Unless you don’t watch any TV whatsoever, you’ve undoubtedly seen those Mac vs PC commercials. I like them; they tend to be funny:
With the recent release of Windows 7, Mac has launched a counter-campaign, reminding people Microsoft that they keep promising to fix whatever was wrong with their last OS–and failing:
Microsoft’s OS problem
Certainly Windows ME was horrible, and Vista suffered from dreadful launch (although if you waited until Service Pack 1, it was fine). But XP was a good product, and this is Microsoft’s biggest problem. XP works so well for most people, there’s not much motivation to upgrade.
Apple’s commercial problem
Understandably, Apple can’t say in their commercials Windows XP was good, but the most recent attack feels a bit unfair. But there’s a bigger problem with the Mac vs PC campaign:
The PC guy is funny and interesting. The Mac guy is not.
Mac stands there, supposedly hip and cool. Occasionally he has a snappy one-liner. But you know PC is going to be driving the entertainment…you laugh with (or at) PC…subconsciously, good times and feelings are being associated with PC. Mac feels too aloof and arrogant.
If you were like me about a year ago, you couldn’t. So I decided to explore what modern African music had to offer. It probably shouldn’t have been suprising that couple of the songs I wanted to post weren’t on YouTube at all.
Angelique Kidjo might be the most famous of the artists listed here; below is “Papa”.
“Manjani” by Sam Mangwana was wonderful, and it’s a crime no one thought it good enough to put on YouTube. Guess I should do it. In the meantime, here is his “Mabele”.
Issa Bagayogo is a Malinese pop star. Unfortunately, his song “Touba” was also not on YouTube. So we’ll go with “Dambalou”.
“Fire in Soweto” by Sonny Okosun was an international hit, and apparently somewhat controversial.
A couple psuedo-African songs from the gaming world:
Civilization 4’s “Baba Yetu” has to be the most captivating theme in a game I’ve ever heard. The lyrics are the Lord’s Prayer in Swahili (although the singers are most definitely not native Swahili speakers.)