are 90-100% of scenes take place in the Pop Art Lab sim

Each participant who wants to rezz must join the Pop Art Lab group and leave a notecard to Claus Uriza with names. Please remove objects after filming. Scripts will be enabled.
The sim will be open 4 weeks prior to submission deadline so everyone have the time to come record. We kindly ask all of you to act appropriately and show respect and understanding so everyone will be able to record in peace and ensure a fair play.

Send us your machinima by April 9th 2010 and enter the contest for the award of 100.000 Linden dollars.

SUBMIT VIA YOUTUBE
To submit one or more films you need to upload them to YouTube and then send the appropriate link to clausuriza@gmail.com along with your film title, name and contact info. Please add “(Pop Art Lab Contest Entry)” to your film title on YouTube. We will collect entries as favorites on our contest channel and embed finalist films on our blog ‐ http://popartlab.com (Films with highly inappropriate content will be excluded).

PRIZE
$100.000 Lindens. Pop Art Lab Machinima will award cash prize according to the jurys best choice. There is only one winner.

IMPORTANT DATES

• Submission deadline – 12 AM PDT/SLT April 9 , 2010
• Recording period – March 9, 2010 through April 9, 2010
• Winner will be announced ‐ April 16, 2010 at our new Pop Art Lab sim launch.

TERMS OF USE

• You retain all of your ownership rights to your film submission. However, by submitting you also grant us (Pop Art Lab) a license to use, reproduce and distribute your film for promotional and documentary use only.

SUGGESTED FORMAT GUIDELINES

• Resolution: Minimum of 320×240, maximum of 800×600.
• Widescreen: 720p (fine too).
• Frame rate: Minimum 20 frames per second.
• Audio: Minimum 22khz 16‐bit audio.
• Size: 100 Mb

JURY

• Chantal Harvey, Lisbeth Frølunde, Jeska Linden, Claus Uriza

ORGANIZERS

• Pop Art Lab was founded start of 2008 in the virtual world of Second Life. It provides a dynamic immersive environment within which avatars can gather together to share their interest in music, movies & machinima, and attend live concerts and events occurring both entirely within the virtual environment and in mixed realities that merge reality with the metaverse.

Information about Pop Art Lab

PARTNERSHIP

• The contest is co-sponsored by the Virtual Worlds Research Project. This large collaborative project, running from 2008‐2011, joins university researchers at two Danish universities (Roskilde University and Copenhagen Business School) and a range of different partners. The project is funded by the Danish Strategic Research Council, KINO and explores sense‐making and user‐driven innovation in virtual worlds.

Information about the research project: Virtual Worlds Research Project

LANDMARKS:

• Pop Art Lab has lots of exciting “hidden” locations. Here is a list of some charming spots.
• Pop Art Lab Landing Point
  • Red grammophone
  • Microphone
  • Green Radio
  • InterG Spaceship
  • Spaceage Funpark
  • SSY Spaceship
  • Sky Stage
  • Sky Home

Any questions please IM Claus Uriza or Emily Hifeng inworld or send us an email at clausuriza@gmail.com
Print or read above info as Google doc

It’s Friday! So we are having a party….

It’s Friday…the weekend is nearly here…so we are having a party for the fun of it.

Join us at the PAL sim from 12.30pm SLT for a mix of tunes from DJ BRB followed at 1pm by a set from one of SL’s hottest sets-DJ Helloise McAllister. And the party will go on till late!

TPs here this SLurl

Helli is a RL DJ who divides her time between the UK and Portugal and her travels can be heard in her mix of very European style sets.
Electro rock, Indie, Alternative and Goth all feature in her sets. So head to PAL for the full Friday experience.See you there!

Persia X

The Future is Now

The New Year has got off to a flying start at Pop Art Lab! Apart from all the hot, new CD releases landing on our real life desks each day (2010 is shaping up to be a great year for music already….) we are very excited about what 2010 will bring us in Second Life.

Claus, myself and the rest of the PAL team had barely got over our holiday hangovers when plans for the future direction of PAL got underway. Expect to see a whole new look to the PAL sim soon (and a huge party of course!) fresh activities and us working with new partners in other genres of virtual media.

Our existing business partnerships continue to go from strength to strength and many congrats to the Treet.TV team on the launch of their new and wondrous website! Our work as a solutions provider for Linden Labs has only just begun and we have some superb guests lined up to appear on POP VOX.

Expect even more crossover of RL and SL projects to take place this year and if you think you know PAL…well…you haven’t seen anything yet!

Thanks to all our friends, supporters and sponsors for helping to make PAL the most cutting edge mixed reality music project in the world-2010 is gonna rock!

Persia Bravin X

Pop Vox feat. MommaLuv Skytower

Monday December the 7th 2:00-3:30 PM SLT at Pop Art Lab

We are glad to announce our next Pop Vox TV show is close.
The TV show is broadcastet real time live by Treet.TV throughout the grid or you can watch it live at Treet.TVs site.

MommaLuv Skytower recently decided to turn her real life career as musician fully into a 3D character. Her music is a rare blend of rock, electro and hip hop. The lyrics is political taking inspiration from the spoken word scene.

This time we have set up a huge production involving five models/dancers, fashion and surprises!

Plz note the show is limited to 40-50 seats. We still have 20 seats left plz get in touch for reserve. The sim will be agent limited due to lag control and to ensure a safe operation.

