Quiet Criticism: 05/10/09

16.5.09

Manic Street Preachers Cover Art Banned In UK Supermarkets

The new Manic Street Preachers album, Journal For Plague Lovers, is being shipped to UK supermarkets without cover artwork, because the portrait by Jenny Saville is considered “inappropriate”. The band is annoyed at the setback, and singer James Dean Bradfield called the situation “utterly bizarre”. He told BBC 6 Music that:

“It is her brushwork. If you’re familiar with her work, there’s a lot of ochres and browns and reds and browns, and perhaps people are looking for us to be more provocative than we are being.”

Is “inappropriate” an unfair description? Let’s take a look at some of Saville’s other paintings: Continue reading...

Music For Search Engines: SearchMe, Wolfram Alpha

Searchme is the new search engine that lets you share information instantly on Twitter and Facebook. It organizes your search into an animation that bring up each page and present s text associated with the page. You then have the option to share the page, zoom in to read it and click through to the original URL address. Continue reading...

U.S. Congress Votes Radio Performance Royalty Fees

The Performance Royalties Act and the Webcaster Settlement Act were debated today by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. The Performance Rights Act, supported by Billy Corgan, would impose a “performance tax” on broadcast radio stations, which traditionally don’t pay artists and labels. In fact, some say that major labels have paid stations in exchange for airplay in the past. The Committee voted 21 to 9 to send the Act to full House for a vote.

The Webcaster Settlement Act would lower royalty rates for Internet radio services. Jonathan Potter, Executive Director of the Digital Media Association said that the Act will make sure “Internet radio royalties are determined using the same fairness-based balancing test that has always been the standard for setting cable and satellite radio royalties.” Read more...

Stream Wilco (The Album) For Free!

Wilco are streaming Wilco (The Album) for free at Wilcoworld. The album won’t be out on Nonesuch until June 30, but you can stream one huge track of Wilco’s newest release in low 128k or high 256k quality. Continue reading...

Primavera Sound Festival 09 Schedule Released

Excitement is hard to contain for the upcoming Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona, Spain from May 28-30. The schedule has been released, and tickets are on sale right now. The schedule is ridiculous, with simultaneous shows of must-see bands spread out across no less than six stages. A quick look at the lineup immediately presents some difficult decisions. Read more...

15.5.09

French Assembly Passes Three Strikes Bill

Today (12 May), French Parliament approved a bill that will cut Internet connections of repeat file sharers after “three strikes”. The legislation passed by a vote of 296 to 233 and goes before the French Senate Wednesday, where it is expected to pass. If adopted, warning messages from HADOPI should be sent to file sharing Internet users as early as this fall. The first disconnections will begin in 2010. Continue reading...

Headbanger Hero: Moshpit Amp, Metal Head Orgasmatron

From the creators of the Painstation comes the newest addition to the upcoming surge of Guitar Hero and Rock Band titles, MoshPit: Metal Head Orgasmatron. The Moshpit amp detects your headbanging movements and converts them into guitars, bass, drums and vocals. The //////////fur//// website explains:

“As you mosh on, you can change the individual volume levels of the four instruments through your headbanging style and intensity. You can see how far you have pushed the level of each instrument on the four MoshMeters.”

And those MoshMeters go up to eleven. Continue reading...

Venetian Snares Releases Horsey Noises EP

Venetian Snares has a new EP entitled Horsey Noises which is available at the Bleep digital store right now, and will have its physical release on CD and 12” vinyl on Planet Mu Records starting June 1. You can listen to free streams of the tracks on the Planet Mu Website. Read more...

14.5.09

Rock Band: Pearl Jam Set For Next Year

As if all four new Guitar Heroes weren’t enough, now Rock Band is looking to keep pace with the newest project Pearl Jam Live Rock Band. The Escapist reports that Pearl Jam is working with video game developer Harmonix, MTV Games and online music service Rhapsody to produce a game that features live concert tracks chosen by fans themselves. Read more...

Spotify Adds Another 120,000 Tracks

Spotify has added 11,280 albums and singles to their catalogue, to a total of 127,578 new songs available, after signing a deal with indie digital distributor Zebralution. For a full listing of the additions check out these Google Docs: sorted by artist and by label. According to the Spotify blog:

"Today’s update is most likely the biggest update we’ve had since we launched last year."

New releases include The Spinning Top by Graham Coxon, She’s In Control from Chromeo, and material from Bill Evans, Café Sputnik and Kutiman. I especially appreciated the addition of the classic Allotria Jazz Band and the Balkan/ska Amsterdam Klezmer Band. Read more...

Sony Music Challenges Apple iTunes

Sony Music Group has a long history of non-transparency with customers, even scandals involving the inclusion of dubious copy protection software on CDs, but is seems like the media company is trying to change. In an interview, Sir Howard Stringer, Sony Chairman, President and CEO, said that “Sony has begun the transition from a closed system to an open one.” Continue reading...

12.5.09

Live Nation Loses $100 million, Concert Attendance Declines

Global ticket sales rose 8 percent in 2008, but Live Nation’s earnings report for the first quarter of 2009 showed losses of $102.7 million. In the UK, live music sales surpassed recorded music, yet Live Nation reports a 22 percent drop in attendance of live shows.

