You've seen the cover. Now listen to Pearl Jam's self-titled album at AOL music. Go here to stream.

The band's first release for J Records will be in stores this Tuesday.

Posted by Glenn at 1:12 PM | Link
|Music|

The Ramones released their debut, self-titled album on April 23rd, 1976...30 years ago today. Few albums have such meaning three decades after their release. And three decades later the legacy of the Ramones can still be seen.

This Wednesday, "Too Tough To Die: A Tribute To Johnny Ramone" will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival (and will screen throughout the festival). It's a documentary about a 2004 tribute concert to Johnny Ramones -- just two days before he passed away -- that had performances by Pearl Jam, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Henry Rollins and many others. Watch the movie trailer here.

May 25th is the date for Joey Ramones' 55th Birthday Bash concert at Irving Plaza in New York. Richie Ramone, who was the band's drummer from '83 to '87, was been confirmed to make an appearance. The concert, now in its sixth year, is a benefit for the Lymphoma Research Foundation and is organized by Joey's mother, Charlotte Lesher, and his brother, Mickey Leigh.

Posted by Glenn at 1:39 PM | Link
|Music|

Though you wouldn't know it with all the coverage and adulation the Dixie Chicks have got after their public criticism of President Bush, the country trio may have lost some fans. (Though they may have gained some, too. Time will tell if the fans gained are the kind who buy albums and attend concerts.)

The Pensacola News-Journal's Mark O'Brien warns of a chilled reception in that area when the Chicks' next album comes out.

"(Pensacolians) tuned out the Chicks, turned off by their politics and style. Program directors at local stations predict few requests for their music when the Texas trio issue Taking the Long Way in May. That's fine with me, especially because fans still can purchase music the radio doesn't play.

The Chicks exercised their constitutional right to free speech, and fans exercised their constitutional right to stop listening to what was one of country music's brightest, hottest acts."

O'Brien's advice is the same as Aerosmith's two decades ago: Let the music do the talking. It sounds like good advice. Most music fans don't mix politics and music.

Posted by Glenn at 11:20 AM | Link
|Music||Politics|

Following the footsteps of Rod Stewart and Barry Manilow, Michael Bolton will release an album of oldies covers (subscription required) through -- no, not J Records -- Passion Music/Concord Records. The album will be called Bolton Swings Sinatra so that means it will be a collection of Frank Sinatra songs.

Stewart's series of American standards and Manilows recent oldies collection have all been chart toppers. Their success left entry into this market inevitable. And Concord, with its relationship with Starbucks' Hear Music, seems like the perfect place to sell this music.

"What's next?" begs Hits, "Benny Mardones croons Dean Martin?"

Posted by Glenn at 2:24 PM | Link
|Music||Universal Music Group|

Sufjan Stevens is hipper than hip. He's on top of the world. Sometimes Coolfer wonders what would possibly cause him to lose stature.

Praise from Mandy Moore could do the trick. From her iTunes celebrity playlist, for which she selected his song "Chicago":

"I was really taken with this song the first time I heard it. It's really big and sweeping. His whole record has such a unique feel to it. I think it has an almost musical-theatre aspect to it...which is amazing. Very hip

Yeah, that'll work wonders for his cred.

Posted by Glenn at 1:30 PM | Link
|Music|

Members of the media -- and the blogosphere -- can lose their skepticism at the wrong moments. A few days ago Pitchfork admitted that it had been part of a prank and retracted its story that singer-songwriters Sufjan Stevens and Rosie Thomas were going to have a child together. Days before an amateur video taken a Death Cab For Cutie concert started making the Internet rounds...and surprisingly a lot of people bought into it.

For its part, Pitchfork claims it followed procedure and checked the story for accuracy. "We fell for it-- hell," admitted news editor Amy Phillips, "our information came directly from the source (Rosie), was corroborated by a close friend (Denison), and even Sufjan's publicist was being slippery about it." Hey, when it's a conspiracy even a by-the-book news editor can be duped. What can you do?

Then there's the case of the amateur video (watch at YouTube) taken by a fan at a Death Cab For Cutie concert during which a fan calls out for the song "Talking Like Turnstiles" and is so overjoyed when the band starts playing it that he hops on stage. The Tripwire went haywire at the fan and calls him a "big stupid douche." At Stereogum's post only a few called it staged and noticed how well the fan knew the backstage area where he was taken by security.

Frank Chromewaves thinks it "seems just a little too staged to be real" and points to a Philadelphia Daily News article that talks about the band's upcoming DVD, Directions. It includes a bonus track that's a live performance "captured in looney, slapstick fashion by a camera-phone-toting Lance Bangs," says the article.

How should people have known the YouTube clip was staged? Didn't anybody notice the name of the YouTube member who uploaded the video, John10104? That's a zip code for midtown Manhattan, home to many record label offices. As it so happens, that's the zip code for the Atlantic Records offices at 1290 Avenue of the Americas in New York, NY. Those paying attention will know that Death Cab is signed to Atlantic Records. Ahem.

Posted by Glenn at 2:57 PM | Link
|Internet||Marketing||Music||Weblogs||YouTube|

A while back URB magazine started thinning its dance coverage and brought in more hip hop. Then more rock. Now LA joy divisioners She Wants Revenge is on the cover.

But it makes perfect sense...the band is filed under electronic as far as Soundscan is concerned and has been appearing high on the weekly dance chart (not a whole lot of competition). Then again, so is the Mariah Carey remix album, and so is Gorillaz.

Previously on Coolfer:

• How Far Has Dance Music Fallen?
• Studio Distribution Closes Its Doors

Posted by Glenn at 12:40 PM | Link
|Music|

The powers that be at AOL Music and RollingStone.com recently made their lists of artists to watch. AOL Music christined its latest Breakers, a group of up-and-coming artists includes Brit chart-topper Corinne Bailey Rae (pictured left), Cartel, Lost Trailers, Mat Kearney, Young Leek and Wolfmother. AOL can be a huge part of breaking new artists, as big as anything else on the Internet. So naturally labels love it. AOL's blessing is like the Midas touch for a developing artist.

Rolling Stone's list of ten artists to watch. It's a list heavy on pop (Daniel Powter, Matt White) and rock (new-to-the-majors TV on the Radio, Rock Kills Kid, Wolfmother, The Whigs, The Boy Least Likely To). The lone hip hop artists is Papoose, who Rolling Stone calls "New York's hottest hip hop MC." Just last week a hip hop insider told Coolfer Papoose isn't all that great, then added, "I mean, what the hell is a papoose?"

For a good inside peek at Papoose, check out this interview at All Hip Hop. He could be the real deal. Who else but a NYC hip hop star be part of a scene at SOB's?

What do these lists have in common? Both have Interscope hard rock band Wolfmother (pictured right), and both are almost exclusively major label artists. Only Boy Least Likely To, Bonde do Rolo (signed to Mad Decent), The Whigs and Papoose are not signed to a major -- though a major-label deal for Papoose is sure to be signed this year.

Posted by Glenn at 10:57 AM | Link
|Music|

Dare to dream: Yesterday The Minneapolis City Page's Jim Walsh posted a picture of the three surviving original members of the Replacements -- Paul Westerberg, Tommy Stinson and Chris Mars -- and wrote that it was taken while they were in a studio to record a track with super drummer Josh Freese (who has toured as Westerberg's drummer in the past) for the upcoming Replacements box set. That box set does not yet have a firm street date. There is a scheduled date for Bastards of Young: The Best of Replacements, that's coming out on Rhino on May 23rd.

Coolfer's question: Why two drummers? Are they covering Pavement songs, or is Mars playing either guitar or bass?

More Replacements: Troubled Girl Films will show a trailer of its Replacements movie, "Color Me Impressed," at this year's Noise Pop Festival in San Francisco. You can download the trailer here (WM, 4.2 MB).

Update: Billboard.com confirms that the Replacements were in the studio recording a new song for the upcoming box set, Don't You Know Who I Think I Was?: The Best of the Replacements, due June 13th on Rhino. The two songs are titled "Message to the Boys" and "Pool & Dive." Freese played drums and Mars, who is going strictly with his art these days, sang backup.

Posted by Glenn at 11:01 AM | Link
|Music|

Delayer. That's a new (to me) word I read about yesterday. It means the same thing as downsize, but downsize is so five hours ago.

Spin magazine went through a delayering yesterday. Gawker called it a "shedding." Two more editors were let go, which adds to the list of editors that have already been asked to box up their belongings.

More importantly, it has a review of the new, must-be-coming-one-of-these-days-if-Chuck-Klosterman-is-reviewing-it Guns N' Roses album. "Chinese Democracy is not the greatest rock album ever made." he wrote. "Oh, it’s certainly awesome, but I don’t think it’s '15 years awesome.'"

Awesome or not, there will be a demand for the album. People want Axl. GNR's greatest hits comp is now north of two million units and still selling.

Posted by Glenn at 11:46 AM | Link
|Music|

• Christina Aguilera's Back to Basics will be released in June by RCA. Five of the songs were produced by Gangstarr's DJ Premier and are steeped in jazz and blues. (Billboard.com)
• Kings of Leon, who are due to break out huge, are back in the studio this week to record their third album. (NME.com)
• Roger Daltry and Pete Townshend are in the studio but not working on any timetable. "It will come out when it is ready." The band will tour Europe this summer, and Daltry is involved with a biopic on Keith Moon. (Billboard.com)
• 50 Cent, who was told to delay his album last summer by Eminem, says he'll have a new album out in July. (Hip Hop Galaxy)
• Audioslave's Revolations is due out in June. (Album Vote)
• The Capitol Albums, Vol. 2, a four-CD box set that collects the first four U.S. version Beatles albums, will be released on April 11th. The four albums in the set will be Rubber Soul, Help!, The Early Beatles and Beatles IV. (LA Times)
• Pastor Troy will release Stay True on April 18th via 845 Entertainment. Here's an MP3 download of the song "Police Can't Break It Up."
• DJ Shadow's next album may be out this summer. His website has audio and video streams for the new song "3 Freaks" featuring Keak da Sneak and Turf Talk. (Billboard.com)
• Keane's The Iron Sea, the follow up to Hopes and Fears, will be out June 12th. (Album Vote)
• Celly Cel's Slaps, Straps and Basebat Hats is due out April 4th. (Top40 Charts)
• Kylie Minogue is reportedly working on a new album. (Yahoo Music UK)
• Macy Gray's upcoming album, Big, will have guests Justin Timberlake, Will.I.Am of Black Eyed Peas, Natalie Cole, Outkast, White Leaf and Sleepy Brown. (FMBQ)
• Deicide is working on an album that's due to be released on Earace on June 6th. (Blabbermouth)

Posted by Glenn at 10:11 AM | Link
|Music|

Dance music is really sucking wind these days. Case in point: The Killers will headline this year's Ultra Music Festival in Miami. Other rock acts on the bill: Hot Hot Heat, Hard-Fi and The Prodigy (OK, the Prodigy are between rock and dance).

