Found this article on my home page. It's from The L.A. Times. - OlderMusicGeek
Jammie Thomas, the unlikely saboteur, had an eclectic set of songs collected. Maybe there's a message in her playlist.
By Ann Powers, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 6, 2007
Thomas' list has hipsters groaning. It includes some of the most banal Top 40 songs of recent memory: songs by 1980s balladeers Richard Marx and Bryan Adams, quiet-storm beauty queen Vanessa Williams, and the feathered-hair kings in Journey. Teen tastes may be represented by the presence of Green Day and Linkin Park tracks. "In her defense," one respondent posted on the pop-music blog Idolator, "I wouldn't pay for any of these songs either."
But look at the list beyond the prejudices of taste, and another quality surfaces: it's eclectic. A Reba McEntire track represents classic country. There's some Gloria Estefan for that Latin freestyle flavor. It's easy to imagine Thomas chilling out to Sarah McLachlan's "Building a Mystery" after her kids were in bed, or getting out her aggressions after a hard day at the office -- she works for her own tribe, the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwa, in the natural resources department -- by turning up "Welcome to the Jungle" by Guns N' Roses.
This is a playlist for a family party, wide-ranging enough for everybody to be satisfied. It has a lived-in feel, with songs spanning four decades, probably marking highlights in the life of Thomas and those she loves. What it isn't, though, is something you'd hear on the radio, or be able to buy on any compilation that's in print.
True, Thomas could have burned a CD of these tracks, from the vast record collection she claims to own. She could have purchased the songs again from iTunes. But what she probably really wanted to do was just hear them occasionally, the way you hear songs on the radio. She wanted a wide array of music, easily available. Radio, split into niche markets and limited by tiny, repetitive playlists, wasn't giving her that.
Pop hits saturate the airwaves, television and the speakers at the mall for a brief time, until they reach obsolescence. Occasionally they'll pop up in a television show or on a film soundtrack. But a pop fan who wants a little country, a little metal and some hip-hop in her life won't easily find it in one environment. Her fingers could get blisters twisting the radio dial.
Popular music has always been a leaky commodity, but the major labels have increasingly narrowed their scope to focus on a few superstars and one-hit wonders. The Internet has made eclectic listening easy again. Thomas' crime (if we must label it that) was in not paying for the tracks she allegedly shared. But in a way, it was an act committed in self-defense, against the numbing effects of an increasingly narrowcast mainstream.
ann.powers@latimes.com
Link to the complete article
Comments from The L.A. Times:
Tell me this, when the U.S. crawls its way up the broadband ladder to where Finland, Hong Kong, or S. Korea are with net speeds of 100Mbps (compared to the U.S.' average 3Mbps), what chance do these media companies have of slowing their inevitable extinction? Other than crippling future technological innovation and lobbying for some Orwellian state with our tax dollars paying law enforcement to defend the 21st century equivalent of the buggy-whip industry.
Submitted by: Plautus
7:28 PM PDT, October 5, 2007
How absurd is it to call what she did piracy. Piracy is an act committed by one who plunders at sea, killing or maiming the victim. To call this piracy is an insult to pirates. This definition was created She shared music with strangers. Sharing, what society teaches kids to do starting in pre-school. Call it what it is, she's guilty of sharing.
Submitted by: blackbeard
7:26 PM PDT, October 5, 2007
Please follow up after the judgment is paid to find out how much of it the labels have paid out in royalties to the artists -- then we'll find out how much it is really about compensating them.
Submitted by: AB
3:25 PM PDT, October 5, 2007
Those who can't innovate and adapt to a changing marketplace call their lawyers. Digital music has made the market more efficient and more porous-- deal with it, or perish. I think it's time to short-sell recording industry stock.
Submitted by: Chris
7:37 PM PDT, October 4, 2007
ABOUT ME
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Sunday, October 07, 2007
Monday, October 01, 2007
MUSIC: Radiohead Says: Pay What You Want
Another piece from my netvibes.com home page. This from Time.com. - OlderMusicGeek.
Sure, Radiohead is on a sustained run as the most interesting and innovative band in rock, but what makes In Rainbows important — easily the most important release in the recent history of the music business — are its record label and its retail price: there is none, and there is none.
