Mr. Oizo

Mr. Oizo (French: [məsˈjø waˈzo]; born 14 April 1974) is the stage name of French electronic musician and film director Quentin Dupieux. His pseudonym is a corruption of the French oiseau, meaning "bird". He is currently signed to Ed Banger Records and Brainfeeder.

Early life

Quentin Dupieux was born on 14 April 1974 in Paris. At the age of 12, he found a camera and started taking photographs. At 17, he began to play music to illustrate his images, and he bought his first synthesizer. In 1997, Laurent Garnier of the record label FCom bought a car from Mr. Oizo's father. Garnier then found out about Dupieux's talents and let him direct the music video for his song "Flashback". Later, Dupieux was signed to FCom, which he released his first EP, "#1".

"Flat Beat"

Dupieux released "Flat Beat" in January 1999, a track consisting mainly of a repeated bass loop and a drum sample from "Put Your Love in My Tender Care" by The Fatback Band. In an interview with XLR8R magazine, Dupieux stated that it took him only two hours with a Korg MS-20 to produce. However, Flat Beat became a hit throughout Europe in 1999, becoming the best-known Mr. Oizo release. The track was featured in a series of Levi's jeans TV commercials, which featured a yellow puppet named Flat Eric nodding his head to the rhythm while riding in an old, beat-up car. Flat Eric was also featured in the song's music video. The Flat Beat EP has sold over three million copies. The song reached number 1 in the UK.

File shortcut

In computing, a file shortcut is a handle in a user interface that allows the user to find a file or resource located in a different directory or folder from the place where the shortcut is located.

Shortcuts are typically implemented as a small file containing a target URI or GUID to an object, or the name of a target program file that the shortcut represents. The shortcut might additionally specify parameters to be passed to the target program when it is run. Each shortcut can have its own icon. Shortcuts are very commonly placed on a desktop, in an application launcher panel such as the Microsoft Windows Start menu, or in the main menu of a desktop environment. The functional equivalent in the Macintosh operating system is called an alias, and a symbolic link (or symlink) in UNIX-like systems.

Implementations

Microsoft Windows

File shortcuts (also known as shell links) were introduced in Windows 95.Microsoft Windows uses .lnk as the filename extension for shortcuts to local files, and .URL for shortcuts to remote files, like web pages. Commonly referred to as "shortcuts" or "link files", both are displayed with a curled arrow overlay icon by default, and no filename extension. (The extension remains hidden in Windows Explorer even when "Hide extensions for known file types" is unchecked in File Type options, because it is controlled by the NeverShowExt option in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile in the Registry. The IsShortcut option causes the arrow to be displayed.) Shortcut files can be used to launch programs in minimized or maximized window states if the program supports it.

Lambs Anger

Lambs Anger is the third album by Mr. Oizo. Although this album contains many of Mr. Oizo's trademark avant-garde elements, it also has many elements of Electro and French House not previously heard in his albums, most notably French electro-rapper Uffie's guest track, "Steroids". The first single from the album is "Positif", which was released three days after the album's release and has received support from a wide variety of DJs, including Flying Lotus and D.I.M. Unlike Analog Worms Attack and Moustache (Half a Scissor), the album is composed of many dance tracks suited for a club environment.

The album was released in France on 17 November 2008 and in America on 26 January 2009. It has received mixed reviews, with Pitchfork Media and PopMatters especially disliking it.

Track listing

Ed Banger Records

Ed Banger Records is a French electronic music record label founded by Pedro Winter in 2003 as a division of Headbangers Entertainment. The label is home to French electronic acts Justice, Sebastian, Cassius, Uffie, Krazy Baldhead, DJ Mehdi, Mr. Oizo, Mr. Flash, Vicarious Bliss, So Me, Feadz, Breakbot, DSL, Mickey Moonlight, Boston Bun and Pedro Winter himself, under the alias Busy P. Most of the videos and album art for releases under Ed Banger Records are coordinated by So Me.

History

The label enjoyed a dramatic rise in fame in early 2007 when a number of the artists signed to its roster found mainstream success, most notably French electronic group Justice, whose rework of "Never Be Alone" by now defunct electro-rock band Simian, was a success in clubs worldwide, entering the UK charts at #20. The music video for the single won the award for best video at the MTV Europe Music Awards in 2006. Labelmate Uffie also enjoyed a rise in fame in late 2006 when her single, "Pop the Glock", gained international radio play.

Mystery meat navigation

Mystery meat navigation (also known as MMN) is a disparaging term coined in 1998 by Vincent Flanders, author and designer of the website Web Pages That Suck, to describe a web page where the destination of the link is not visible until the user points their cursor at it. Such interfaces lack a user-centered design, emphasizing aesthetic appearance, white space, and the concealment of relevant information over basic practicality and functionality.

The epithet "mystery meat" refers to the meat products often served in American public school cafeterias whose forms have been so thoroughly reprocessed that their exact types can no longer be identified by their appearances: like them, the methods of MMN are clear to the producer but baffling to the consumer.

Flanders originally and temporarily described the phenomenon as Saturnic navigation in reference to the Saturn Corporation, whose company website epitomized this phenomenon. Flanders writes, "The typical form of MMN is represented by menus composed of unrevealing icons that are replaced with explicative text only when the mouse cursor hovers over them".