Rock and roll just doesn't want much to do with dance music. As Danceblogga pointed out, this year's three-day Lollapalooza bill is almost completely dance-free: Only Thievery Corporation will be flying the dance music flag in Chicago.

Posted by Glenn at 3:24 PM | Link
|Music|

(On the left is the pre-release, secretive album cover. On the left is the final artwork as seen at Amazon.com. Let's keep that one under wraps, shall we?)

There's some discussion -- or derision, rather -- over at Stereogum concerning the cover of the upcoming Pearl Jam album on J Records. Some say worst album cover ever. On the bright side, it's perfect for a Chevys or Chipotle cross-branding promotion.

Posted by Glenn at 11:10 AM | Link
|Music||Sony BMG|

After all those government dollars spent trying to breaking British music in the States is was obvious they'd be watching how their newly crowned kings, the Arctic Monkeys, are being embraced over here.

As the BBC reported yesterday, they ain't. "US reluctant to heed Monkeys hype" goes the headline. The article collects all the bad things said about the band from these articles:

• Oakland Tribune: "THAT'S IT? ... None of the tunes were memorable and the hooks weren't strong enough to catch a goldfish. The performance was sloppy in spots and there were some technical difficulties. I'd like to believe that it was an off-night for the band, but I have no evidence to support that hypothesis."
• Variety: They "have a long way to go. ... But with so many quick to compare the Arctic Monkeys to the Stones, Kinks, Who and other classic British bands, it's worth remembering that one thing that set those bands apart from the Pretty Things, Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel and nameless other acts who arrived in the States on a wave of press hype was that they were as brilliant onstage as in the studio."
• The Hollywood Reporter: The show was "not the messianic exercise it was impossibly built up to be" - but still "felt like the real thing."
• The Miami Herald on the band's SNL performances: "The teen rockers revealed a lack of seasoning."

(In all fairness, the Monkey's SNL performance wasn't as ridiculed as that by emo stars Fall Out Boy, which has sold over two million albums in this country.)

Back at home, The Telegraph sees it differently. "America goes ape for the Monkeys," announces the headline. Down in the article it calls the band's 55-minute set "pretty much the one they've perfected over the past few months."

If the live act has perfected, the band is truly in trouble. Coolfer caught the Monkey's first NYC show and thought it was great, but also felt they have a long, long way to go and do have the potential to get there.

Posted by Glenn at 3:13 PM | Link
|Indies||Music|

It's been a few years since a boy band made much of a dent on the US charts or got a rise out of the country's pop culture meter. No matter. The female fans described in this Guardian article on British singer-songwriter James Blunt have all the, well, fanaticism of of young teen girl in 1988 with New Kids of the Block Posters on their bedroom walls.

The difference is that these women are older. They're professionals. And they just Tivo'd Blunt on Oprah. That single daytime TV appearance did what MySpace can't seem to do: Push an album up the album chart in a single, qauntifiable leap. Back to Bedlam rose 142% to #2 from #9 last week. Wow!

To see the Cult of Blunt in action, read some posts at his site's message board. Does he smoke? (Some say yes, some say no.) Some people thinks he drinks a lot. And some fans think he's fit and looks better without his beard.

Posted by Glenn at 9:34 AM | Link
|Music||Warner Music Group|

A fitting continuation to Coolfer's posts about the Arctic Monkeys? Only if you're getting tired of the band and the coverage. Watch the video for "Monkeys" that, well, talks about being sick of hearing about the Arctic Monkeys.

Posted by Glenn at 12:10 PM | Link
|Music|

• Dixie Chicks' Taking the Long Way will be released on May 23rd. Taking part in the recording were Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Benmont Tench and Mike Campbell (Heartbreakers), Pete Yorn and Gary Lourdis (Jayhawks). (PR Newswire)

• Sonic Youth's next album to be released on June 13th. (RollingStone.com)

• International superstar DJ Paul Oakenfold will release his next album, A Lively Mind, via Maverick Records on April 11th. Guests will include Pharrell Williams, Grandmaster Flash and actress Brittany Murphy. (Billboard)

• The upcoming album by Brazilian-born artist Cibelle will be released by Crammed Discs in April. It will feature guest appearances by Seu Jorge, Devendra Banhart and Mike Lindsay (Tunng).

• Frank Black will release Fastman/Raiderman, a double CD, on June 20th. (Punknews.org)

• For its eighth studio album, Primal Scream is going back to the raw, blues rock sound that marked what most would consider to be the low point of its career. The yet-to-be-named album is due out June 5th. (NME.com)

• Tool will release 10,000 Days on May 2nd through Volcano. (Billboard.com)

• Linkin Park reveals some details about its next album on its website. The band will work with Rick Rubin on the album and has "about 40-50" ideas its working on right now. (Blabbermouth)

• Grandaddy's next V2 album, Just Like the Fambly Cat, will be released on May 9th.

Posted by Glenn at 1:58 PM | Link
|Music|

It's not often the Wall Street Journel covers independent music, so when it does Coolfer takes notice. Yesterday the WSJ had an article titled "London's Calling But U.S. Fans Aren't Picking Up." (No hyperlink, Coolfer subscribes to the paper edition.) Even though the British government has been taking steps to help its artists break in the United States, sales are only a fraction of their potential -- if potential is measured by UK success and incessant hype that comes from the bands' homeland.

The focal point of the Ethan Smith's article is the Arctic Monkeys, whose debut album sold 10% in the States what it sold in its first week of release at home. (To further put that into perspective, the U.S. has a population nearly five times that of the U.K.)

Why the difficulty winning over us Yanks? Smith has some thoughts.

"Arctic Monkeys faces a problem that has dogged a string of promosing rock bands in recent years--especially those from England. One after another, British acts awash in homeland success like Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs and the Darkness have hit American shores riding a global wave of hype, thanks largely to the Internet. But in most cases, the rabid critical enthusiasm in the States is followed by indifference from radio programmers, modest sales and a slow fade from view--in time to make way for the next Next Big Thing from across the pond."

The modest success to date of the Arctic Monkeys in America says two things to Coolfer. One, labels need to strike while the iron is hot. Buzz, especially when gained through the Internet, is often fleeting. The longer the wait for an official release, the lower sales will be. (Conversely, rushing an album's release presents its own set of problems, so the trick is to find and/or manipulate that sweet spot where public excitement overlaps with label readiness.) Smith points to this problem and says some fans may have downloaded the tracks while waiting for the domestic release. Coolfer believes it's more an issue of withering attention spans -- the band's songs were downloaded in the UK before the album was released, so the downloading argument doesn't hold water.

Continue reading "Getting Arctic Monkeyed To Death" »

Posted by Glenn at 5:33 PM | Link
|Indies||Music||Music Industry|

As an ammendment to Coolfer's mention yesterday of the argument between KRS-One and journalist Adisa Banjoko, let me point you to a post at ProHipHop that links to more audio clips of the heated roundtable discussion. It wasn't just an argument between KRS-One and Banjoko, it was a heated exchange between KRS-One and seemingly everyone in the room over hip hop's culture, history, future and leadership. His comments show he doesn't respect hip hop leaders and thinkers who don't come from the street, and he goes to great lengths to talk about his resume and talk down at those in the room who weren't "there from day one."

• Clip 1 ("If 50 Cent and G-Unit was here, and they said "I am hip hop," half of y'all wouldn't have a fucking thing to say to them because they'd put a gun to your back. Now you got somebody like KRS, who's been philosophizing about hip hop from day one -- I get this kind of disrespect?)
• Clip 2 ("You can't go to college and then say you're hip hop. That don't fly. ... You better be a b-boy, an emcee, a graffiti writer, a DJ or a beatboxer and you can call yourself hip hop. Other than that you're writing about hip hop. You ain't hip hop. You better master these elements before you start critiquing them. How you going to critique something you ain't even doing?")
• Clip 3 ("I am not an artist or a theorist. I am the living embodiment of what you're discussing. To put yourself on the level of someone who has perfected the culture is inaccurate and illogical and it's counterproductive to the movement. Now when I leave here I gotta go lead real people with real families, real economic issues, people going to jail.")

Also, read ProHipHop's previous post on the matter.

Posted by Glenn at 12:37 PM | Link
|Music|

Coolfer readers may have noticed a lack of Pete Doherty updates. It has been a while since Coolfer has mentioned anything about Doherty's drug abuse, jail stints or famous ex-girlfriend. There was one mention, a few weeks back, that Paris Hilton considers Doherty to be her greatest influence. (That was a rare Paris Hilton post.) Doherty's media coverage in this country is completely out of proportion with his success here (not much) and his influence on American music (next to none). Anglophile, NME-reading newspaper editors have been fooled into thinking Doherty has earned our attention.

Without purposely doing so, Coolfer has formed what could be called a Doherty Rule, which probably came to being as a result of a backlash against the constant media coverage given to America's version of Doherty, Courtney Love.

The Doherty Rule states that no artist should get more press mentions than he has written songs. The NY Times is especially smitten by Doherty.

