Rapture (Blondie song)

"Rapture" is a song by the American pop rock band Blondie from their fifth studio album, Autoamerican (1980).

In January 1981, "Rapture" was released as the second and final single from the album. The song reached No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart, where it stayed for two weeks. It was the first No. 1 song in the U.S. to feature rap. The song peaked at No. 4 in Australia and No. 5 in the United Kingdom.

History

"Rapture" is a combination of disco, funk, and hip hop with the rap section forming an extended coda. The song title "Rapture" served to indicate this element. While it was not the first single featuring rapping to be commercially successful, it was the first to top the charts. Its lyrics were especially notable for namechecking hip-hop pioneers Fab Five Freddy and Grandmaster Flash.

Music video

The music video made its U.S. television debut on Solid Gold on January 31, 1981, and became the first rap video ever broadcast on MTV. Set in the East Village section of Manhattan, the "Man from Mars" or "voodoo god" (dancer William Barnes in the white suit and top hat) is the introductory and central figure. Barnes also choreographed the piece. The final shot is a one-take scene of Debbie Harry dancing along the street, passing by graffiti artists, Uncle Sam, a Native American and a goat. Fab Five Freddy and graffiti artists Lee Quinones and Jean-Michel Basquiat make cameo appearances. Basquiat was hired when Grandmaster Flash did not show for the filming. The UK 7" version of the song is used in the video.

Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XIV (ファイナルファンタジーXIV, Fainaru Fantajī Fōtīn), also known as Final Fantasy XIV Online, is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game for Microsoft Windows personal computers, developed and published by Square Enix in 2010. It is the fourteenth entry in the main Final Fantasy series and the second MMORPG in the series after Final Fantasy XI. Set in the fantasy realm of Eorzea, players take control of a customized avatar as they explore the land and are caught up in both an invasion by the hostile Garlean Empire and the threat of the Primals, the deities of the land's Beastmen tribes. Eventually, they are embroiled in a plot by a Garlean Legatus to destroy the Primals by bringing one of the planet's moons down on Eorzea.

The game had been in development since 2005 under the codename "Rapture", and was announced in 2009 for Windows and PlayStation 3 video game consoles. It ran on Square Enix's Crystal Tools middleware engine, which was adjusted to suit the game's specifications. During development, the team carried over multiple aesthetic elements from XI while creating something that stood on its own. Due to several factors, the development was beset by problems that would later have drastic effects on the game. Attempts to bring the game to Xbox 360 consoles fell through due to disagreements with Microsoft about the use of Xbox Live.

Rapture (composition)

Rapture is an orchestral composition in one movement by the American composer Christopher Rouse. The work was commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and was completed January 9, 2000. It is dedicated to then Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra music director Mariss Jansons and premiered in May 2000.

Composition

Rapture is markedly more tonal than Rouse's earlier compositions. In the program notes to the score, Rouse commented, "With the exception of my Christmas work, Karolju, this is the most unabashedly tonal music I have composed. I wished to depict a progression to an ever more blinding ecstasy, but the entire work inhabits a world devoid of darkness -- hence the almost complete lack of sustained dissonance." The piece is also built around "gradually increasing tempi" gains speed over the course of its roughly 11 minutes.

Despite the religious title of the work, Rouse did not intend Rapture to be sacred music. He further commented, "...the piece is not connected to any specific religious source. Rather, I used the word 'rapture' to convey a sense of spiritual bliss, religious or otherwise."

Oculus Rift

The Rift is a virtual reality head-mounted display developed by Oculus VR. It was initially proposed in a Kickstarter campaign, during which Oculus VR (at the time an independent company) raised US$2.5 million for the development of the product.

The Rift is scheduled for release on March 28, 2016, making it one of the first consumer-targeted virtual reality headsets. It has a resolution of 1080×1200 per eye, a 90 Hz refresh rate, and a wide field of view. It has integrated headphones which provide a 3D audio effect. The Rift has rotational and positional tracking. The positional tracking is performed by a USB stationary IR sensor, which normally sits on the user's desk, allowing for using the Rift while sitting, standing, or walking around the same room.

The Rift has gone through various prototype versions in the years since the Kickstarter campaign, around 5 of which were demonstrated to the public. Two of these prototypes were made available for purchase as 'development kits', DK1 in late 2012 and DK2 in mid 2014, to give developers a chance to develop content in time for the Rift's release. However, both were also purchased by a large number of enthusiasts who wished to get an early preview of the technology.

Rift (album)

Rift is the fourth official studio album by the American rock band Phish. It is the band's second concept album, the first being The Man Who Stepped into Yesterday in 1987, which has never been officially released. Rift's songs convey the experience of a man dreaming about the rift in his relationship with his girlfriend. Recorded in September and October 1992 and produced by Muscle Shoals music veteran Barry Beckett, the album was released by Elektra Records on February 2, 1993.

All songs were written by Trey Anastasio and Phish lyricist Tom Marshall except "Mound" and "Weigh" by bass guitarist Mike Gordon and "Lengthwise" by drummer Jon Fishman.

The instrumental, "All Things Reconsidered", is an intentional variation on the theme to the National Public Radio news show All Things Considered, and has been featured on the show itself several times. An orchestral version of the song appears on Trey Anastasio's 2004 solo album Seis De Mayo.

The cover art was created by New York-based painter David Welker, who worked closely with the band during winter 1993 in order to visually depict each of the album's tracks in a single image, with the notable exception of "The Horse". (For this reason, a horse intentionally appears on the cover of Phish's next album, Hoist). Relix magazine listed Rift as one of the most iconic album covers of all time in 2007.

Cardiff Rift

The Cardiff Rift is a fictional wormhole in the science fiction television series Doctor Who and Torchwood, one end of which is located in Cardiff Bay, Wales. The other end is apparently floating freely through spacetime, and matter and radiation can pass through the Rift, allowing extraterrestrial and extratemporal artifacts, and occasionally life-forms, to "wash up" in Cardiff. It is described as "Unpredictable and elusive, it’s a gateway for alien creatures, alien weapons, all manner of alien technology and time anomalies to enter our world" and the "flotsam and jetsam of the universe since the dawn of time."

The Rift has been featured in episodes of Doctor Who and is central to the spin-off series Torchwood, which concerns a branch of the Torchwood Institute created to monitor activity around the Rift. The Rift acts as a plot generator, providing a wide and potentially unlimited array of possible plots for the series, much like the Hellmouth in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Bajoran wormhole in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.