In Rainbows will be released as a digital download available only via the band's web site, Radiohead.com. There's no label or distribution partner to cut into the band's profits — but then there may not be any profits. Drop In Rainbows' 15 songs into the online checkout basket and a question mark pops up where the price would normally be. Click it, and the prompt "It's Up To You" appears. Click again and it refreshes with the words "It's Really Up To You" — and really, it is. It's the first major album whose price is determined by what individual consumers want to pay for it. And it's perfectly acceptable to pay nothing at all.
Labels can still be influential and profitable by focusing on younger acts that need their muscle to get radio play and placement in record stores — but only if the music itself remains a saleable commodity. "That's the interesting part of all this," says a producer who works primarily with American rap artists. "Radiohead is the best band in the world; if you can pay whatever you want for music by the best band in the world, why would you pay $13 dollars or $.99 cents for music by somebody less talented? Once you open that door and start giving music away legally, I'm not sure there's any going back."
The ramifications of Radiohead's pay-what-you-want experiment will take time to sort out, but for established artists at least, turning what was once their highest-value asset — a much-buzzed-about new album — into a loss leader may be the wave of the future. Even under the most lucrative record deals, the ones reserved for repeat, multi-platinum superstars, the artists can end up with less than 30% of overall sales revenue (which often is then split among several band members). Meanwhile, as record sales decline, the concert business is booming. In July, Prince gave away his album Planet Earth for free in the U.K. through the downmarket Mail on Sunday newspaper. At first he was ridiculed. Then he announced 21 consecutive London concert dates — and sold out every one of them.
Link to the complete article
Sure, Radiohead is on a sustained run as the most interesting and innovative band in rock, but what makes In Rainbows important — easily the most important release in the recent history of the music business — are its record label and its retail price: there is none, and there is none.
In Rainbows will be released as a digital download available only via the band's web site, Radiohead.com. There's no label or distribution partner to cut into the band's profits — but then there may not be any profits. Drop In Rainbows' 15 songs into the online checkout basket and a question mark pops up where the price would normally be. Click it, and the prompt "It's Up To You" appears. Click again and it refreshes with the words "It's Really Up To You" — and really, it is. It's the first major album whose price is determined by what individual consumers want to pay for it. And it's perfectly acceptable to pay nothing at all.
Labels can still be influential and profitable by focusing on younger acts that need their muscle to get radio play and placement in record stores — but only if the music itself remains a saleable commodity. "That's the interesting part of all this," says a producer who works primarily with American rap artists. "Radiohead is the best band in the world; if you can pay whatever you want for music by the best band in the world, why would you pay $13 dollars or $.99 cents for music by somebody less talented? Once you open that door and start giving music away legally, I'm not sure there's any going back."
The ramifications of Radiohead's pay-what-you-want experiment will take time to sort out, but for established artists at least, turning what was once their highest-value asset — a much-buzzed-about new album — into a loss leader may be the wave of the future. Even under the most lucrative record deals, the ones reserved for repeat, multi-platinum superstars, the artists can end up with less than 30% of overall sales revenue (which often is then split among several band members). Meanwhile, as record sales decline, the concert business is booming. In July, Prince gave away his album Planet Earth for free in the U.K. through the downmarket Mail on Sunday newspaper. At first he was ridiculed. Then he announced 21 consecutive London concert dates — and sold out every one of them.
Link to the complete article
MUSIC: On the Road with the First-Ever Muslim Punk-Rock Tour
I got this from my netvibes.com home page. It's from Rolling Stone magazine. - OlderMusicGeek
In late august, a creaking green school bus with red camels stenciled on its side rolled up to the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo in Ohio. Seventeen exhausted, beer-reeking punks, with mohawks and dyed hair, walked up to the mosque looking for a place to rest. "I was surprised -- they totally let us hang out there," says Kourosh Poursalehi, 19, frontman for San Antonio's Vote Hezbollah. "They even wanted CDs and stuff."