The Doherty Rule states that the American media should not bother covering a troubled British rock star who is an unknown in America. For comparitive purposes, just know Paris Hilton should easily eclipse Doherty's American sales total.

Above all, the Doherty Rule states that an artist's' music is more important than his or her arrest record. Thanks, Courtney, for making that painfully obvious.

Coolfer will not post about Pete Doherty until he does something meaningful, cracks the Billboard Top 200 or dies, whichever comes first.

Posted by Glenn at 8:57 AM | Link
|Music|

The London Tube Map was recently reworked by The Guardian wtih names of legendary musical artists and bands in the place of each station.

It acts as a family tree to chart music history and also shows how different genres merge to create a band or style of music. In one spot, a line branches off from The Byrds and continues to REM, Husker Du and the final stop, Nirvana. Another line starts with Ray Charles and runs through a series of greats -- Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin -- before crossing two pop/rock lines at a Basement Jaxx stop. The Specials are at the intersection of reggae, pop and rock lines.

(Thanks to FoC Brady for the link.)

Posted by Glenn at 10:47 PM | Link
|Music|

Toronto's indie music collectives are the focus of a NY Times Magazine article by Alissa Quart titled, "Guided by (Many, Many) Voices." For followers of Broken Social Scene, the article's focal point, the lengthy piece is a must-read. But there are other aspects of the piece that will be of interest to those in the music industry, and even to those who appreciate a communal, anti-corporate approach to business. Labels such as Constellation and Arts & Crafts are shown as ideal-minded businesses that reject the trappings and ethics of major labels. Says Arts & Crafts' Jeffrey Remedios, who had worked at a major prior to founding the label, "I named it Arts & Crafts as I was trying to show that we mixed art and commerce, and that commerce was going to hold up its end of the promise. I had witnessed the machine. I wanted to rebel well." Author Michael Barclay calls it a distinctively Canadian approach. "It's textbook Canadian identity politics — the expression of individual will through community."

Though much of the article is about the economics of communal music-making, what's missing from the article was any mention of the government support Canadian artists and labels receive. How has Broken Social Scene's "art-nerd vows" for its communal model been subsidized and made possible by the Foundation to Assist Canadian Talent on Record (FACTOR)? Money for touring, videos, marketing and recording are often provided by FACTOR. Quart missed the opportunity to ask how -- if at all -- grant money helps shape the socialist business model and attitudes that were the focal point of the article. Coolfer's best, completely non-judgemental guess: It's easier to be anti-corporate when you're on the dole. (For example, many of the bands in the article -- such as Feist, Broken Social Scene, Metric and Stars -- received international tour grants in September of 2005.) Perhaps American politicians would feel differently about how they support music if they saw the success of Toronto's vibrant, creative music scene?

(Image of Broken Social Scene by Simon Law, via Flickr)

Posted by Glenn at 9:18 PM | Link
|Indies||Music|

A few weeks ago Coolfer ran across an animated clip set to the music of Fall Out Boy's "Sugar We're Going Down"...and then I ran across two more that set the unintelligable lyrics to stick-figure animation. Looks like the emo generation is just as confused about its latest anthem as a previous generation was about the lyrics in "Louie Louie," and it's fun to see them guess.

Here are three videos for the song. I like the top one the best.

Posted by Glenn at 2:02 PM | Link
|Music|

Test Icicles, a bratty trio from London that come to the public through Domino Recordings, will break up after five upcoming UK shows. Their debut full-length, For Screening Purposes Only, was just released domestically on January 24th.

A statement in the Pitchfork article doesn't explicitly say the band is over. Rather it gives a non-committal statement of indefinite hiatus that recalls how Pavement called it quits. "There are currently no plans to make another album or tour beyond this," it concludes. (Given the band's obtuse sense of humor, Coolfer wouldn't be surprised if this is all a prank.)

Some of the headlines of news reports read like the band wrote them: "Test Icicles Goes Balls Up" (CMJ), "Nuts! Test Icicles Disband" (Spin), "Test Icicles Have Meltdown" (MP3.com).

Let's eulogize the band by watching videos for the songs "Catch It," "Dancing on Pegs," and "Circle Square Triangle." And/or stream the new album at Rhapsody.

Posted by Glenn at 8:22 PM | Link
|Indies||Music|

Music gossip hound Roger Friedman reports that the former manager for The Killers is suing the band for a nice chunk of change -- $16 million -- for breach of contract. Braden Merrick, who was a rep for Warner Bros (which passed on the band) claimed he found the band playing in a Las Vegas club, polished them, signed the band to a deal and got them signed to Island/Def Jam.

Friedman thinks Merrick stands a good chance in court.

"Back in October 2004, Flowers—-the group’s leader—-told pollstar.org, an industry website—'Braden was a rep for Warner Bros. and he was just looking for bands. Las Vegas was in his territory, so he was checking out LVlocalmusicscene.com,' Flowers said. 'He wanted to sign us to Warner Bros. initially. He got us some showcases, and they didn't want us. He stayed with us and ended up being our manager until we got a record deal, and he's still here.'"

Posted by Glenn at 8:47 AM | Link
|Music|

Paris Hilton says Pete Doherty is her greatest influence. Be warned, the press leading up to her upcoming album is going to be frequent and ferocious. But as with many things in pop music, America will criticise, chatise and bemoan while being completely unable to look away. We're a bunch of rubberneckers, which explains why highbrow music snobs watch "American Idol." Pop criticism, ostensibly. That same love for pop criticism will keep Paris Hilton's music in headlines. Bloggers will eat it up, from the gossip blogs to the pop culture blogs to the music blogs.

And with that out of the way, here's some more info on the album (which doesn't have a public release date yet but May and June have been mentioned in the press). In The Observer Blog at The Guardian, Caspar Llewellyn Smith insists "there really are a couple of decent tunes" on the album, which is always possible when one "has been able to hire some of the biggest guns in the business." Sounds like Paris could replace Kelly Clarkson as the hipster's guilty pleasure of choice.

Those big guns include super-producer Scott Storch (pictured above, who said "the stuff is surprising" and "totally amazing"), ex-Go Go Jane Wiedlin (who said Paris "takes direction well and has no attitude whatsoever") and Le Tigre.

Posted by Glenn at 1:01 PM | Link
|Music|

For a band with a lead singer that makes women swoon, maybe it's just coincidence that everything's coming into allignment on Valentine's Day. Elefant's The Black Magic Show (via Kemado/Hollywood) was released at iTunes today (well ahead of the CD's release date of April 18th...let's see if it gets the ball rolling), Pitchfork gave it a 3.7 (out of ten) today and this evening the four-piece band starts a tour with BRMC. That Pitchfork review sure dissed the album (and made a good argument) though the albums' target audience -- the kind of mainstream listeners Hollywood sold a million or so Fastball albums to -- has probably never heard of Pitchfork. Coolfer is intersted in seeing how Kemado's stab at bigger success works out. It's always a crapshoot, even with a ladies' man in the band.

And, as Coolfer has pointed out before, Kemado/Hollywood are giving away MP3s of album tracks ahead of the release date. Here's "Lolita" (MP3). The Black Magic Show website -- yes, an entire website for an album -- has a media player with audio and video streams.

Posted by Glenn at 8:59 PM | Link
|Music|

Two signs that The Fugees' return is imminent: A free performance in Los Angeles and posters on 6th Avenue in Manhattan (pictured). The advertising is for Verizon's new VCast mobile music store, which is streaming clips of the concert as well as past Fugees concerts. The first single, "Take It Easy" (iTunes link) is already available at online stores, but subsequent singles will be available only at VCast.

A Fugees concert in LA -- at the intersection of Hollywood and Vine -- kicked of Grammy week. From all reports it was a great show, though, as Rolling Stone noted, they were a bit rusty. MTV.com on which Lauren Hill showed up: "The Hill onstage last night was definitely L. Boogie: The Lauryn who, years ago, was not only one of music's most captivating singers but also one its most dynamic lyricists, standing right behind the likes of Jay-Z and Nas as one of the best MCs of the then-new millennium."

The group has reportedly been working on an album for months and at one point it had a 12/27/05 tentative release date.

Posted by Glenn at 8:39 AM | Link
|Music|

A music article in the most unlikely of places is always a pleasant surprise, so reading "That's Good Enough for Me: Cookie Monsters of death-metal music" in the Wall Street Journal (of all places) was like a vacation from normal music writing. If published by a metal magazine, the article wouldn't have had the same journalistic curiosity.

Jim Fusilli wrote about Cookie Monster singing in death metal music, the style of growling that characterizes a particularly morbid and punishing music. The nonprofit behind Sesame Street claims not to know of the term, and original Cookie Monster voice Frank Oz said he's never heard of it. Fusilli captured the essense of the vocal style in this paragraph:

"The term is considered derogatory by some metal fans, but it's an apt description. Issued like machine-gun fire, death-metal vocals are low, guttural and aggressive, with no subtlety, no melody and very little modulation. But unlike the garbled sound emanating from the lovable and occasionally frenetic Cookie Monster, death-metal vocals seem to come from a dark spot in a troubled soul, as if they were the narrator's voice on a tour of Dante's seventh circle of hell."

Monte Conner of Roadrunner Records had good advice on how to attain the Cookie Monster style. "It's got to be really, really guttural. It should sound like they're gargling glass." But Angela Gussow of Arch Enemy (pictured) insists the sound originates in the abdomen. "If you use the right abdomen muscles, you get a lot of power."

A few years ago Will York wrote a piece about Cookie Monster vocals for the SF Bay Guardian. He explains the genres that use the style of singing (only death metal and grindcore) and that the type of growl is a good indication of the subgenre. As for why so many bands use the style he wrote, "For most, it's a mixture of several factors: habit, time-honored tradition, unoriginality, and necessity, in varying degrees."

Posted by Glenn at 9:22 AM | Link
|Music||Music Criticism/Writing|

A popular term among bloggers is jump the shark, which refers to an overreaching attempt for popularity. Coolfer rarely -- if ever -- uses the term, but it's the thing that comes to mind when reading about and hearing tracks from the new album by Brazilian music great Sergio Mendes.

