In an attempt to give Windows Vista some aura of cool, Microsoft recently announced that guitarist-musician Robert Fripp, the only member to play in the many versions of '70s-era art-rock band King Crimson, has composed the four-second start-up theme for the new OS.Like legendary producer-musician Brian Eno, who composed the theme you heard when you turned on Windows 95, Robert Fripp is a gutsy, artsy choice for Microsoft—a gift to the billions of Windows users around the world who have never heard of King Crimson, and probably never will. As this informative article points out, Fripp's music beat out more generic and perky start-up themes.
Alas, despite the fine pedigree of its start-up music composer, Windows 95 never managed to be cooler than the Mac operating systems. I doubt that Fripp's theme will achieve a different result, but the desktop world is certainly a better place for it.
Fripp joins other '70s and '80s music icons who have crossed over to the gadget-world—Thomas "She Blinded Me With Science" Dolby was an early pioneer in the ringtone business and is responsible for the Chopin-esque piano theme you hear on Nokia phones, while Ryuichi "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" Sakamoto wrote a series of catchy, exclusive ringtones for Nokia's stainless-steel 8801 phone last year.
If you could choose any musician to create music for Vista or some other iconic software or gadget, who would it be?
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