meta-roj

“thank you for your 3 minutes”

fuck that [windows media. warning: explicit language (fuck that) and violence and stuff]

you’re welcome.

[via metafilter].

i’ll have to come back to this one in some depth, but it seems the good people of 97 radio have new names to play under.

check out the previous material, and buyer beware.

say it ain’t so, barry! can’t be!

i dunno about this book-buying idea, but maybe you guys could all chip in and get me some crayons…

…i am feeling a bit hungry 🙂

a while ago, i left a footnote (of all things) on here about hit-picking technology, and since then i’ve had a couple questions about it.

here’s one example that will get some of you up to speed: hit song science.

i guess their claim to fame is norah jones – their math said something like 8 of the tracks on her first album could be hits. while it only really takes one, norah managed to sell 8 million+ copies of that disc. that’s only really interesting when you compare how different “don’t know why” was compared to the rest of the noise on the pop charts.

does it work? can you reduce music to math?

i threw this at joi via irc long ago, and it made slashdot too, but i thought it was worth putting on the record here anyway…

eis brecher

including a bonus DVD with 2 blank CD-Rs which have the same label as the CD itself. Alexx Wesselsky (singer and head of the group): ‘We are of the opinion that the music buyers are criminalized enough and have been made responsible for the wretched state in the music industry. We are giving them the chance to make 2 legal copies for private use with “official blanks”

i direct your attention to this fun web widget – music plasma.

out of curiosity, i thought i’d take a peek at a few of the stand-out musical acts of 2003: the rolling stones (distinguished as the highest average concert ticket price at $158), 50 cent (distinguished as the most powerful artistjuice of 2003), and clay aiken (distinguished as the least-powerful artistjuice for an artist with a #1 hit in 2003).

to have just a little more fun, i’ve made these thumbnails too small to read – so you can guess which is which (clay aiken, the stones or 50 cent) before looking at the bigger picture.

[via zephoria]

demonstrating traction in the drm-free universe, download business bleep is carrying the entire back catalog of warp records (electronica, including aphex twin).

breaking with the establishment (and even the downward spiral), bleep is offering drm-free high-quality (typically 205kbps vbr) mp3’s at $1.35/track (a 36% premium) or up to about $10 per album.

bleep – faq

Bleep music has no DRM or copy protection built in. We believe that most people like to be treated as customers and not potential criminals – DRM is easily circumvented and just puts obstacles in the way of enjoying music. Apple has even privately stated that they decided to use a weak form of DRM solely to get major labels onboard.

kevin would be proud.

update: discussion at slashdot and metafilter.

stumbling through boing boing, we find an alternative to the 97 radio music promotion model.

maybe you don’t need airplay, just leave your stuff behind….

synths, drukqs and rock’n’roll

The release of Drukqs two years ago was prompted by a mistake. James left an MP3 player on a plane that held a mind-boggling 282 new tracks. It was labelled “Aphex Twin Unreleased Tracks” to make any would-be bootleggers quite sure that what they might post on to the internet was the real deal. This never happened, but James hurriedly put together a double CD just in case.

ok, this isn’t quite how it was intended, but… i thought it was an interesting, if accidental, approach to promotion. it does meet the requirement that you make your music available for free somewhere…

it turns out that the vast mp3.com catalog wasn’t destroyed, it was co-opted (as in opt-out) by trusonic for background music.

of course, this doesn’t do a lot for the musicians that put their music into this catalog, but it gives vivendi and trusonic some revenue. whoups. left those artists behind? that’s going to come back and hurt you in the long run, guys, because you’ve broken the trust of the people you need to stay in business. you’ve traded something that was short-term and legal (i’m sure it’s all covered in the agreements) for the bigger picture.

this gets a nomination from me for the tim oren dubious distinction awards.

trusonic may be able to stay under the radar and out of the light, but every artists that gets screwed by this maneuver will remember, and will share. and vivendi, or c-net or whatever ends up running mp3.com – and anyone willing to dig enough to uncover trusonic will never work with those people again. in the bigger picture, the artists that get the short end of this stick may not come back easily to any online music distribution arrangement, and that hurts everyone.

slashdot has discussion.

in notes from the underground, nicholas thompson presents some lessons from the street for the record labels. tough lessons.