Vote Hezbollah (the band's name is intended as a joke) is one of five Muslim punk bands that recently wrapped up a ten-date tour that took them from Boston to Chicago during August and September. The bands, which hail from Chicago, San Antonio, Boston and Washington, D.C., share left-of-center politics and an antipathy toward the president. And all have used punk as a means to express the anger, confusion and pride in being young and Muslim in post-9/11 America.
Twenty-four hours after leaving the Toledo mosque, Boston's Kominas -- Punjabi for "the Bastards" -- are playing in a packed basement in a rundown corner of Chicago's Logan Square. Local punks mix with curious young Muslims -- including a few girls wearing head scarves -- as Kominas frontman Shahjehan Khan launches into the opening lines of "Sharia Law in the U.S.A.": "I am an Islamist!/And I am an anti-Christ!" Nearby, mohawked bassist Basim Usmani -- whose T-shirt reads frisk me i'm muslim -- slaps out the song's bass line while viciously slam-dancing with a dude in a woman's burqa.
"This has been the best time of my life," says Khan, 23, who grew up in Boston, the son of Pakistani immigrants. He's retreated to an alley out back, where the bus is parked, to smoke a cigarette. The bands on tour made contact online, and most met for the first time at their first tour date three weeks earlier. Although they are all children of immigrants from countries like Pakistan, Iran and Syria, they came together in part through the efforts of an American convert, Mike Muhammad Knight. Knight -- who bought the bus for $2,000 on eBay and does most of the driving -- is the author of The Taqwacores, a novel about a scene of progressive Muslim punks. The book, news of which spread online and by word of mouth, inspired both Vote Hez-bollah -- named after a fictional band in the novel -- and the tour's name: Taqwatour. ("Taqwa," which is spray-painted on the front of the bus, means "consciousness of God" in Arabic.)
There are more than a million Muslims living in the U.S., and the youngest generation is still struggling to find its place in America. "Shit changed for all of us Muslim people after 9/11," says Khan. "The best way for me to deal with it was music." The Kominas are one of the more established groups, having toured and released records. Their songs mix punk speed and attitude with Middle Eastern sounds. Their lyrics, often confrontational, are also deeply personal. In "Par Desi," Usmani, who spent part of his childhood in Pakistan, describes getting beaten up by punk skinheads in America: "In Lahore it's raining water/In Boston it rains boots."
Everyone on tour has stories about being harassed for being Muslim. "There's that stigma, 'Oh, he's from Pakistan, he's a fuckin' terrorist,' " says Omar Waqar of D.C. band Diacritical. He was working at an Islamic bookstore after September 11th when vandals threw bricks through the windows. And many band members have also faced criticism from their parents or others in the Muslim community. "All the way from 'music is wrong, forbidden' to 'you shouldn't be singing verses of the Koran in your songs,' " says Khan.
The day after the Chicago basement show, the tour was invited to play at a conference of the Islamic Society of North America. The young audience it drew, segregated into male and female sections, roared with rock-star adoration. But when the female group Secret Trial Five took the stage, organizers had the police shut down the show, because it is forbidden for Muslim women to sing in public. "It was completely insane," says Knight. "The show was positive up to that point, with girls in hijabs singing along."
Allah, Amps and Anarchy
On the road with the first-ever Muslim punk-rock tour
In late august, a creaking green school bus with red camels stenciled on its side rolled up to the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo in Ohio. Seventeen exhausted, beer-reeking punks, with mohawks and dyed hair, walked up to the mosque looking for a place to rest. "I was surprised -- they totally let us hang out there," says Kourosh Poursalehi, 19, frontman for San Antonio's Vote Hezbollah. "They even wanted CDs and stuff."
Vote Hezbollah (the band's name is intended as a joke) is one of five Muslim punk bands that recently wrapped up a ten-date tour that took them from Boston to Chicago during August and September. The bands, which hail from Chicago, San Antonio, Boston and Washington, D.C., share left-of-center politics and an antipathy toward the president. And all have used punk as a means to express the anger, confusion and pride in being young and Muslim in post-9/11 America.