Pop Vox Presents MommaLuv Skytower


1:30 PM SLT Set up meet’n'greet ACCESS HERE
2:00 PM SLT Interview in Pop Art Lab TV Studio (20-25 mins)
2:40 PM SLT Live concert (45 mins) ACCESS HERE

After the interview we head to our brand new and wonderfully decorated stage and the concert starts some mins later when we set.

Pop Vox is presented by Pop Art Lab in partnership with Treet.TV

Live music event Nov. 21

To celebrate the news that we have become member of the Second Life Solution Provider programme and also the world’s first ever virtual jukebox, we are hosting an amazing party on Saturday 21st Nov from 1-5pm SLT. Music will be provided by two of the most talented artists found in-world at the moment; the highly successful and popular Edward Kyomoon followed by MommaLuv Skytower who will perform her first ever official Second Life concert, and live DJ sets to follow.

Expect a free atmosphere, non-formal, crowded and as always celebrating the beauty of creativity inside Pop Art lab.
Edward perform rock with all the right moves, crash sims and MommaLuv brings her awesome voice and mix of selfcomposed rock, electro and hiphop beats!

Watch out here on blog as we expand the programme till showstart!

Saturday November 21.

1 PM SLT/PST
DJ Brb kicks off

2 PM SLT/PST
Edward Kyomoon:
Starting at the age of 16 he began performing live for audiences then went on to play guitar and keyboards in several local rock bands in the early 90′s. He perform rock music and love songs ranging from the 60′s to the present, covering bands and artists such as: The Doors, Pink Floyd, Blue October, Snow Patrol, and Nine Inch Nails. As a recording engineer he produce many of the backing tracks he use for live performances.
For more info and prelistens

3 PM SLT/PST
MommaLuv Skytower:
MommaLuv Skytower is an avatar on SecondLife the alter ego of BJ Di Matteo aka Infaredhaze. Much of her work is on various websites, as she has been on the internet since the summer of August 2004 and has not stopped since. She has worked with artists from Acidplanet & CCmixter & many others from around the Globe. Her cds are sold on i-tunes & CdBAby & many others. She became an avatar upon the encouragement of many friends & has made a life there, enjoying all the perks of SecondLIfe. She also has an open invitation for anyone there to visit the LuvShack Stage & Luvshack Castle located on her LuvShack Beach.
For more info and prelistens

4 PM SLT/PST
DJ Allenclive Beaumont
For more info and prelistens

Pop Vox October 19th

We are glad to announce coming Pop Vox will be featuring the Argentinian/Spanish duo Engrama. They have been chosen by their unique approach of sophisticated lo-fi indie noise rock of which is unheard by any other artists playing live in Second Life! Music available at http://www.engrama.tk/

Pop Vox Presents Engrama
Monday October 19th
1:30 PM SLT Set up meet’n'greet
2:00 PM SLT Interview in Pop Art Lab TV Studio (20-25 mins)
2:40 PM SLT Live concert (45 mins)

Plz note the interview section is limited to 40 seats plz attend TV Studio timely by using this SLurl http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pop%20Art%20Lab/167/127/132
The last 5-10 mins will be reserved questions by the audience feel free to IM Claus Uriza during main interview with ur questions!

After the interview we head to the stage area and the concert starts some mins later when Engrama are ready and set.
There’ll be open access for all and u can enter here http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pop%20Art%20Lab/77/127/131

Pop Vox is presented by Pop Art Lab in partnership with Treet.TV
View previous shows here

Wow….what a trip!!!!!

What an INCREDIBLE 1st birthday party we had at PAL! The whole sim looked amazing thanks to the lovely people at Caerleon Isle Art Collective, with swaying psychedelic flowers, some groovy fractal art and 3D acid trips! Everyone partied in an array of hippy inspired clothing which really added to the 1960’s theme chosen to celebrate Pop Art lab’s first year.

Our visitor counters went into meltdown when we reached 230 people-but the lovely new Class 5 sim did us proud and there were NO crashes-The Linden Lab gods must have been smiling down on us!!

The musicians were all awesome and we were lucky enough to see some new and established acts come and play for us-testament to the absolute professionalism of the musicians who use Second Life as a platform for showcasing their immense talent. Special thanks must go to these artists: Hazideon Zarco, Avvy Barzane, Obeloinkment Wrigglesworth, Engrama, Starflower Orbit and long time friend of PAL-Mankind Tracer.

There was a real feeling of love in the pixilated air as local chat echoed with congratulations and some funny anecdotes-it really was a great crowd of people who came to support us!

Congratulations to the whole PAL team who are some of the hardest working people in Second Life and real life media/music, but extra applause must surely go to Claus Uriza-CEO of PAL who has poured his heart and soul into making PAL the most progressive music project not only in Second Life-but in any virtual world. You rock Claus!!

I am off to sweep up empty beer tins, underwear and other rock and roll items off the floors of PAL and to look back on a hugely successful first year-bring on year 2!!!!!

Peace

Persia Bravin xxxxx

Thank you: To Claus Uriza, Emily Hifeng, Xray, Serendipity, Starr Sonic, RLF Easterman, Syl Darcy, Saturnine Dryke, Maxes Loon, Twstd Ruggles, Austin Ellison and all the other 22,000 people who have visited and supported PAL in its first year.