With his new album, Timeless, has Sergio jumped the shark? Only time and consumers will tell, because anything short of incredible success will mark this project as a failure. Sales and a connection with younger generations is obviously the point here. The casting of the album's guests is from a page out of Carlos Santana's "How To Get Back In the Top 10" playbook: guests include Justin Timberlake, Erykah Badu, India.Arie, John Legend, Will.I.Am (who was the album's producer) and Q-Tip.

Will it succeed? One reason it could very well succeed is its label, Concord Records/Starbucks Hear Music, the same label that put Ray Charles back atop the charts, Timeless is going to greatly benefit from sales in Starbucks stores just as Charles did. (Read this MSN Money article about Starbucks and Charles' Genius Loves Company.)

And because he's serious about courting youth, Sergio has a MySpace page and a February 8th listening party at APT, one of Manhattan's more hip music clubs.

Posted by Glenn at 9:06 AM | Link
|Music|

• Rhapsody subscribers, here's a playlist with 36 tracks from 18 of last Tuesday's new releases (including His Name is Alive, Il Divo, UB40, Tha Alkaholics, Audio Bullys, Cat Power, Fivespeed, Saint Etienne, Rosanne Cash, P.O.D., Yellowcard, Film School and Robert Pollard).

• The Rambler Blog has a long (long, long) list of music-related deaths in 2005. Well known names are on the list (Lou Rawls, Link Wray, Robert Moog) but more relatively known ones such composer Robert Wright, Chet Helms (Janis Joplin' promoter), and Afgani pop star Nasrat Parsa.

• The NY Times' Deborah Sontag writes about Korean pop star Rain, who has two upcoming shows at Madison Square Garden. Rain says he would like to see an Asian pop star make it in America, so he's practicing his English, studying the culture and preparing an English-language album.

• MP3.com has an interview with David Pakman, CEO of online music store eMusic. It's a good, revealing discussion of eMusic's place in the online market. Pakman is very optimistic on the company's future. "We want to be at millions of subscribers and we want to sell more independent music in the world than anyone else," he said. "And I think we're very close to that." Later, he commented on eMusic's lack of DRM. "We'll continue to be no-DRM, not for philosophical reasons but only for practical, compatibility reasons. And if that whole practical, compatibility thing got sorted out, if you could sell DRM-protected music that was interoperable everywhere and that wasn't sort of penalizing customers for buying music digitally, we would do that."

Posted by Glenn at 3:03 PM | Link
|Music||Online Stores/Services|

Soul legend Wilson Pickett died of a heart attack yesterday. There have been a lot of obituaries and articles to commemorate the singer. Geoff Boucher's obit for the LA Times is a good overview of the man, musically and otherwise. So is Jeff Leeds' piece for the NY Times.

People are commemorating Pickett by buying his music. At Amazon.com Wilson Pickett's Greatest Hits shot to #39 from #2,266 in one day. The soundtrack to "The Commitments," which helped introduce Pickett's music to a new generation, climbed to #651 from #2,245.

More information can be found at AllMusic's biography and discography, and at his Wikipedia entry.

Posted by Glenn at 8:59 AM | Link
|Music|

Coolfer noticed something about the top selling albums at Amazon.com the other day. Many titles have a relation to the big or small screeen. Looks like older music buyers tend to attain familiarity with music through television and movies. Here are the titles from a recent Amazon.com top 25 that have a connection to television or the big screen.

1. Brokeback Mountain: Soundtrack
3. Il Divo: Ancora. The band is signed to Simon Cowell's Syco, and it appeared on "Oprah" before the release of its self-titled debut last year. TV appearancs, not radio, has been the instrument for its success.
6. Johnny Cash: At Folsom Prison. Johnny Cash titles are enjoying a good run because of the movie I Walk The Line.
8. Walk the Line: Soundtrack
11. Memoirs of a Geisha: Soundtrack
14. Kelly Clarkson: Breakaway. Made famous by the television show "American Idol"
16. Carry Underwood: Some Hearts. Another "American Idol" connection
17. Johnny Cash: The Essential Johnny Cash. The movie connection.
18. Celtic Women: Celtic Women. The group's popularity comes in a big part from exposure at PBS.
20. Michael Buble: It's Time (Reprise) PBS has showed his "Caught In The Act."
23. Wicked: Broadway Cast Recording (Decca) Since this is a Broadway musical and not a movie it almost doesn't belong on the list. Since people watch it while seated I'll include it.
24. Jamie Foxx: Unpredicable. He's been on both the big screen and the small screen.

When Starbucks got into music retail a big reason was because its older customers don't always have good resources to discover new music (something about jobs, families, busy lives, etc). This list doesn't confirm that people will buy whatever you put in front of them, but it does show that some older consumers become familiar with new music through other forms of entertainment -- television and radio. The huge audiences for these mediums obviously have an impact that more fragmented print and Internet sources radio can't match.

Posted by Glenn at 4:29 PM | Link
|Music|

• Saint Etienne's Tales From Turnpike House finally gets a Stateside release (with bonus tracks) on January 24th, via Savoy Jazz. Click here for an e-card with audio streams and tour dates.

• AOL Music has a free download of Nightmare Of You's "Why Am I Always Right?" (MP3). You'll have to enter your birthday and zip code, but it's pretty painless.

• The Isley Brothers page at the Def Jam website has an audio stream (in WMA or RA) of the new song "I Just Came Here To Chill" (in the "latest audio/video" section at the bottom left). The duo's upcoming album, Baby Makin' Music, will be out on March 7th.

Posted by Glenn at 9:19 AM | Link
|Downloads||Music|

As a follow-up to last week's post on the blog buzz on two new bands, Coolfer is checking in on We Are Scientists and Morningwood. With the trend tool at search engine Ice Rocket it's easy to see how many mentions bands are getting in the blogosphere (unless the band has a name that's impossible to search).

Leaving Nickelback out this time, let's look at the two bands again. Morningwood's buzz is at the same level it was a week ago on street date, but We Are Scientists started to spike a few days ago. Why the increase? Looks like some people wrote about recent live shows. We Are Scientists have had 1,463 posts in the last month, an average of 47.19 per day. Morningwood is right around the level of last week's album release day. It has 522 posts in the last month, or 16.84 per day.

(Another reason We Are Scientists have so many more posts even though the bands' albums came out on the same day: The band's UK head start definitely helps. Coolfer has spotted some UK blog posts in the search results.)

Morningwood is as polarizing a band as Coolfer has seen in a while. The conversation at industry message board The Velvet Rope is representative of the banter. Lots of love, lots of hate. But I suppose that's good. When was the last successful band that didn't have its share of haters? For insight into what's behind public opinion on the band, check out this interview with Morningwood singer Chantel Claret at Decent Content.

Posted by Glenn at 8:36 AM | Link
|Music||Weblogs|

It's been said before, but RollingStone.com has an article that quotes Axl Rose himself on the likelihood that the super-delayed album Chinese Democracy will see the light of day in 2006. While at an early morning party in Hollywood's Forever Cemetary, Rose told Steve Baltin that "people will hear music this year." He added:

"I'm trying to do something different. Some of the arrangements are kind of like Queen. Some people are going to say, 'It doesn't sound like Axl Rose, it doesn't sound like Guns n' Roses.' But you'll like at least a few songs on there."

Never short of ambition, Rose said he's working on 32 tracks and 26 are already done.

Chinese Democracy is often called the most anticipated album in rock history, but an album can't be called that every single year. The delays, secrecy and costs involved with the album are the stuff of legend. The NY Times' Jeff Leeds wrote an article on the long lost album titled The Most Expensive Album Never Made. In the March 2005 article he claimed production costs had totalled $13 million, and he argued that the more the industry rely on "proven stars like Rose, the less it can control them."

Posted by Glenn at 8:16 AM | Link
|Music|

From all that Coolfer has read about tonight's premiere of the show "Love Monkey" on CBS, it sounds like the show's creators are attempting to put all kinds of lighthearted touches on an unforgiving side of the music business. The show revolves around record label guy Tom Farrel (pictured in requisite CBGB shirt from Urban Outfitters), the world of A&R and Farrel's label, True Vinyl Records (yes, there is a website made to look like that of an actual record label). Coolfer wonders if people in the industry will tune in. Would people who work in a hot dog factory and know the ugly truth about how hot dogs are made tune in to watch a fictional, lighthearted comedy set in a hot dog factory? (Full disclosure: Coolfer is running an advertisement for the show via BlogAds.)

The Boston Herald's Matthew Gilbert saw the similarities between "Love Monkey" and Nick Hornsby's "High Fidelity," and his favorable review of how the show uses music "not just as decoration but also as one of its characters' means of expression." The review by New York Magazine's Adam Sternbergh claimed it was "obvious" and "squirms and bawls like the bastard love child of Candace Bushnell and Nick Hornby." Ouch. The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle recaps the show with a focus on the singer-songwriter character played by musician Teddy Geiger.

The Times' Alessandra Stanley reviewed the show from a non-musical perspective, and she wasn't very complimentary. She ripped the main character, his friends, the show's premise and the idea that a woman would actually enjoy the music of Bob Dylan.

KCRW's Nic Harcourt is the show's music supervisor. The LA Times wrote about his involvement with "Love Monkey." He suggests music for the show and finds new bands -- such as Aimee Mann, She Wants Revenge, Robbers on High Street and unsigned singer-songwriter Eugene -- to perform on the show.

Watch a trailer here (large .mov file).

