← Ongoing History of New Music
Ongoing History of New Music
60 Mind-Blowing Facts About Music in 40 or so Minutes (2025 Edition)
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Hey, it's Alan and I just wanted to let you know that you can now listen to the ongoing history of new music. Early and ad free on Amazon music included with Prime.
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Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body relax and let go of whatever you're carrying today.
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Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh my gosh, they're so fast.
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And breathe a Sorry.
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I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste. Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order.
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1-800-Contacts.
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Meet the computer you can talk to with Copilot on Windows Working, creating and collaborating is as easy as talking. Got writer's block? Share your screen with Copilot Vision to help spark inspiration and use Copilot voice to have a conversation and brainstorm ideas. Or maybe you need some tech help with Copilot Vision. Copilot Copilot sees what you see. Let Copilot talk you through step by step guidance so you can master new apps, games and skills faster. Try now@windows.com copilot it's not just me, right?
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The world is getting weirder. Between ever shortening news cycles, social media and the general vibe of the planet, most of us wake up each day wondering what new hell will befall us over the next 12 hours. It's not always bad, but weirdness is. Well, it's everywhere. For example, there's a museum in Johnstown, Pennsylvania commemorating the time in 1889 when a dam broke causing a flood that killed 2,200 people. This year, that museum was closed. Why? Flooding? Or how about this one? A guy driving an ice cream truck in Las Vegas was attacked by because someone thought it was an ice truck, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicle filled with unidentified masked dudes looking to snatch people off the street and deport them to El Salvador or Uganda or wherever. Ice cream truck Meanwhile, this is how they do it In Iceland. There was a proposal to sentence low risk criminal offenders to stocking shelves in grocery stores. And as someone who did that for five years when I was younger, I might consider this cruel and unusual punishment. But for them, it's rehabilitation. My job involves filtering through a million different news sources looking for information about music. Much of what I find ends up in ongoing history of new music programs and podcasts. But I also run across a lot of stuff that just doesn't fit for whatever reason. Maybe it's, I don't know, off brand. Maybe it's just this one off fact that I can't use at the moment. Or maybe it's just too weird for anything that I'm working on. But I'm a believer in data never being discarded or ignored because you never, never know when you might need it. If that weren't the case, we'd all have less than 500 pictures on our phones. So what happens is that I set aside all this orphaned information throughout the year, and then when we get to December, I drop them all in a single program in order that it be disseminated for the greater good. Or at least I hope so. So here we go again. It's the annual 60 mind blowing facts about music in 60 minutes. It's the 2025 edition. This is the ongoing history of new music podcast with Alan Cross. Hello again, I'm Alan Cross, and this is my annual data dump featuring music information you didn't know you needed. Over the last 12 months, I've collected this material on scraps of paper, post it notes, my iPhone's notes app, and in various folders and files on my computer. And these are the best 60 mind blowing facts about music that I can offer in 2025. This is the 11th year I've been doing this. Maybe there's a book in here somewhere. I don't know. Maybe one day. Whatever. A lot of random information is about to come your way. Do your best to ingest what you can. You ready? Let's go. Number one of 60. If you're a fan of WKRP in Cincinnati, that classic TV show about a bunch of misfits at a radio station, you can probably hum the opening theme in your head. But how about the closing theme, which is a lot rockier? It's officially known as WKRP in Cincinnati. End credits and and was composed and performed by an Atlanta musician named Jim Ellis. He never bothered to write any lyrics for it. He just vocalized a whole bunch of gibberish. Why would he do that? As a statement on how many rock songs featured lyrics that no one can hear. Speaking of making a statement with gibberish, random item number two. An Italian singer named Adriano Salitano once wrote a song called Pretty Prison, Cullen Encina In Scolio or something like that. This was 1972. And don't worry about translating that because