The anticipation that live performances would continue to grow in sales, or even try to compensate for losses in physical sales is deeply shaken. Live Nation President and CEO Michael Rapino doesn’t think there’s a problem:

“Our first quarter results were in line with our plan and, despite challenging economic times, fans are buying concert tickets at a healthy pace.”

New York Dolls on Zune Green Room Video Podcast

The Green Room is a weekly video podcast, available on the Zune Marketplace, which provides behind-the-scenes footage of artists on tour. Featuring musicians such as Peter Bjorn and John, Adele, Common, Asher Roth and Duran Duran, the video podcast is based on exclusive interviews full of anecdotes and commentary.

Access is free if you download Zune’s 131MB of software. The Green Room has a great line up for this summer with artists such as …Trail of Dead, Mos Def and Little Steven. Check out the full schedule and a Seun Kuti preview and after the cut: Continue reading...

Lala Music Service Uses Network DRM

Digital Rights Management software (DRM), when used, attempts to control use of digital music by preventing access, copying or conversion to other formats. Until recently, Apple used the technology on all music they sold.

Now it seems that music service Lala, backed by Warner Music, filed for a patent last year on “a network-based DRM system [that] manages digital media assets stored in the network.” So instead of wrapping individual songs in DRM, Lala uses their servers to control the use of music on the platform. Continue reading...

Indie Mathrock From Japan: Zazen Boys

The Zazen Boys are a crazy Japanese indie rock band formed by former Number Girl guitarist and vocalist Mukai Shutoku. Number Girl, which disbanded in 2002, is considered to this day to be one of the most influential bands of the Japanese indie rock scene, and Shutoku has continued to evolve the characteristic rock electro/dance in Zazen Boys.

The band makes great use of punctuated breaks in their rhythmic composition, often complicating to the point where the music becomes comical. I think they are just as adept at making people laugh as they are excellent musicians. Here’s a selection of our favorite videos: Continue reading...

EU Rejects Three Strikes Law, Obama Wants To Stop BitTorrent Sites

The European Parliament has, for the fifth time this year, voted against the “three strikes” law, and this time it’s for good. Earlier today, members of Parliament voted to retain amendment (138/46), which states that restrictions to the fundamental rights and freedoms of Internet users can only be put in place after a decision by judicial authorities. The vote was a landslide: 407 in favor and only 57 against.

However, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) recently released the yearly Special 301 Report that added Canada and Spain to the list of countries that fail to protect intellectual property. Downloading torrents for personal use is perfectly legal in Spain, and though the EU has voted to essentially protect file sharers’ rights, the United States says that 2 billion tracks were downloaded in Spain in 2008, which is causing the USTR to push for more severe legislation. Continue reading...

Guitar Hero: Van Halen, Guitar Hero 5, Band Hero, DJ Hero Set For Release This Fall

Activision Blizzard is releasing a total of four new music-based video games later this year. We had already guessed that DJ Hero, Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero were on their way, but now the company has also confirmed the existence of Guitar Hero: Van Halen to videogame blog Joystiq.

Guitar Hero: Van Halen will feature some of Van Halen’s greatest hits as well as music from Queen, Weezer, Blink-182, The Offspring and Queens of the Stone Age. Also, the first screens of the DJ Hero peripheral have been revealed. It’s a turntable controller, with three buttons to press while spinning a “record”, check out the photos after the cut: Read more...

11.5.09

Music Affects Your Judgment Of Facial Expressions

A recent research project led by Dr Joydeep Bhattacharya from the University of London showed that by listening to music, the way we judge facial expressions is “enhanced”. Even though you might think that music only deals with hearing, it seems when we listen to music, our perception of emotion is somehow manipulated on a subconscious level.

Volunteers listened to 15 seconds of music, and then gauged the emotions of a face. The research found that listening to happy or sad music made people distinguish more happiness or sadness in a face. Even more eerie: this music-induced effect occurred even when there wasn’t any emotion in the faces of the volunteers they were judging. Continue reading...

Sony Streams Free Music Videos On PS3 This Summer

Sony announced at SCE Australia that the free music video service for the Playstation 3, called Vidzone, will be launched in June. The service will allow access to a wide range of music videos, as well as live concerts, behind the scenes footage and interviews, all streamed directly to the PS3 free of charge.

Sony boasts that Vidzone will have more than 10,000 tracks at launch, and will update content on a weekly basis. For starters, they have the entire Sony BMG catalog, but executives also say that “thousands of independent labels” will also support the service. Read more...

10.5.09

New iTunes Pricing Is Losing Labels Money

Executives within the major labels are confirming decreased sales on iTunes ever since Apple implemented variable pricing on the popular digital music store in April. Digital Music News reports that individual song sales have dropped, resulting in a decline in overall revenue.

The most popular songs on iTunes were set to $1.29, and even though a drop in sales was probably expected, the higher prices were supposed to compensate for that loss. Even worse, the sales slump has for all songs, not just the top tier tracks. One of the industry execs told Digital Music News:

“It’s back to the abacus to figure out the best mix.”

Continue reading...

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