Posted by Glenn at 8:22 AM | Link
|Music||Television|

• Metal is gaining in popularity, finding new fans and converting the unbelievers. (OK, that was a bit too heavy on the metal lingo, wasn't it?) Now that metal is finding its way into hip stores and trendy indie labels, listeners need to investigate some predecessors and roots. Stylus' metal primer lands just in time for people to rediscover classics like Slayer's Reign in Blood and Immortal's Pure Holocaust. (Stylus)

• Sticking with metal, this piece at Metal Maniacs is incredible. Hip hop beefs have nothing on what Moritician's Will Rahmer had to say to the folks at Blabbermouth. Go to the story, I won't bother reprinting any portions here. Let's just say it covers evading the police, a Polish prison and a few threats of violence. (Metal Maniacs)

• David Mays and Ray Scott were able to escape keep The Source's new board of directors from ousting the duo. (NY Post, via Hip Hop Music)

• At this very moment, Amazon.com's top selling CD is Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall (Live) and iTunes' top album is The Strokes' First Impressions of Earth. The Monk/Coltrane album isn't even in iTunes' top 100, while The Strokes' album is #14 at Amazon.com. Is there a greater point? Probably not, but I would have expected both albums to appear on both charts.

Posted by Glenn at 4:57 PM | Link
|Music|

Right around street date, Coolfer noticed a bit of online buzz surrounding the debut albums by Morningwood and We Are Scientists. There aren't many new releases coming out this time of year, so I figured I'd use the trend function at search engine Ice Rocket to see how often the bands were popping up in the blogosphere.

At first I was fairly impressed. Here were two relatively unknown bands getting some blog mentions only days after their albums hit stores. Morningwood has had 362 mentions over the last month -- 11.68 posts per day . We Are Scientists has fared even better with 1,190 and 38.39. Adjust for the slow-blogging holiday season and the numbers indicate a potential for one of both to become what is often called a "blogger favorite." They're off to a decent start in terms of underground buzz.

Then I added Nickelback into the search. Though not a band that would ever grab the title of "blogger favorite," Nickelback has been mentioned 12,689 times in the last month. (This says nothing of the total readership or character of each band mention, of course.)

Posted by Glenn at 8:52 AM | Link
|Music||Weblogs|

For the last post of the year Coolfer would like to talk about the odds and ends. A few albums (Rogue Wave, Cut Copy) and worth a mention, as is the year's most underheard album (Ringside).

First, some albums that were not on my top nine of 2005 but deserve a mention. One is the last great album I heard this year, Rogue Wave's Descended Like Vultures. Also worth a mention is Cut Copy's Bright Like Neon Love. And though I don't include compilations with my lists of favorite albums I need to mention Golden Afrique Volume 1, a tremendous collection of West African pop that's well worth the high price tag.

Biggest Disappointment: Big Star's In Space. Sometimes people are disappointed by an album because it didn't live up to the pre-release hype. It's a different story when a band doesn't live up to the proven potential of its members. In Space is a sloppy bunch of half-thoughts and shouldn't-haves.

This Album Could Have/Should Have Been Huge: Ringside. The album with the most popular appeal that went nowhere in 2005 was Ringside's debut on Flawless/Geffen. The duo's credentials are enough to sink its prospects. Singer Scott Thomas is a well known clothing designer and programmer Balthazar Getty (of that Getty family) is an actor. But get past the names and zip codes and you'll be surprised. Thomas' tortured, troubled persona and Getty's beats make Ringside far more than a Los Angeles vanity project, and the entire album is as dark and ingenious as any other pop album of the year. All Coolfer heard of this band was the use of their song "Struggle" in a Pontiac commercial. What a shame.

Favorite music blogs: Danceblogga, Tuning Fork, Chromewaves.

Favorite music news blog: Digital Music News.

Favorite music writer: Jeff Leeds of the New York Times. Music critics are a penny a dozen. Good music writers, who understand the business and dare to investigate a story, are a rare breed. Without Leeds a lot of important stories would be exactly what they tend to be when Leeds doesn't break the story: Press releases with bylines.

Posted by Glenn at 9:19 PM | Link
|Music||Music Criticism/Writing||Music Industry|

How did Bell Orchestra sell out New York's Tonic recently? Blogs, of course. FoC Alec Hanley Bemis wrote a piece for the LA Weekly on "a clear shift from the era of airwaves to the era of iPods."

"The digital landscape has been laid; the critical apparatus necessary to govern its borders is settling into place. It’s a hierarchy of Web zines, MP3 blogs, podcasts, and message boards with peculiar names like Music for Robots, Coolfer, Stereogum, Brooklyn Vegan and Tracks Up the Tree. An artist can make or break a career via a thousand different sites that are insignificant on their own, but together quite powerful."

Alec continues to mark the beginning of the end of the music superstar by telling us larger-than-life acts are goners (Editor's note: Green Day has sold over four million copies of American Idiot in the U.S. alone, and labels' next stranglehold on pop culture will be through monied deals in product endorsement), pointing to the closure of rock stations (that were never going to play either the Arcade Fire nor its side project in the first place), and all but naming iTunes as Edgar Bronfman's much needed Northern Star (which is the only of the three I'd buy).

On the upside, he's dead on with his argument that the decentralization of music promotion means a thousand blogs can do the job of a payrolled publicist -- but at no cost and at a speed that's like a Santa Ana-fueled fire tearing through Southern California. The Arcade Fire played an impromptu 2am gig at Union Square the night before the Tonic Show. Just for fun. A blogger happened across the unlikely busking, and come morning a blog post was being hyperlinked and emailed across the Internet. Out came the Bell Orchestra connections, and by set time the show was Lower Manhattan's hot ticket of the evening.

Related:

Isn't it ironic that Alec's article on blog power will be read in a city that has a surprisingly low per-capita rate of music blogs? For whatever reason, Los Angeles is behind the curve. I can't explain it, and locals I've asked can't explain it.

Posted by Glenn at 9:18 AM | Link | Comment (8)
|Music||Weblogs|

Posted at the 311 website is this recap of an altercation between members of the band and former Creed singer Scott Stapp:

"On November 24th (Thanksgiving), 311 had the day off in Baltimore, Maryland. Chad Sexton, SA Martinez & P-Nut were relaxing in a hotel lounge with their wives and friends watching a basketball game on television. Scott Stapp entered the bar. He appeared intoxicated. He drank a shot at the bar and then threw his shot glass, smashing it on the bar. He was acting belligerent and got into an argument with patrons sitting at the bar. He then sat down next to SA and his wife. He made a disrespectful and crude remark to SA's wife. Chad and SA asked him to step away. He then sucker-punched Chad. Scott was looking for a fight - and that's what he got. A fight ensued. Soon the police arrived and everyone was restrained and questioned; and Scott was ultimately asked to leave the hotel."

Posted by Glenn at 8:47 AM | Link
|Music|

For the second time this year, System of a Down debuts at the top of the album chart. Hypnotize sold more than 320,000 copies in its first week. That was short of the 453,000 units Mesmerize sold in its first week in stores in May of this year. How good is that for fans? Rather than get a "special edition" a few months after the original came out, System fans get an entirely new album -- and American/Columbia gets another hit record. This is also a notable number one because so few mainstream artists these days infuse politics into their music. One exception could be made for Green Day, but the title of the band's new live CD/DVD, Bullet In A Bible, is misleading. The title may be seen as a reference to conservative Christianity and politics, but as seen in the DVD it comes specifically from the band's trip to a war museum at which a guide says the museum has a bible with a bullet lodged in it -- "a bullet in a bible."

The second and third albums, Kenny Chesney's The Road and the Radio and Now 20, increased 58% and 70% from the previous week, respectively. That's Black Friday at work. Last week's top album, Madonna's Confessions on a Dancefloor, dropped to fourth.

Here's a number that shouldn't be surprising: Enya's Amarantine debuted at number seven with 178,000 in sales. Not only is this a perfect album for the Christmas season but it's sure to be a strong seller for many months. There just isn't too much competition in the superstar new age/Celtic solo female market. Amarantine is Borders' top album, is fourth at Virgin and third at Tower .

Other debuts of note: Juelz Santana's What the Game's Been Missing sold 141,000, Chamillionaire's The Sound of Revenge sold 130,000, Reba McEntire's Reba: #1s came in at number 12 and Scott Stapp's self-titled debut entered at number 19.

One thing that isn't yet being reported is the sales of Wal-Mart's Garth Brooks box set. Coolfer would love to know how that's doing.

Posted by Glenn at 8:46 AM | Link
|Music|

Coolfer was stricken by the similarities between the new Wendy's "Rock Your Burger" commercial and the video for LCD Soundsystem's "Daft Punk is Playing at My House." It looks like the Wendy's commercial borrowed the idea of stop animation from "Daft Punk." Both immitate a LED peakmeter. One uses people in different colored skin suits, the other uses burgers.

The song in the Wendy's commercial is "Satisfaction" by Benny Benassi. The video (watch Quicktime) is a classic.

Posted by Glenn at 9:29 AM | Link | Comment (2)
|Music|

What are the motives for covering a song? Coolfer liked the theory of the Village Voice's Nick Catucci: To honor the original, to recontextualize it or because the original isn't good enough.

So why did The White Stripes cover Tegan and Sara's "Walking With A Ghost"? Catucci guesses the cover comes from a desire to "lay claim to the song, as if, played primitively, it proves Tegan and Sara were somehow honoring Jack White." Seeing as how Tegan and Sara is among the most unmentionable rock bands of the decade, Coolfer could be sold on the idea that they chose to cover the song because it isn't very good in the first place.

There are a few other obvious reasons to cover songs. One is for money, as some cities' music scene can't support much else than cover bands. Another is for cred, which would explain all the Velvet Underground and Joy Division covers.

Pretty much unrelated:

• The Covers Project is building a database of cover songs to create cover chains ("a set of songs in which each recording is a cover of a recording by the artist who covered the preceding song").
• Wikipedia has an entry on cover songs as well as a guess on the origin of the term.
• The entry at Reference.com has a few ideas about the origin of the term, plus a lot of history.
• Metallica World has a list of the songs Metallica has covered...and there's a lot of them.

Posted by Glenn at 8:27 AM | Link | Comment (3)
|Music|

Musician Chris Whitley passed away Sunday night. Yesterday there were some reports that he was fighting terminal lung cancer but those came after he had already died. At the message board on his website, Whitley's daughter Trixie and brother Daniel posted messages about his passing. From his daughter:

My father took his last breath last night the 20th of November. I would like to make it clear that the people he needed and loved the most were with him while and when he left in peace.

