VEVO is a partnership between the Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and the Abu Dhabi Media Company. Artists working within any of these music companies have their music videos exclusively featured on VEVO. Other companies including EMI Music, ABKCO, Beggars Group, Big Machine Records, Concord Music Group, Hollywood Records, Lyric Street Records, Walt Disney Records, and CBS Interactive Music Group, among many more, almost use VEVO to distribute their videos.

Basically, it seems like VEVO is a way for these big music companies to get their music out without it “just” being on Youtube. It is their way of making sure that their music and video gets onto the Web in a controlled manner, without some random person posting it. This is something I’m actually completely okay with too, because the videos are of high, or what they call “premium” quality, without any extra hassle on Youtube. In fact, VEVO reduces the chance that I’ll stumble upon a fake video and waste time looking for the artist’s legitimate music video.

Youtube is great, but it can be overwhelming if you’re not interested in the comedies and other videos that people have posted. If you look for videos directly through VEVO, instead of Youtube, you can guarantee that you will be getting only top quality music videos. You can even make a playlist of these videos, just like on Youtube. It’s like your own personal MTV channel, or at least what MTV was like in the past. In addition to that, I especially like the layout of VEVO, and actually find it more appealing than Youtube, especially when trying to find an artist by genre.

Thus, if you are purely interested in watching new music videos streamed in high quality, VEVO is superb and more apt to help you find what you are seeking.

And now a quick look at music artist Oren Lavie! I decided to bring him into the limelight after recently seeing that his music video for ”Her Morning Elegance” has gained popularity.

Perhaps his video of “Her Morning Elegance” has been on the charts for a while now, but I just looked at Yahoo’s top music videos, and I noticed that this music video was number 2! I could not believe it; I had no clue that people even knew what this song was! It turns out that I have been a little of out the loop; apparently it was nominated for a 2010 Grammy Award for “Best Short Form Music Video.”

I first found this song back in, oh when was it, July of 2009 maybe? I fell in love with the song first, but I loved the video as well.  It is done in a stop-motion style and featured Shir Shomrom, a beautiful Israeli born model/actress. My friend had done a stop-motion video for an interview process and I had just made one of my own as well, so I knew how much work must have been put into making this video. Granted, it may not have been as much work as other flashier videos, but there was a lot of effort and art put behind the creation of the video. I tend to like simple videos the best – like OKgo‘s “Here She Goes Again“.

So, who is this Oren Lavie guy? He is an Israeli singer, playwright, songwriter, and theatre director. He was born in 1976 in Tel Aviv. He went to London in 1998 to study theatre directing at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and after he graduated, two of his plays were produced in many London theatres. He then moved to New York in 2001, but soon went to Berlin (2003) to produce his own recordings. His first album, The Opposite Side of the Sea, was released in Europe in January and February 2007, and in the United States in March 2009.

From the USA’s point of view, it was a slow start for Oren, but I think that all of his hard work has finally paid off. I am very happy for him and his successes.

This video was created after the band played a memorial gig for a friend who passed away, and it got them thinking. Why not create a video to go along with the theme of this great tune, “Under Pressure”, originally performed by Queen and David Bowie?

Credit goes to guitarist John Whitcore who suggested submitting the video to Avid Technology’s video contest and donating the winnings to a local charity or shelter.  They also wanted to get their kids to understand and get involved, so they ended up doing their part by being our on-camera talent.

Steve Centorino explained, “We thought the message was timely.  If we can get people to at least think about it, then we’ve accomplished something.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

STS  is:  Steve Centorino, Joe Calbro, Dana Ruzicka and John Whitcore.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.