it doesn't mean anything. In fact, the whole song is that way. It kinda sounds like American English, but it's all just garbage. Salantano wanted to prove that Europeans will buy into any music from America. And when he released that song as a single, it charted in several countries, reaching number two in Belgium and and top 10 in Italy and the Netherlands. Number three never worry about the financial state of Guns N Roses bass player Duff McKagan. He got very deep into financial planning and is now a licensed financial planner. In 1994 he got into investing and he bought into, oh, these companies. Never heard of them. Microsoft, Starbucks. And he put money into a struggling startup called Amazon. Yeah. Number four One of the most iconic guitar riffs of all time is Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple. Guitarist Richie Blackmore says he based it on a backwards rendition of the opening notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. It's also very similar to a bossa nova song from 1963 called Maria Moita. Let me prove it. Mind blowing Fact number 5 the edge from U2 was supposed to appear with Bono on Do they Know It's Christmas? Back in 1984, but he couldn't make the session. He was in the hospital with a kidney infection. Number six Frasier. The TV show was based on a real life psychologist. Well, not a single one. Dr. Joy Brown and Dr. Laura Schlesinger were the templates. And back to closing theme songs for a second. Tossed Salads and Scrambled Eggs as sung by Kelsey Grammer is a veiled reference to the mixed up and crazy people who call into Frasier's show and more TV stuff for fact 7 Ridiculousness, the TV show that basically took over MTV and MuchMusic uses a Devo song as its theme. In 2020, the show played on MTV for 36 hours straight, so that's 72 episodes one week. Ridiculousness accounted for one hundred and thirteen of the one hundred and sixty eight hours in MTV's broadcast week. The track is Uncontrollable Urge and it's from the band's 1978 album Are We Not Men? We Are Devo. It was never released as a single, but it's a live favorite for the band. The composer was Mark Mothersbaugh. He reportedly made a million dollars a year in licensing the song to Ridiculousness. I did talk to him about that, but he was a little evasive on whether this was 100% true. Whatever the case, Ridiculousness was canceled in November 2025. So unless it lives on in reruns, Mark won't be making anything from it.
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Now.
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Let's pick up with 60 models mind blowing facts about music with item number 8. Osama bin Laden was a major Major fan of Avril Lavigne. When his Pakistani compound was raided, pictures of Avril were found on some of his hard drives. Oh, and the B52s were there as well. I'm just trying to imagine Osama bin Laden dancing to Love Shack or Rock Lobster. Number nine, do you have wireless headphones or earbuds? Of course you do. That technology originated at NASA during the Mercury program in the early 1960s. They allowed astronauts to communicate hands free. So who says that space exploration is a waste of time and money? Item number 10, Summa College in Eindhoven in the Netherlands offers degrees in heavy metal. You can study singing and any number of instruments with the curriculum structured around just metal. And upon graduation, the school offers placement opportunities. I have no idea what those may be. Number 11. You are never too old to follow your dreams. In 2025, saxophonist Marshall Allen announced his debut album. Debut record. He was 100 years old. You still have time. Item 12 is a quick one. Last check. Google earns about $3,000 a second. Very nice. Impressive. However, item 13. In 2025, Apple made $5,670 a second just by selling iPhones. That's $20.4 million an hour. Lifetime iPhone sales are currently at. You ready for this? 2.1 trillion. That's US dollars. Of course, we find number 14 in Australia. In February 2025, Brian Adams had to cancel a concert in Perth because of a fatberg. Let me explain. Near the RAC arena where Adams was scheduled to perform, a sewer maintenance crew discovered that a main line of the sewer was blocked by a giant Fatberg made up of fat, grease and old rags. The gig was canceled because there was a danger that during the show all the toilets in the venue would hit the fatberg back up and overflow. So wise move to cancel it. And item number 15. In 1978, Kate Bush was just starting her career and made an appearance on Saturday Night Live. That was her first and only TV appearance. She was introduced by Monty Python's Eric Idle, who was the guest host. And Kate made quite the impression in a gold sparkly bodysuit. Her performance was seen by a second year university student at the University of Washington named Kyle McLaughlin. Yes, the future actor. And years later, his recipe for braised ribs appeared in a cookbook. What did the two things have in common? Well, this song from that night on SNL inspired Kyle to come up with a recipe for his spare ribs.