And from his brother:

"I hope you all will morn my brothers death but more important celebrate his life as Chris was all about life and living... I started the celebration by cranking up Dirt Floor in his honor...crying still. Chris Whitley's legacy will no doubt transcend all time."

Extras:

• Read Whitley's biography at AllMusic.com
• His website currently has three free downloads: "Fire Road" (MP3), "Soft Dangerous Shores" (OGG) and "As Day Is Long" (MP3).
• Whitley's last record, Soft Dangerous Shores, was released on Messenger Records.

Posted by Glenn at 8:46 AM | Link | Comment (1)
|Music|

Album art often an afterthough these days, just a few pixels of color coding for one's iPod, so Coolfer was pleasantly suprised by the album art to The Darkness' One Way Ticket To Hell...And Back. The dimensions imply a gatefold LP -- or maybe, and less spectacularly, both sides of an open CD sleeve. The album will be released November 29th. The single, "One Way Ticket," is available now.

Related: The Darkness singer Justin Hawkins paid £350 on eBay for an advance copy of this very album. He said he did it to prevent it from being leaked before its release. Bands win either way, don't they? If the album is leaked articles are written about it. If albums are bought on eBay to prevent a leak articles are written about it.

(Image via Soundbites)

Posted by Glenn at 4:05 PM | Link
|Music|

FoC Information Leafblower had a concise and brilliant observation yesterday. "Is Terrell Owens the Pete Doherty of the NFL or is Pete Doherty the Terrell Owens of the music industry? Either way, both get way more press than they deserve."

And with that I offer a link to the latest -- in a very, very, longwinded series -- Guardian article on Pete Doherty. Strike that -- this is a full fledged interview. The article's title is "Wasted." Journalists wouldn't have it any other way, would they? This part in particular caught my eye:

"Even when we are not talking about drugs, the underlying subject seems to be drugs. His only real subject."

Well duh. How many words are written about Pete Doherty's music? His musical ability may still be recognized and admired, but Doherty is close to entering Courtney Love territory, that dangerous low point in one's career in which the media enables and gleefully covers your slide into the abyss.

After the jump, a screen shot that tracks The Guardian's Pete Doherty Death Watch over the last two years.

Continue reading "The Pete Doherty Death Watch Continues" »

Posted by Glenn at 12:11 PM | Link | Comment (2)
|Music||Music Criticism/Writing|

The 2006 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees will be announced by next month, and in anticipation the Cleveland Plain Dealer has conducted its sixth annual reader poll. By a landslide Lynryd Skynyrd was voted as the most deserving band (it has been nominated seven times but has yet to be inducted).

Others atop the reders' picks were Black Sabbath, John Mellencamp, Cat Stevens, Miles Davis and the Sex Pistols.

The list of 2006 nominations include Stevens, Black Sabbath, Mellencamp, Davis, Sex Pistols, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, the Patti Smith Group, Joe Tex, J. Geils Band, the Paul Butterfield Band, Dave Clark Five and the Sir Douglas Quintet.

Many bands are waiting for their first nomination, like Van Halen, Def Leppard, Yes, Genesis, Deep Purple, Pat Benatar, Duran Duran, Rush, ELO and Alice Cooper.

The Rock Hall website has information on the induction process.

"Artists become eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first record. Criteria include the influence and significance of the artist’s contributions to the development and perpetuation of rock and roll.

The Foundation’s nominating committee, composed of rock and roll historians, selects nominees each year in the Performer category. Ballots are then sent to an international voting body of about 1,000 rock experts. Those performers who receive the highest number of votes, and more than 50 percent of the vote, are inducted. The Foundation generally inducts five to seven performers each year."

Non-performers (DJs, producers), early influencers and side men can also receive nominations.

Posted by Glenn at 9:21 AM | Link | Comment (1)
|Music|

If it's going to end up on P2P networks in another eight days, and everybody knows it and expects it, why not leak the new Madonna album and get an article headline while you're at it? Fox's Roger Friedman reported yesterday that Madonna's upcoming Confessions on a Dancefloor, supposedly a high security album, had somehow been leaked to P2P. ("Copies aren't even available at the record company's offices yet," he wrote.) Gee...I wonder how that happened.

No, I'm not buying the theory that bands, managers and labels don't leak albums themselves. Heck, MTV's online album preview section is called The Leak. Leaking is everywhere. The whole event not only gets Madonna's music heard by millions but gets her more media ink. Not that Madge ever had a problem getting column inches, but every little helps.

Also of note from the article is a potential licensing battle. The song "Sorry" has a sample from The Jackson's "Can You Feel It." According to Friedman, a rep for co-writer Jackie Jackson said "no one's asked for a sample license so far."

Posted by Glenn at 9:00 AM | Link | Comment (1)
|Music|

Music, argues Forbes writer Ann Rafalko in "Tastemakers: Musicians," is stronger than ever even though earnings forecasts have been disrupted by the millions of songs that are available for little to no money. So much music is available, but, she asks, "what makes an album a 'must buy'?"

Tastemakers. They're the ones fans follow. They have clout. When they talk, people listen. Forbes picked a group of musicians it calls tastemakers by interviewing industry experts, polling readers and gauging album sales. "n addition to downloading their music off the Net, their fans still purchase their albums--as well as pay to see them perform live and, in the case of venerable stars like Bob Dylan, buy their books and watch films about them."

(In music the term is usually applied not to musicians but to the people who refer others to musicians, the record store owners, the writers and club-goers who follows trends and are early adopters. They are viewed as gatekeepers because of the influence they have on the shopping habits of music fans.)

Among Forbes' list of tastemakers are Missy Elliot (4,471 press mentions), Eminem, Herbie Hancock ($3.4 million in sales on his last album), Jay-Z (10,376 press mentions), Yo Yo Ma (16 Grammy Awards), Wynton Marsalis (first jazz musician to win a Pulitzer Prize), The Neptunes ($15.5 million in sales on last album), U2 ($405 million in sales on last album) and the White Striples (3,299 press mentions).

Posted by Glenn at 4:07 PM | Link
|Music|

Pitchfork's Adam Moerder reviewed Harvery Danger's Little By Little and nowhere in the four paragraphs and 440 words was there a mention that the album is given away free at the band's website. (To be fair, I should note the first two paragraphs gave the band's background.)

He closes by saying, "Little by Little (save two or three tracks) reads like a carbon dating test, displaying the band's decaying sound gradually assimilating with its exhausted surroundings."

Coolfer gave it a listen and thought it was a pretty good album, but anyway, the moral of the story is this: Giving away music -- especially an entire album -- gets a little buzz, gets the attention of Boing Boing and may get a few blog links here and there, but it's still not the cornerstone of a good business plan. It helps people cherry pick those two or three good tracks, though, and it elicits a lot of "Free stuff! Free stuff!" cheers all across the Internet.

(Photo by Ryan Schierling)

Posted by Glenn at 3:20 PM | Link | Comment (1)
|Music||P2P|

Almost 124,000 people from 147 countries voted in DJ Mag's Top 100 Poll of 2005, and the results aren't surprising. Trance DJs dominated. The big news is that Paul Van Dyk (left) overtook Tiesto for the #1 spot on the list. The top ten's new entrant -- which was a re-entry -- was Carl Cox at #9.

Minimal DJs did well (Richie Hawtin jumped to #12 and Ricardo Villalobos was at #47). House DJs held steady and mainstream DJs slipped -- Fatboy Slim is at #63 (he was at #51 last year) and Paul Oakenfold is at #11 (he was at #9 last year).

The Top Ten:

1. Paul Van Dyk
2. Tiesto
3. Armin Van Buuren
4. Sasha
5. Ferry Corsten
6. John Digweed
7. Hernan Catteneo
8. Deep Dish
9. ATB
10. Carl Cox

Click here for a list of 11-100.

Posted by Glenn at 9:00 PM | Link | Comment (1)
|Music|

The blogosphere has reacted positively to the news that Merge Records' The Clientele is giving away a coupon for a free album download with each purchase of the vinyl LP. Information Leafblower called it the "best idea ever," and tis from a post at Digital Music News:

"While vinyl remains a niche overall, a recent quarterly sales report by the BPI pointed to an 80 percent increase in 7-inch vinyl (to 800,000 units), and sales in the US of LPs topped 1.2 million last year. Not a cash cow, but not as dead as some think."

(Note: Digital Music News looks to be going of the RIAA's year-ending report for 2004, which lists shipments, not sales.)

Coolfer has repeated this kind of statistic quite a few times over the last two years. Not only is the CD not dead but the LP isn't even close to dying. In fact vinyl sales are surging. Vinyl estimates are probably a bit low since some flies under the radar. (A lot of vinyl is promotional only, which accounts for many more units out there.) The market for white label 12" singles alone is still considerable.

Of course, vinyl is a niche market for more serious music collectors. Niche markets, though, are best served by the Internet. Expect vinyl sales to increase in the next few years as new markets are created and more bands try
out fresh marketing ideas like The Clientele has done. But, I think vinyl will level off and soon drop as more DJs convert to MP3.

Posted by Glenn at 4:38 PM | Link | Comment (4)
|Music|

Rapper Cam'ron was shot in a botched carjacking attempt in Washington D.C. A man approached the New Yorker and motioned for him to get out of his Lamborghini. When Cam'ron (Cameron Giles) refused and tried to speed away, the gunman fired several shots. One of the bullets entered and exited both of his arms.

A post at SOHH.com quoted his manager as saying that he's in good condition and that "he even asked the nurse for her phone number when he woke up." AllHipHop.com's article went a little deeper and reminded that Cam'ron was arrested in Harlem in July for driving the expensive sports car with a suspended license.

His album Killa Season is scheduled for a February release.

