Windows 7, Windows Live and Windows Phone 7 comes together to make sweet music

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It’s one thing to read about utopian use cases for the Windows 7 and Windows Live ecosystem, but nothing beats watching real people putting it into use to create something amazing.

From the same director of the recently popular Blu-ray PC vs Mac ad, Keith Rivers also produced and directed this 2:30min spot featuring the entire family of Microsoft’s consumer offerings – Windows 7, Windows Live Essentials 2011, Skydrive, Office Web Apps and Windows Phone 7.

According to Keith, who was a fan of this up and coming musician Andrew Belle, this commercial documentary/music video for the song was very much inspired by real events that occurred over a matter of weeks in September this year. Shot with a Canon 5Dmk2 complimented with a great soundtrack, the ad looks and sounds drop dead gorgeous. It’s a pretty compelling story too.

For the icing on the cake, you can actually download the featured song “Sky’s Still Blue” from Microsoft.com or get it on Zune Marketplace for free. Andrew just earned himself a new fan.

Update: The original Vimeo video has been removed for some reason, I’ve embedded a copy from Microsoft’s website.

29 insightful thoughts

  1. I loved! Totally breaks the idea artists must use Macs to compose. Great video from Microsoft. And the song is really good.

  2. Cool advertisement! I hope to see it on TV as well… I’ve enjoyed seeing a Microsoft advertising blitz with WP7, and I’d like to see them continue it with something like this.

    Microsoft has finally got a perfect storm of apps and services right now, and it’s great seeing them in the spotlight again. ๐Ÿ™‚

  3. How do they record the song? For me this ad shows what is still missing in the Windows Live galaxy: a music recording solution รก la GarageBand. A few years ago there were rumors that Microsoft is working on such a thing. But nothing happened.

    Oh and why don’t they show the very cool social features of the whole Zune system in combination with Windows Live?

    It is a nice ad but also makes it too easy to criticize it.

    1. LOL

      Are you kidding me? None of these removed features have impeded my use of Windows 7 whatsoever; in fact, I find the Control Panel, Explorer, etc. etc. to be much easier and enjoyable to use in 7 than in Vista OR XP. No usability was ‘gangraped’; stop spreading lies that justify using an archaic OS.

  4. details missing etc dont matter – the ad is touching and relating nicely to what microsoft wants to show. this is what I call effective marketing.

    thanks for showing long

  5. Drew you did an awesome job on the commercial! And I think this has to be one of my favorite songs you have done even if it is for a commercial!

    1. Hey Julie…I agree this is my fav song he’s done to date, and the REAL version of that song will have different lyrics, and be released next year. This is the “Microsoft version”, of a song he had in the making, but they said his original lyrics were too sad. He is not promoting this one at all, but was part of the deal with MS. ~HisDad

  6. haha to all you guys saying that this shows you can be a muscian and use windows……. andrew uses macs and has an iphone. haha

    it’s still pretty hard to go down the windows path as a muscian. Mac has more to offer.

  7. What I don’t get is why they’re using those bulky external webcams, when every PC made in the past 4-5 years has one built in.

    1. I brought my PC brand new last year, no inbuilt Webcam, there were ones with them but saying “every PC made in the past 4-5 years has one built in” is like saying “every movie made in the past 2 years is 3D”, it’s true for a lot of them but not for all.

    2. I brought a PC a few months ago and the monitor does not have webcam and many desktops dont so where do you get every PC made in the past 4-5 years has one from ?

      1. Every windows laptop you buy nowadays should hv a built in cam. Unless you are choosing the older models.

        Not sure about LCDs monitors though..

        Pretty subjective comment depending on what models you are buying.

  8. Anyone notice that it says Encoded by iTunes 10.0 in the metadata? Download it from the Microsoft link in Long’s post and take a look for yourself.

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