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Ooh, he's here again. The man with the child in his eye.
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We Continue. Item number 16 of 60 there's an online radio station known as Duck Radio. It is run by six ducks, birds happily living in a garden. They have access to a sensor which they are encouraged to peck each time they do. Duck Radio rebroadcasts a different radio station from somewhere in the world. You never know what you're gonna hear and you don't know how long you're gonna hear it because it is all up to the Ducks. 17 the last time I checked, the Canada Pension Plan Investment board owns about 4.63% of Live Nation. Given that Live Nation just had its best every year in 2025, that's smart investing. 18 George Harrison of the Beatles died of throat cancer. As the disease progressed, he got weaker and weaker and found it hard to talk. When he had the strength to attend Beatles board meetings, he would bring along an Austin Powers doll. When it was his turn to talk and he didn't like what was going on, he'd pull the cord on the doll and it would say, why must I be surrounded by frickin idiots? I kind of like the imagery of that number 19 it's another Austin Powers story. Susanna Hoffs is best known as the front person of the Bengals. Years ago she was in a fake British band called Ming Ti. Also in that band was Mike Myers. Hoff's fake name in that band was Gillian Shagwell. And Mike's fake name in that fake British band was Austin Powers. At the time, Myers was married to a woman named Robin Rouzan. She encouraged Mike to write a screenplay based on the character he played in that band with Susanna Hoffs, and the result was Austin Powers International man of Mystery, which by the way, was directed by Jay Roach, who is married to Susanna Hoffs. And item 20 Bez, the dancer and former supplier of drugs to the Happy Mondays and most of Manchester, has a new passion. It's beekeeping. Not only does he keep hives, but he's also a public supporter for all things bees, including campaigns to install hives in urban areas around the uk. In his words, I'm obsessed with honey. We are nowhere near done yet. More of the 2025 list of 60 mind blowing facts about music in 60 minutes. Coming up, John Legend, Sheryl Crowe, Elvis Costello and Alanis Morissette star in the MGM original series Words and Music. Iconic artists share intimate performances and the stories behind the songs. New Episodes, Sundays on mgm.
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This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast Smart move. Being financially savvy. Smart move. Another smart move having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.
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Welcome back to the annual data purge known as 60 mind blowing facts about music in 60 minutes. Well, at least it's 60 minutes for the radio show. The podcast a little shorter, but it still contains 60 items. And we're up to fact number 21. You might buy a lot of stuff through Amazon, but the company's big moneymaker is their web services division to serve companies that need cloud computing to keep up with the demand, they need bandwidth. So the company is going to lay a new undersea cable in the Atlantic capable of streaming 12.5 million high def movies at the same time. Now a high def movie in 4K needs about 3030 gigabytes. So 12.5 million of them equals 375 million gigabytes, which is 375 petabytes. And that volume of data are going to be flowing at the same time. Now a CD holds 640 megabytes. Now my math is really bad, but I think that works out to this cable being able to transfer 5859-375000-00000 CDs per second. 22 the most important drum machine of all time is the Roland TR808. It is the foundation of so much hip hop and electronic music, but it would have never been that way had it not been for some defective transmitters used in its manufacture. Roland used transistors that were rejected for use in other devices because they were too noisy, too much inherent distortion. Rather than throw them out, they were used as noise oscillators, which is exactly what you need to build drum machines. I love stories like that. 23. I had no idea about this. The most successful Police album is Synchronicity. This is from 1983. Did you know that there are 36 different versions of the COVID artwork? You'd never know it unless you looked for it. Each version has different arrangements of the blue, yellow and red stripes along with different shots of the band members. 