Posted by Glenn at 8:26 AM | Link
|Music|

The Madonna media stampede is upon us and already the first album review has hit the Internet. In her review "New album is Madge-ic," Victoria Newton of The Sun calls herself "the first journo IN THE WORLD to have heard her new album," calls the upcoming album, Confessions on a Dancefloor, "an absolute belter" and added, "I'm confident the album will be hailed a masterpiece on its November 14 release." (November 15th in the States.) Of course this has all the critical weight of an adverb-laced movie review from Larry King since Ms. Newton writes a low-brow gossip column for a tabloid newspaper (with such recent topics as Adele Silva's breasts and Robbie Williams' "pot shot" at Oasis' Liam Gallagher) but a review is a review. Comments like, "This is Kraftwerk inspired and features computer generated, vocoder style vocals," won't win over any Greil Marcus fans, that's for sure.

"Hung Up," the lead-off track, is streaming at Madonna's website. Check it out and decide for yourself. (There's a music player at the top of the screen. Click through the tracks until you find it.) Coolfer gave it two listens and thinks it's an immediately lovable dance track. The fabulous production by Stuart Price and the sample of Abba's "Gimme Gimme Gimme" makes even a mediocre-quality stream sound good.

The album is available for pre-order at iTunes in both regular and continuous mix versions.

Posted by Glenn at 9:02 AM | Link | Comment (1)
|Music||Music Criticism/Writing|

Market research company TNS found that the average Brit spends £21,000 ($37,121) on music during his/her lifetime. A music enthusiast (whatever that is) spends just over £44,000 ($77,778) in a lifetime. That all-encompassing figure includes things like pre-recorded music, concerts, nightclubs, musicals and magazines.

More tidbits, from the BBC.com article on the study:

• Average amount spent on CDs, concerts and magazines is £425 ($751) per year.
• Seven out of ten people go to a musical event every year.
• About half of those questioned claimed they spent nothing but the number ended up being about £250 ($442) a year.
• The average person owns £891-worth ($1,575) of music-playing equipment.

Here's some rough math for a typical music enthusiast: One show a week in New York costs, on average, about $14 per week, which is just a rough estimate that balances out the cheap shows with the incredibly expensive ones (drinks not included, and that's the real killer). Subscription to eMusic is $15 a month. A few new albums a month go for about $50, and throw in $15 for used CDs found on eBay and at sidewalk sales. Who reads magazines any longer who doesn't get them free at clubs? Fine...let's throw in a $15 annual subscription to some music rag. Let's add $300 for an iPod and another $100 for accessories.

Already that's $2,103. Ouch. That doesn't include the computer and broadband access that fuels the music addiction (and downloads heaps of music), nor does it include taxi fares for those late night trips home after a show, or the round-trip ticket to SXSW or Coachella.

To quote Spinal Tap, that's too much f**king perspective.

Posted by Glenn at 9:35 AM | Link | Comment (2)
|Music||Research|

All in all a pretty uneventful week. Well, other than some new Apple products that have everybody thinking new business models and positing about the dismantling of record labels as we know them. The video iPod was greeted with the typical "oohing" and "aahing" that comes with nearly every new product launch (other than the ROKR). So much so, actually, that Slate's Jack Shafer was compelled to write "The Apple Polishers" about the media's crush on Steve Jobs...kind of a tech version of the self reflection in Kelefa Sanneh's "The Rap Against Rockism" article for the NY Times.

There was no Jason Flom announcement. The former head of Atlantic Records, who is called things like "last music guy in the music business" and "the last rock guy left at Warner Music," is expected to breathe new life into his new home.

Sony BMG's Andrew Lack had his fair share of media coverage. First he made the news for telling analysts and investors that variable pricing is a good thing -- though it seems some left out his later comments that left no question that Sony BMG does not believe increasing prices would be wise with digital revenue around 5% of its total. Then more recently Lack made news after the NY Times' Jeff Leeds revealed Bertelsmann isn't happy with the Lackster and wanted to drop him after his contract comes up in six months. Later reports had Lack in Europe lobbying on his own behalf.

Today came a report in German magazine Der Spiegel ("citing no sources") that Betelsmann wants Lack out because of the $114 million contract he gave to Bruce Springsteen (who is, by the way, on Sony's Columbia Records). It was -- and is still -- a controversial move. Many worry The Boss just doesn't have the sales in him to warrant such a contract. In light of Korn's new profit-sharing deal some have wondered if such a deal would be good for a guy like Springstreen who can still bring in crowds for concerts but can't get a blockbuster album.

Earlier in the week Coolfer compared the front pages of four online music stores...good grades for iTunes, not so good grades for Napster.

Also, check Coolfer's review of the week's album chart. Nickelback tore up the competition.

Posted by Glenn at 9:24 PM | Link
|Music|

• A librarian at the Palmer Theological Seminary in Wynnewood, PA, happened across "one of the most important musicological finds in years" while cleaning out an archival closet: a working manuscript of Beethoven's "Grosse Fugue" written in his own hand. It will go on display today only, then Sotheby's in London will auction it on December 1st.

• What's going on in the music blogosphere? Stereogum has a roundup to save the rest of us the time of checking the blogroll. Today's features: Another Sufjan Stevens link, a nod to Music For Robots and a few Mason Proper MP3s.

• Big Star biography reviewed. Sounds like it's better than the band's recent album.

• In Today's RollingStone.com "In Brief" column (the blog post with no hyperlinks or paragraph returns) there's news about Jessica Simpson's new album. Originally scheduled for a November release, it's been pushed to early spring.

• Creem interviews The Secret Machines.

• The Strokes' new video for "Juicebox" will be "controversial" says singer Julian Casablancas, recounted here at FMBQ which quotes an MTV.com article. "There might be full-frontal nudity. MTV will not play this video because's it's so controversial, (but) it will be groundbreaking." Who knows? MTV just might play it such a statement is taken as a dare. It viewed The Prodigy's "Smach My Bitch Up" afterhours when it was released to great controversy. I remember Kurt Loder giving the video a self-serving, over-dramatic introduction as if MTV owed it to the country to play the thing.

Posted by Glenn at 4:10 PM | Link | Comment (2)
|Music|

• Sonic Youth's last album for Geffen will be called Sonic Life says Entertainmentwise (quoting Belgian magazine De Morgen), and it will be "very song oriented." The article also says the rumor that Jim O'Rourke may not play on the next album, mentioned here the other day, is "unsubstantiated." Really?

• Newcity Chicago talks to Assassins, "the latest, greatest and most local manifestation of when synthesizers and electronic beats married into the rock family." The band was signed to Arista after only five gigs only to get caught up LA Reid's departure and the label's fold into RCA. After a nine-month legal battle the band got the rights to its music and it now approaching a deal with a small label in the UK. Listen to four songs at the band's MySpace.com page. Slick, melodic electro pop with a bit of Ladytron detachment, art school trapppings and Duran Duran flair. Worth keeping an eye on.

• Boy George could face 15 years in jail (those maximum penalties rarely pan out though) if convicted of drug possession. Unless you missed George's unflattering photos all over the New York tabloid media and blogs since the weekend, here's the humorous story: George called NYC police on Friday and reported that he was burgled, but Police noticed a baker's dozen plastic bags of cocaine and dragged him to jail. His lawyer, naturally, swears up and down he doesn't know how the coccaine got into his apartment.

• When did The Flaming Lips turn into mystical, new age types? Quotes from a Billboard.com piece about the band's upcoming album (due out February or March) include:

- "It ends up being a self-empowering thing -- almost like an MC5 thing, but it's not talking about external things. It's talking about the power within you."
- "Within the song, hopefully this is an empowering mysticism and not something silly from the Dark Ages."
- "One version was me sort of acting like a deranged priest, talking about the idea of time travel being something we're all able to do in our own minds."

Look for the band at a Star Trek convention near you.

• The Bush White House has many entertainers worried about freedom of expression, but as this five-year-old post at SOHH (via a sort of "this day in hip hop history" sidebar) shows there are always lawmakers eager to suppress what they consider to be dangerous elements in the media. Five years ago two New Jersey Senators, Gerald Cardinale and Diane Allen, proposed a bill that would have made it illegal "to sell any phonographic record, tape or CD that contains lyrics which describe, advocate, or encourage the following without parental warning: suicide, incest, bestiality, sadomasochism, rape or involuntary sexual penetration, murder, morbid violence, ethnic, racial or religious intimidation, the use of illegal drugs or the excessive or illegal use of alcohol." That would have eliminated from New Jersey stores, well, almost everything short of Contemporary Christian and instrumental albums.

Posted by Glenn at 11:53 AM | Link | Comment (2)
|Music|

• Though it doesn't come right out and say something like "he quit the band," this article on Sonic Youth at LA City Beat says of newest band member: "Guitarist Jim O’Rourke, who joined the band as its fifth member in 1999, is here too, but won’t be on the next SY album, set to begin recording next spring. He’s moving on."

• Nirvana's 1991 classic Nevermind has joined 150 other recordings named to the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry.

• The least anticipated invasion of all time? RollingStone.com on the Dead 60's invasion of American.

Posted by Glenn at 9:22 PM | Link
|Music|

Jeffrey Lee Puckett of the Courier-Journel (Louisville) profiles one of the country's rising rock bands, My Morning Jacket.

The SF Chronicle talks to Michael Penn about his new album, Mr. Hollywood Jr., 1947.

"I write these songs about broken people, about being a broken person," he says. "While I wrote, I thought about my father, who fought in World War II. And whether I could put my life back together after being in a horrific war. And about the early days of Hollywood, where the main cash crop is artifice."

And about the label he co-founded with wife Aimee Mann and manager Michael Hausman:

Amy had just gotten out of her major-label contract and we started talking about creating a musicians' collective since there is power in number. We're hoping it will become an artist-run mutual support system. Songwriters don't have a union, so this could really help them -- and the music industry in general."

Coolfer hasn't referenced a blog in Sunday Reading until now, but an entry at Bubblegum Machine, a favorite MP3 blog, calls for a full quotation. It's for the song "Helpless" by Sainte Marie.

"A version of the Neil Young song with Ry Cooder guitar and epic production from husband Jack Nitzsche. Lovely stuff.