Twenty-four hours after leaving the Toledo mosque, Boston's Kominas -- Punjabi for "the Bastards" -- are playing in a packed basement in a rundown corner of Chicago's Logan Square. Local punks mix with curious young Muslims -- including a few girls wearing head scarves -- as Kominas frontman Shahjehan Khan launches into the opening lines of "Sharia Law in the U.S.A.": "I am an Islamist!/And I am an anti-Christ!" Nearby, mohawked bassist Basim Usmani -- whose T-shirt reads frisk me i'm muslim -- slaps out the song's bass line while viciously slam-dancing with a dude in a woman's burqa.
"This has been the best time of my life," says Khan, 23, who grew up in Boston, the son of Pakistani immigrants. He's retreated to an alley out back, where the bus is parked, to smoke a cigarette. The bands on tour made contact online, and most met for the first time at their first tour date three weeks earlier. Although they are all children of immigrants from countries like Pakistan, Iran and Syria, they came together in part through the efforts of an American convert, Mike Muhammad Knight. Knight -- who bought the bus for $2,000 on eBay and does most of the driving -- is the author of The Taqwacores, a novel about a scene of progressive Muslim punks. The book, news of which spread online and by word of mouth, inspired both Vote Hez-bollah -- named after a fictional band in the novel -- and the tour's name: Taqwatour. ("Taqwa," which is spray-painted on the front of the bus, means "consciousness of God" in Arabic.)
There are more than a million Muslims living in the U.S., and the youngest generation is still struggling to find its place in America. "Shit changed for all of us Muslim people after 9/11," says Khan. "The best way for me to deal with it was music." The Kominas are one of the more established groups, having toured and released records. Their songs mix punk speed and attitude with Middle Eastern sounds. Their lyrics, often confrontational, are also deeply personal. In "Par Desi," Usmani, who spent part of his childhood in Pakistan, describes getting beaten up by punk skinheads in America: "In Lahore it's raining water/In Boston it rains boots."
Everyone on tour has stories about being harassed for being Muslim. "There's that stigma, 'Oh, he's from Pakistan, he's a fuckin' terrorist,' " says Omar Waqar of D.C. band Diacritical. He was working at an Islamic bookstore after September 11th when vandals threw bricks through the windows. And many band members have also faced criticism from their parents or others in the Muslim community. "All the way from 'music is wrong, forbidden' to 'you shouldn't be singing verses of the Koran in your songs,' " says Khan.
The day after the Chicago basement show, the tour was invited to play at a conference of the Islamic Society of North America. The young audience it drew, segregated into male and female sections, roared with rock-star adoration. But when the female group Secret Trial Five took the stage, organizers had the police shut down the show, because it is forbidden for Muslim women to sing in public. "It was completely insane," says Knight. "The show was positive up to that point, with girls in hijabs singing along."
Friday, September 28, 2007
MUSIC: An Interesting Conversation about Radio That I Had with My Daughter
This is an incident that happened between my daughter and I, and I thought some of you might find it amusing.
We were in the car. My daughter and I have negotiated a deal on the music. She gets to listen to her station when we are going to somewhere, and I get to pick the music when are coming from somewhere. And if we are going to a number of places, we switch back and forth between places.
Well, we were on a way to McDonald's and actually turned down the radio.
"That song is boring," was her response when I looked at her surprised.
"I have to admit, Jen, I find most of the songs on this station boring." - Jen isn't her real name, just an alias I'm using to hide our identities on the web. :) -
To which Jen replied in a huffy manner, "That's because it's not one of your stations playing old people's music!"
"Old people's music?! My stations are ran by high schools and colleges! It's not old people's music!"
"It may not be popular young people's music," I continued, "but it is young people's music."
I, of course, ignored the fact that the people running the stations were high school and college staff members that were probably closer to my age than Jen's.
"And you know who runs your young people's station?" I asked.
Her station was originally an alternative rock station that failed and got bought out by the corporation, Clear Channel.
"No," Jen said. "Who?"
"People my age in business suits!"
And my daughter, taking after her father, showed great reserve and dignity, and yelled, "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
God, I love when irony is in my favor!
We were in the car. My daughter and I have negotiated a deal on the music. She gets to listen to her station when we are going to somewhere, and I get to pick the music when are coming from somewhere. And if we are going to a number of places, we switch back and forth between places.
Well, we were on a way to McDonald's and actually turned down the radio.
"That song is boring," was her response when I looked at her surprised.