36 different versions. Take that Taylor Swift number 24 and we're going back to TV. Bryan Cranston is one of my favorite actors. If you remember him in Malcolm in the Middle. He was always humming and whistling songs in the show. He joined a Songwriters guild so that he would be paid performance royalties for that humming and whistling on the show. And when the royalty checks came in, he threw parties for the crew. 25. You know the GarageBand classic Louie Louie by the Kingsman. The bass player was a guy named Norm Sunholm and he was frustrated with the output of his amp. He and his brother set out to correct that, creating one of the first ever high powered concert bass amplifiers. And the result was the Sun Musical Equipment Company. Their gear was used by the who, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Cream and dozens of others. The company still exists today and it was born out of that one hit wonder, Louie Louie. 26. Speaking of one hit wonders, remember the song One Night in Bangkok from 1984. It was sung by a guy named Murray Head. His brother is Anthony Head and he plays Rupert in the series of Ted Lasso. Nobody needs to know that. But here we are and 27. We tend not to think of Madonna as a fan of post rock, yet she is the reason we have the Deftones today. In the 1990s Madonna had a label called Maverick. Guy Osiri, who would later become a high powered artist manager was the label's A and R guy. He liked this band, but he didn't know what his boss might think. Deftone demos made it all the way up the chain until it reached Madonna. She liked what she heard and the Deftones got their deal. So thank you. Match. Madonna gave us the Deftimes Number 28 of 60. In case you were wondering, there are 443ft or 135 meters of magnetic tape on each 90 minute cassette. Number 29. If you're of a certain age, you'll remember the counting song from Sesame Street. This one is called Jazzy Numbers and you'll never guess who the singer is. It's Grace Slick from the Jefferson airplane.
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1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. 1, 2, 3, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten seven. 777.
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Number 30. I I should have figured this out years ago. It's more TV too. The Mission Impossible theme was written by composer laszlo Schifflin in 1967 for the original TV show. It's based on Morse code. If we abbreviate Mission Impossible to mi m is Dash, Dash and I is. Therefore we have. Once you hear it. Halfway there, mind blowing fact. 31 out of 60. There's a pasta bread named Barilla and it has a playlist for cooking each type of pasta they sell. You start the playlist, you drop in the noodles and when the music for that particular song stops, you have perfect al dente noodles. Number 32. Mozart really hated a singer named Adriana Ferrazzi del Bene. Mozart disliked how she dropped her chin on low notes and then threw her head way back when she had to reach a high one. That's why he wrote a piece for her that involved constant jumps from low notes to high notes. Why would he do this? Because Mozart says he wanted to see her head bob like a chicken during her performance. It must have looked like she was headbanging. 33. Adam Young is the sole member of the band Owl City. He had a bunch of hits a little while ago, and he was responsible for writing a lot of the classic ringtones that we choose on our iPhones, including this one. And this one, too. Now we know number 34 involves a tax dodge by ABBA. In order to get a tax deduction for their stage outfits, they had to follow a Swedish law that declared that any stage outfits had to be so crazy and unusual that they could not be worn in everyday life. And that's why ABBA's 1970s outfits were so weird. And for number 35, I have a wild theory. Tori Amos invented pumpkin spice latte. Now, let's break this down. Pumpkin spice latte starts showing up in late August. It's a flavor that dates back more than a century. It was used in all manner of baking recipes, but not, as far as anyone can tell, in any coffee beverage. Starbucks is the biggest supplier in the known universe. They started cashing in on this in 2003. However, if we wind things back to 1995, we find a review of Tori Amos playing in Seattle, the home of Starbucks. Starbucks, of course, is used to people demanding specialized coffees. In this review from 1995, Tory says this to the crowd. You all have your Starbucks things. Well, I have one that tastes like pumpkin pie. It's my own invention. It's my contribution to Halloween. Like a little witch warmer. Again, this is 1995, and Starbucks pumpkin spice latte did not go on sale until 2003. So is Tori Amos, the inventor of the pumpkin spice latte? I, for one, choose to believe it.
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It's less dangerous. Here we are now. Entertain us. I feel stupid.
