Hummer

Hummer was a brand of trucks and SUVs, first marketed in 1992 when AM General began selling a civilian version of the M998 Humvee. In 1998, General Motors (GM) purchased the brand name and marketed three vehicles: the original Hummer H1, based on the military Humvee, as well as the H2 and H3 models that were based on smaller, civilian-market GM platforms.

By 2008, Hummer's viability in the economic downturn was being questioned, and it was placed under review by GM management. Rather than being transferred to Motors Liquidation Company as part of the GM bankruptcy in 2009, the brand was retained by GM, in order to investigate its sale.

In 2009, a Chinese manufacturer, Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company, announced that it would acquire Hummer, pending government approvals, but later withdrew its bid. On February 24, 2010, Reuters reported that the Chinese ministry of commerce had prevented the deal, although a ministry spokesperson denied rejecting the application, which had been stalled for eight months. At the end of February, General Motors announced it would begin dismantling the Hummer brand.

The Hummer

The Hummer is the ninth solo album by Canadian musician Devin Townsend, and his second ambient album. It was released on Townsend's label, HevyDevy Records, on November 15, 2006.

Music

The album chiefly consists of interwoven low frequency sounds, flute, morse code and ocean sounds, as well as audio samples from sources such as a reading by Leonard Cohen of part of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Ravi Shankar, and the 1997 science fiction film Contact. This is a quiet, reflective work in the vein of meditative music, and provides a stark antithesis to the aggressive heavy metal stance adopted by one of Townsend's other projects - Strapping Young Lad. Townsend describes it as "much more user friendly than the Devlab...still; some people are going to think it's just buzzing and humming noises, so again...it's not for everybody."

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Devin Townsend. 

Personnel

References

Hummer (Foals song)

"Hummer" is the second single by Foals, and is the first single with Yannis Philippakis on lead vocals (previous lead vocalist was Andrew Mears). It was released on 12 March 2007. It was recorded and mixed by producer Gareth Parton at The Fortress and Metropolis recording studios, London. It was released as a digital download and on vinyl on 23 April 2007.

Although initially released as a non-album single, it was added as a bonus track to later editions of Foals' debut album Antidotes.

The song was featured in the first series of Skins.

Critical reception

In an 8/10 review, Drowned In Sound described the track as sounding "like Animal Collective rifling through The Rapture’s audio files on electro night". It came 12th in a top tracks of 2007 list compiled by NME. In October 2011, NME placed it at number 142 on its list "150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years".

Track listing

References

External links