The Funny Music Project Wins New Media Award

PRLog (Press Release) - Sep. 16, 2009 - For the past 20 years or so, comedy music has been all but blacklisted by the mainstream music industry. What was once a common appearance on Top 40 radio has been relegated to the darkest corners of the Internet. But now, funny songs have received a serious boost: The Funny Music Project was the winner of a 2009 Parsec Award.

The Funny Music Project, aka The FuMP, is a web site launched in 2007 offering biweekly songs from comedy musicians. All of the music is podsafe, DRM-free, and available via free download from the web site. A recent song by "the great Luke Ski," for example, parodies "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" to riff on Disney's acquisition of Marvel Comics: "Superheroes owned by Marvel, Disney has acquired us / We must go along with it or else the mouse will fire us / X-Men are the Jonas Brothers, Storm is Miley Cyrus / Superheroes owned by Marvel, Disney has acquired us."

The Parsec Awards were created in 2006 by author Mur Lafferty, Michael R. Mennenga of Farpoint Media, and author Tracy Hickman to recognize excellence in speculative fiction podcasting. The award is given out each year at Dragon*Con to science fiction, fantasy, and horror authors who make their work available via podcast. In 2009, the awards added a category for music.

"When I found out The FuMP was nominated for a Parsec Award, I was shocked because I wasn't the one who nominated it," joked Tom Rockwell, a comedian and rapper known as Devo Spice.

Rockwell, manager of The FuMP, was in the audience for the awards and performed three songs during the ceremony. The award was presented by Rick Stringer, creator and host of the Parsec Award-winning podcast Variant Frequencies.

"This award really means a lot to me because we have put so much time and effort into The FuMP. It's great to have that recognized," says Rockwell.  "Record labels and radio stations may not be interested in funny music anymore, but the fans obviously are. That's all that matters."

Also nominated in the music category were FETIDUS (The Foundation for the Ethical Treatment of the Innocently Damned, Undead and Supernatural), The GeekSpin, Radio Free Hipster, and Wander Radio.

On the web:
The Funny Music Project: http://www.thefump.com
The Parsec Awards: http://www.parsecawards.com

Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/10344746/1