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Tori Amos, the alleged inventor of the pumpkin spice latte. By the way, Kenny G. What does he play? The clarinet. He claims to have invented the Frappuccino. And the cloud macchiato apparently has something to do with Ariana Grande. Who knows? Let's keep going. Item 36, and this is actually very helpful. There's something known as Playlist Burnout, Endless choice In music equals emotional burnout. We just don't hear the music anymore. It becomes background noise. Too much music dulls the reward system in your brain. Music stops giving you that hit of dopamine, but you keep listening because you're afraid of silence. You use music to fill emotional gaps, not for enjoyment. And this means you never give your brain time to reset. Silence helps that no silence means no reset. And ultimately you forget how to listen to music. If you find yourself in that situation, stop what you're doing and just listen to the music. No multitasking. You must sit down and actively listen. And then after a while, stop. Then after your brain resets, start again. Things will be different. Trust me on this. 37. I have an illegal number. No one's supposed to share this. It's a 32 character string of numbers and letters that begins 09F 911 029D. This is a hexadecimal version of an even longer number that starts 1-325-627-8887 and then just keeps on going. All right, so what's so forbidden about this number? It is the key that can decrypt certain types of DVDs. And because it does that, it violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It freaked out the industry so much when that key was exposed, the encryption code had to be changed for all these certain DVDs starting in 2007. Item 38. During World War II, Soviet guards would play tango music to German soldiers as torture because they for some reason, found it sinister. 39. And I find this hard to believe. Ringo Starr claims to have never eaten pizza, ever. He's 85. I'll just leave that right here. And item 40 of 60. When Morrissey goes on tour, he demands that no member of his crew wears shorts, no matter what the city or the climate. Wearing shorts is a deal breaker for anyone working a Morrissey show, including any local crew that might be hired.
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Show me my.
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We're about 2/3 of the way through the 2025 edition of 60 Mind Blowing Facts About Music in 60 Minutes. We got 20 more to go and we'll tackle them next. Amadeus. Yeah, that Amadeus. Shows up in Vienna at 25. He's jobless, totally free from his dad and ready to make some noise. He finds love in an amazing partner, Constance Weber, and suddenly he's dropping beats that nobody can ignore. Salieri was convinced that Amadeus was God's chosen one, so he had to be silenced. Tune in to the story of history's most infamous musical rivalry. Amadeus premieres Monday, January 5th on Showcase.
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Stream on STACK TV Friday Avatar Fire and Ash arrives in theaters.
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I am the fire.
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Get your 3D tickets now for the great greatest chapter of the biggest saga in history. Whatever happens, protect this family. Critics rave. It's by far the best Avatar movie.
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If your father and I do not return, you go as far and as.
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Fast as you can.
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Movies don't get any bigger than this. Avatar, Fire and ash rated pg 13. Get tickets now at AA.
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Your dreams can come true. Well, maybe not the ones where you're being chased by a monster. We're talking about kitchen drinks and there are IKEA products and solutions for all of them, whether it's a whole new kitchen, a statement glassware set, or just new cutlery. If you got big dreams or small dreams in any size or budget, IKEA can help you bring them to Life. Visit IKEA US DreamKitchen to learn more. Dream the possibilities.
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I hope you've been able to keep up with this year's edition of 60 Mind Blowing Facts About Music in 60 Minutes, because the hits just keep on coming. Taylor Swift has been known to give out homemade pop tarts to members of the Kansas City Chiefs. 42 the Police Force of the Principality of Monaco has 82 people on staff. Their Military Orchestra has 85 members. 