"I have to admit, Jen, I find most of the songs on this station boring." - Jen isn't her real name, just an alias I'm using to hide our identities on the web. :) -
To which Jen replied in a huffy manner, "That's because it's not one of your stations playing old people's music!"
"Old people's music?! My stations are ran by high schools and colleges! It's not old people's music!"
"It may not be popular young people's music," I continued, "but it is young people's music."
I, of course, ignored the fact that the people running the stations were high school and college staff members that were probably closer to my age than Jen's.
"And you know who runs your young people's station?" I asked.
Her station was originally an alternative rock station that failed and got bought out by the corporation, Clear Channel.
"No," Jen said. "Who?"
"People my age in business suits!"
And my daughter, taking after her father, showed great reserve and dignity, and yelled, "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
God, I love when irony is in my favor!
Sunday, September 16, 2007
MUSIC: My Embarrassing First Song on My Mp3 Player!
I was going to write about this before, but I had a lot on my plate at the time and kind of spaced it off. Then the song came up again on my mp3 player.
You see, with my tax returns, I got myself a treat. I've been working hard and putting in a lot of hours, working 50-hour weeks, and decided to get myself something fun with part of the money. I got a 30 gig mp3 player. It's great and I can hold over 5000 of my songs on it.
So I had a whole bunch of music downloaded onto it. About a half to a third of it being along the lines of alternative, punk or electronic, but also some big band and swing, oldies, soul, r&b, classic rock as well as a bunch of world music including a some stuff I had from South Africa and its neighbors - music I picked up while I lived 6 1/2 years next door to South Africa and stuff I picked up since - plus some Celtic music, bluegrass and Americana and stuff from and influenced by southwest Asia (India, Nepal, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh).
So what song should come up first from the huge expanse of music? This collection of songs from various time periods and various places? This smörgåsbord of melodies, rhythms and harmonies?
Only, of course, the most guilty of all my musical guilty pleasures! It's not necessarily that this song is worse than some of my other musical guilty pleasures. It's just that when it came out, I was old enough to know better than to enjoy this song - but I still liked it and put it on my mp3 player!
And what song would it be? (big sigh) Mmmbop by Hansen! Yes, Mmmbop by Hansen was the first song to be played on The OlderMusicGeek's mp3 player!
Well, all I can say is at least it wasn't one of my John Denver songs! Not that I listen to a bunch of John Denver. I only have 4 songs of his I listen to!
I mean they're not nearly as numerous as the number of Neil Diamond songs I listen to!!!
Okay, I shutting up now before I mention the Glen Campbell song I have downloaded!
D'oh!
You see, with my tax returns, I got myself a treat. I've been working hard and putting in a lot of hours, working 50-hour weeks, and decided to get myself something fun with part of the money. I got a 30 gig mp3 player. It's great and I can hold over 5000 of my songs on it.
So I had a whole bunch of music downloaded onto it. About a half to a third of it being along the lines of alternative, punk or electronic, but also some big band and swing, oldies, soul, r&b, classic rock as well as a bunch of world music including a some stuff I had from South Africa and its neighbors - music I picked up while I lived 6 1/2 years next door to South Africa and stuff I picked up since - plus some Celtic music, bluegrass and Americana and stuff from and influenced by southwest Asia (India, Nepal, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh).
So what song should come up first from the huge expanse of music? This collection of songs from various time periods and various places? This smörgåsbord of melodies, rhythms and harmonies?
Only, of course, the most guilty of all my musical guilty pleasures! It's not necessarily that this song is worse than some of my other musical guilty pleasures. It's just that when it came out, I was old enough to know better than to enjoy this song - but I still liked it and put it on my mp3 player!
And what song would it be? (big sigh) Mmmbop by Hansen! Yes, Mmmbop by Hansen was the first song to be played on The OlderMusicGeek's mp3 player!
Well, all I can say is at least it wasn't one of my John Denver songs! Not that I listen to a bunch of John Denver. I only have 4 songs of his I listen to!
I mean they're not nearly as numerous as the number of Neil Diamond songs I listen to!!!
Okay, I shutting up now before I mention the Glen Campbell song I have downloaded!
D'oh!
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