Mash ups were a great appropriation idea just waiting to happen. I first heard of them when 2 many dj’s put out their album a year or so ago and have been following the evolution avidly ever since. Being a hybrid-maker off and on over the years, I’m very comfortable with the idea and have been the subject of quite a few pretty good mash-ups myself.
Visconti and I had an unintentionally Luddite fantasy in the seventies revolving around a plan to write songs in the style of several different artists, The Doors or Mark Bolan etc., and then record some backing tracks in the style of, say Hendrix or the Stones and then I would record the vocal tracks imitating Cliff, Lennon or the Supremes even (with slightly speeded up tape). Shame we never got on with it but you know how those rainy Tuesday afternoon brainstorms go. Nowhere, generally.
it’s been going on for a while now, but if you haven’t been sucked in yet, the contest is here.
too many lawyers in the pot (just try to read the rules for the contest), but bowie can afford them, i guess.
embrace the future, there’s a rich culture to work with, if only you have permission.
posted by roj at 9:55 am
we were early on this one, and a fresh flood of coverage came for easter, with slashdot and metafilter leading the charge.
ok, so now it’s news.
is this an attempt to keep the business down so the war on piracy and filesharing can maintain political traction, or is this greed threatening to choke the baby before it’s out of the crib, or is this some vast walmart conspiracy to get everyone else to price themselves out of the market?
or maybe it’s aliens…
posted by roj at 4:20 am
an economist might look at this and see an attempt to constrain sales volume….
or just greed.
anyway, the wall street journal is reporting on an interesting phenmonon where online sales of music are getting more expensive. this, of course is very unwalmartlike, and may help take care of that nasty problem of rising sales that could undermine the war on piracy.
[via slashdot]
posted by roj at 12:48 pm
Apple has admitted its online music store will fall short of the target of 100 million sales by the end of April.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Apple boss Steve Jobs said he now expected to sell between 70 and 75 million tracks by then.
just to put apple on the record… so to speak.
still, itunes is moving 2.5 million songs a week. is there still time to launch the meta-roj music store?
posted by roj at 5:44 am
pepsi is giving away 100 million itunes songs… some people can’t use them, but there’s the power of the internet to save the music…
tunerecycler.
behold, the bits are saved before they hit the trash…
posted by roj at 10:52 pm
roxio had high hopes for napster, but things aren’t as simple in the new world with a new online music store cropping up every week…
Napster had revenue of $3.6m and a pre-tax loss of $15.1m
there’s a lot of front-loading in that number, what with the expenses of relaunching the site and implementing the new drm and writing the new terms documents – i was going to build the meta-roj music store for a cool million, so that’s only off by a factor of 18.
posted by roj at 10:37 pm
sony announces a new 1-gb minidisc format and some new players. it’s a cd-killer, of course, and it’s all the right things that should do it – smaller, faster, larger-capacity. it’s also from sony. does this change your bets?
posted by roj at 4:03 am
apple licenses itms/ipod to hp. this is a big deal, both for apple (licensing its stuff) and for hp (committing hard to consumer electronics and their vision of the future). rumors ran wild on the details, including one about supporting microsoft’s drm with the hp widget. microsoft knows that threat. the factions are set (pick your drm alliance), and the long-term picture is that as long as everyone’s busy putting locks on the content and developing new locks for the content, the less frustrating alternatives can maintain traction.
will apple embrace a new more-open approach? given the economics, and the coming squeeze, will they “wake up” to their old ways and realize that they don’t really want competition for money-making ipods and pull the plug on competition? it’s happened before.
posted by roj at 4:03 am
sir mix-a-lot goes weedy. i’ve discussed weedshare here (with some interesting comments direct from the weed geek himself), and this is the first “name-brand” convert (as far as i know). big news for weed, sir mix-a-lot is comfortable with the questions i raised (or he simply didn’t do his homework…).
posted by roj at 4:02 am