43 Ed Sullivan once had a record label. In addition to hosting his weekly variety show, he was the executive producer for a variety of compilation albums. He would pick songs himself and then have them performed by some anonymous studio outfit under his name. Can we have a sample of this place? Okay, enough of that. There are three or four albums out there, and some people view them as highly collectible. Number 44 how to ruin a $2 million recording console with a Cheeseburger When Lemmy was still around and Motorhead was making records, there was an argument in a studio. This was at A and M Studios in Los Angeles. Lemmy got into a fight about something with the other two members of the band and the producer, and when it turned out that Lemmy was wrong about this thing, whatever it was, he freaked out. He just happened to be eating a cheeseburger at the time, and to make his point, whatever it was, he slammed the cheeseburger into the mixing desk. All work stopped while a technician was called to open things up and pick out all the gooey cheese, lettuce and condiments. It was fixable. But again, this was a $2 million piece of studio gear. Number 45 one of the most famous cemeteries in the world is Pere Lachaise In Paris, it's the largest cemetery in the city at 110 acres. But because it was opened in 1804, it's pretty much full. There's no more room amongst the final resting places of hundreds of notable and famous French people, such as Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf and Jim Morrison of the Doors. He was buried there after he died at a bathtub in his Paris apartment in 1971. It's also where you'll find Stiff Bader's of the Dead Boys, not in a formal grave, but because his ashes were sprinkled on Jim's grave after he died in 1990. So no more room to spend eternity with the Lizard King, right? Not quite. Some new room has been found. Officials launched a lottery in 2025, meaning that some lucky person will be buried in the same place as Jim Morrison. And item number 46, Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister of Australia, was raked over the coals for appearing in public wearing a Joy Division Unknown Pleasures T shirt. The opposition not only declared that this was undignified, but they also tried to make Joy Division out to be a Nazi loving, anti Semitic band. This opposition politician said that wearing a Joy Division T shirt was a profound failure of judgment. Talk about trying to score some cheap political points, huh? And she gave away the secrets of her past and said I was contrary. And the voice that told her when and where to wax, she said, I've lost control again. Moving to item 47 of 60. Paul McCartney apparently once had quite the temper. In the early 1970s, just as wings was getting started, a reporter was invited to tag along with Maca and his family to write a story about what it was like for families to go on tour. And this guy was given unprecedented access when he wrote a negative review of a show that he didn't even attend, along with all kinds of other snarky things. McCartney was furious. To make his point, McCartney and his wife Linda took the. They took the deposits in baby Stella McCartney's diaper, put them in a hotel soap dish, wrapped it all up and sent it to the journalist. Stella McCartney is now, of course, that famous designer. Imagine his surprise when he opened that package from the greatest songwriter of the 20th century. I wonder how he felt. There's a weird bit of circular justice or something to item number 48. In 1990, Fab Morvan was part of Milli Vanilli. He and his partner, Rob Pilatus had to give back their Grammy Award when it was discovered that they were just lip syncing to someone else's singing on all their records and and when they performed live in 2025, 35 years later, Fabb was nominated for a Grammy for his narration in the category of best audiobook. The book is called, you know, it's the Real Story of Milli Vanilli. And you know what? I really hope he wins. 50. When Adolph Sax invented the saxophone in Belgium in 1842, the instrument was an immediate hit. In fact, it was too popular. Adolf Sachs survived three assassination attempts that were probably carried out by makers of rival horns who were very, very afraid of what the saxophone might do to their business. 51 this is one of the greatest music business lawsuits of all time. Park Beom is a former member of a K pop group called 2ne1. She accused the founder of her management company of ripping her off to the tune of and I'm serious about this, $4.5 quadrillion. To put that into perspective, the estimated value of the economy of the entire known universe is only 117 trillion. And oddly, this case never made it to court. Number 52 Sene Takachi is Japan's new Prime Minister. And not only is she the country's first female pm, but she's also a metalhead. She played drums in a metal band at university and and had to always have four pairs of sticks for her gig because she would break them all. And at 64 she still plays and loves Sabbath, Deep Purple and Ard. Maiden item number 53, Spinal Tap returned in 2025. There was new merch too. Together with the brand Liquid Death, which is canned water, they launched a line of Liquid Death, Spinal Tap, canned water and all those cans came in an 11 pack because well, that's one more than a 10 pack and mind blowing musical fact 54 of 60 the biggest live music story of the year was the Oasis reunion. People spent hundreds of millions on official merch. But there's something you may have missed. When Oasis played a multi night stand at Wembley Stadium in London, fans set a record for the most amount of beer consumed at that venue. Over the first three nights, which is 90,000 people per gig, those fans consumed 250,000 pints or 4,500 kegs of beer, which works out to 2.5 pints per person. To put that into perspective, when Coldplay played Wembley, only 120,000 per night were sold and when Taylor Swift did her stand there, the average was just 40,000. I would not be surprised if Oasis knew this going in and worked out a deal where they got a chunk of the food and beverage sales that night, and you can actually do that if you're big enough. Here's Oasis with a recording they released from their gig in Croke park in Dublin. I don't know how much beer they sold that night, but it would have been a lot of Guinness. Okay, we're in the final stretch. Six more mind blowing facts to go for. 2025 number 55 this has to do with a rogue karaoke machine. A unit called the Soundstage Party Cube comes with a wireless mic. About 950 of them were sold in Canada between March 2023 and June 2025. There has since been a recall. Why? Because the frequency used by the wireless mic interferes with those used by police and emergency services. Health Canada flagged the machine because the potential injury hazard is that someone who needs a cop or an ambulance could be put in danger by someone singing Total Eclipse of the Heart or whatever you do with karaoke machines. 56 in an interesting experiment in cross species music making, a Manchester outfit called Bionic and the Wires plugs some mushrooms, fungi and some other plants into sensors. Those sensors are capable of picking up the very tiny electrical bleats emitted by plants. They turned those bleats into MIDI language, the thing that allows electronic devices to talk to each other, and then they translated that into motor signals. Those signals then moved robot arms and in one experiment, Bionic and the Wires used a mushroom as its drummer. 57 if you're into metal and beauty pageants, you probably have heard about this one already. Ignacia Fernandez was the winner of the Miss World Chile pageant. For the talent portion of the show, she sang something from deceissus, the death metal band that she fronts. Okay, this is on television. This is a beauty contest. Have a listen. It works way better with the video, but it's just fantastic. Number 58 props to Tyler Visser. He's one of those YouTubers who does drum covers, and earlier this year he sat down behind his kit and performed every single Tool song in one single seven and a half hour session. It's not quite true. He didn't get to sweat and disgustimated for some sort of copyright reason. But all the other Tool songs played them all in a row. Number 59 if you love vinyl but think regular records are too big, there's a company called Tiny Vinyl. They're issuing four inch singles, one song per side, and the last time I looked there were 31 titles in the catalog, including material from Black Sabbath and the Rolling Stones. And finally, Mind Blowing Fact About Music, number 60 of 60, another big reunion tour of 2025 was that of My Chemical Romance, who played a bunch of stadium gigs, but not without controversy. A TikTok user under the handleforjesus, obviously religious sort of Guy posted a 90 second video that he says undeniably confirms Gerard's transformation mid performance into something weird demonic. This allegedly happened on August 9th at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
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Please tell me y' all saw the dude from My Chemical Romance, I think his name is Gerard, morph into a demon mid performance at his concert a couple days ago. If you didn't see it, trigger warning. If you're easily scared, click off the video right now. But this is what he looked like. Yes, this is that same man complete morphing into a demon, a reptilian, if you will. This is what he morphed into. And we see these a lot with these celebrities, these musicians on stage. They will somehow trigger a alter ego and then they will morph. And now here's the video for context. But it was twice. I don't know if y' all saw initially he moved, morphed, he went back to himself and then he morphed.
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You know, I thought the Internet was supposed to make us smarter. I was apparently misinformed. And there you have the 2025 edition of the 60 Mind Blowing Facts About Music in 60 Minutes. Like I said earlier, it's a little shorter if you're listening to this as a podcast, but you still get all the facts. The podcast is also a great way to go back and listen to everything else that I just told you, because that was a lot. And then once you're done that, there are the other end of the year shows just like this. I started doing this in 2015, so that's a total of 11, 60 and 60 episodes. And now that I've done, I've set up some folders on my computer and phone and I'm collecting material for the 2026 edition. Meanwhile, go and listen to some other ongoing history podcasts. There are hundreds. You can also check out my other podcast, Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry. And it's all about true crime meets music. I think you'll really like them. There's my website, a journal of musicalthhings.com which is updated every day with music news and information. I'm on most of the social media networks and you can also reach out via email. Use AlanLancross Cat and I'll get right back to you. Technical production for all this is by Rob Johnston. I'll talk to you next time. I'm Alan Cross.
- [41:42]
I
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