Buffy Sainte Marie frequently appeared in Sesame Street in the 1970s, co-starring with roller-skating muppet Big Bird, an androgynous muppet with the kind of passive-zealous demeanor not seeen since the September recruitment visit from the Campus Crusade for Christ."

Posted by Glenn at 7:00 PM | Link
|Music|

• The Source was thinking about turning a new leaf, reports SOHH.com, by doing a positive article on G-Unit. "Things didn't work out" and it morphed into a G-Unot piece instead. The G-Unit camp will be on the magazine's November cover -- against their wishes.

• "Echo Of The Past" at the SF Bay Guardian. OK, so not everybody is into the new Echo and the Bunnymen album. The Guardian's Kelly Stolz, on the other hand, calls it "their best record since Ocean Rain."

• Plenty of good previews/featured bands currently at MySpace.com. Current features include New York group Si*Se, DangerDoom (the album can be streamed all the way through no skipping) and The Go! Team (if you haven't already downloaded all the tracks from MP3 blogs in the last 12 months).

Posted by Glenn at 3:40 PM | Link | Comment (1)
|Music|

• Bob Mould will film tomorrow's gig at the 9:30 club in DC for a DVD release (Billboard.com article). Coolfer was at Bob's concert at Irving Plaza on Wednesday and was mightily impressed by the band, the setlist and the live versions of the new songs taken from his album Body of Song. The show was rich in songs from Sugar's Copper Blue, and he reached back into his Husker Du days as well ("Chartered Trips" and "Celebrated Summer" were mind blowing). The new material came off brilliantly, especially "Paralyzed" and "Underneath Days." The best part of the show? It wasn't a nostalia trip for an aging college rock crowd. The music was vital and relevant.

• Download a 60-minute MP3 of DJ Food's "Raiding the 20th Century," a "newly expanded version" of the nearly two-year-old original attempt to "catalogue the history of cut up music." A track listing -- more like a list of ingredients, really -- came be found here. (Via The Morning News)

• Download the Brian Jonestown Massacre's Lollapalooza set from the band's music page. (It's a zip file.) Tracks are "Intro," "Whoever You Are," "Let Me Stand Next To Your Flower," "Nailing Honey To The Bee," "Hide and Seek," "When Jokers Attack," "Sailing" and "Swallowtail."

Posted by Glenn at 8:26 PM | Link | Comment (3)
|Music|

• The SF Bay Guardian covers the trials and tribulations of Linda Perry. Thought 4 Non Blondes is both loved and hated, most pop fans have enjoyed a Linda Perry song -- whether they know it or not.

• More from the bay area weeklies: "The 40-Year-Old Solo Artists." Bob Mould and Paul Weller both have new solo albums, and they're both "the most vital, most satisfying solo albums in years." This is a great article that puts in context albums like these versus the "cashing in" attitude of some of their peers. Mould will play at NYC's Irving Plaza tonight. Coolfer will be there. Of course the Husker Du and Sugar songs will be mind blowers, but the new songs are very anticipated.

• Many reviews of new releases at RollingStone.com: Franz Ferdinand, Fiona Apple, My Morning Jacket...

• "One Way Ticket," the new single by British hair rockers The Darkness, is now being streamed at the band's MySpace.com page. It has all the ingredients of the last album -- high-pitched screaming, wailing guitars, a steady AC/DC-like rhythm section -- plus a sitar. From the website:

"One Way Ticket To Hell� And Back� is a big f**k-off rock album about faith lost and restored, and about love lost and found. The Darkness really didn�t have any choice but to make a record this good. The stakes were too high and the sheer, superhuman feat of pulling it back from the edge (an effort that would most likely kill any lesser band stone-dead) has done nothing but steel their resolve and drive them to make what had to be - and is - the finest rock album of the past twenty years, their debut aside, of course."

Modesty just isn't in the band's blood, is it?

• What used to be called "a huge file" or "a single, continuous track that's 53 minutes long" is now conveniently called a podcast. With that in mind, check out The London Apartment's podcast of its 9/16/05 show at The Ambient Ping. Lots of "ethereal" "shoegazing" and "blissful" "laptronica" "soundscapes." In a nutshell, you kids who still search eBay to fill out your Darla's Bliss Out series collection will be into this. mum fans, too, should take notice.

• The Stranger has a short profile on one of the few popular rock acts who have laid out political statements this year, System of a Down.

Posted by Glenn at 9:00 AM | Link
|Music|

The rock band Harvey Danger, who you may remember for the wonderous one hit "Flagpole Sitta," has come up with a publicity stunt: The band is giving away its music. It's not revolutionary and sometimes the downloader get what he pays for, but the media tends to treat free as newsworthy. Never fails. All the band needs is a few journalists and a few bloggers to start talking and the ball is rolling.

Slashdot.org took to the story and took quotes from the band's website that give reasons for giving it away:

"'In preparing to self-release our new album, we thought long and hard about how best to use the internet. Given our unusual history, and a long-held sense that the practice now being demonized by the music biz as 'illegal' file sharing can be a friend to the independent musician, we have decided to embrace the indisputable fact of music in the 21st century, put our money where our mouth is, and make our record, Little By Little..., available for download via Bittorrent, and at our website."

Harvey Danger brings up an important point: file sharing is not always illegal. Some people trade songs issued under a Creative Commons license, which can grant certain permissions that would allow for legal sharing. Others may trade files that are in the public domain (though it's surely extremely rare). Some may trade travel photos or Word documents. The file sharing that is "demonized by the music biz" is that which trades copyrighted material owned by RIAA members. (The cease-and-desists letters and efforts to close some file sharing networks, though, ends up targeting all traffic on those networks -- whether or not its related to the RIAA.) To my knowledge (and if I'm wrong please let me know) nobody has been sued for allegedly trading non-RIAA songs.

Just take a look at the lawsuits. This page at the EFF website lists them by label. An article at Slyck tells of a pattern in the lawsuits (under the DMCA): "Ludacris, Michael Jackson, NAS, Busta Rhymes, Keith Sweat and Musiq were very common throughout the subpoenas." Check the list of songs. Busta Rhymes' "Pass the Courvoisier" had appeared on 12 lawsuits by the time the article was written in July of 2003.

Indie labels give away free MP3s of their music, and indepedent bands regularly post songs and sometimes entire albums on their websites. Free music can be an antidote to limited money, distribution and interest at retail. Like Harvey Danger says, giving it away can help the independent band.

But don't assume that what's good for the unknown indie is good for all artists. Giving away music isn't the favored marketing stretegy of most labels -- majors and indies -- so if a person wants that Phil Collins track it's a different story. The EFF offers advice on how not to get caught, or you can read an old Coolfer post on tips for downloaders.

Posted by Glenn at 9:01 AM | Link | Comment (4)
|Digital Music||Music|

• The Chicago Sun-Times asks what many people are wondering: How did Lil' Kim's new album, The Naked Truth, get The Source magazine's highest rating? It quotes the New York Daily News, "Does it have anything to do with the longstanding romantic relationship between Kim's manager, Hillary Weston, and Source founder and CEO Dave Mays?"

• My Morning Jacket has a new album, Z, in stores tomorrow. (It's been available for streaming at Rhapsody since last week.) Popmatters has an interview with the band. On working with producer John Leckie: "He didn't really change anything, he just kind of shepherded the whole process and made sure we were picking the right takes and capturing the sounds as best we could."

• Of Kate Bush's new album, The Guardian says "it's been worth the wait"

• Blues Eyes Meets Bed Stuy, a mixtape that fuses Notorious B.I.G. with Frank Sinatra, is "one of the city's hottest underground albums." The New York Daily News ran an article on the hot mixtape that was produced by FoC Jon Moskowitz. We bloggers have been on it. Coolfer gave it a B+ back in late August. A few weeks ago Information Leafblower raved and posted two tracks. Product Shop posted about it last week.

• The latest on the Pete Doherty Death Watch: He was detained in a drug sweep by British police. His band Babyshambles canceled last night's gig.

Posted by Glenn at 12:55 PM | Link
|Music|

Time Magazine has a Q&A with Mesissa Etheridge. About her sitcom that's in development for ABC:

"Basically, it's about what my life might have been like had I not left to find my fame and fortune, and stayed in Kansas and become a teacher and been gay and dealt with life there."

Blogcritics has a good post: "Sunday Morning Playlist: Haight Ashbury." On the list: Grateful Dead, Moby Grape, Santana, It's A Beautiful Day, Quicksilver Messenger Service and many others, and good, brief bios on each.

Newspapers around the country ran an AP article by Nekesa Mumbi Moody about Barbra Streisand. "Streisand's showcases anti-war sentiment" is about, well, the anti-war sentiment expressed in her new album. Kind of. It's a fluff piece, actually and seems like a waste of words given the gravity of the album's inspiration.

The New York Daily News' Jim Farber talks to Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos. Among other things, they talked about the band's '80s influences...which Kapranos doesn't hear.

"Kapranos says his group never heard records by the group they're most often associated with - Gang of Four - 'until we read about them in all our reviews. Then when we checked them out we thought, "What a great band. What a radical approach to playing."'"

Posted by Glenn at 6:16 PM | Link
|Music||Music Industry|

• The Beastie Boys to release a 15-track greatest hits comp on November 8th.

• Heard in a car commercial last night: Ringside's "Struggle." Sorry, I didn't notice which car. Coolfer places Ringside's self-titled Flawless/Geffen debut near the top of the list of 2005's unfortunately overlooked/undiscovered pop albums.

• And I thought the bloggers were in love with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. This is what helped the band quickly rise out of obscurity, right? A trend comparison at IceRocket.com shows almost six times as many posts in the last month about the band Switchfoot.

Posted by Glenn at 5:20 PM | Link | Comment (1)
|Music|

• The Guardian's Sam Wollaston says of No Direction Home, the Bob Dylan documentary, "it's wonderful, a remarkable knitting together of a lot of tangled strands into a thing of sense and beauty." Hard to argue.

• Pharrel Williams (Neptunes, N.E.R.D.) will release a solo album under the name Skate Board P. (Pause) Sales potential dropped 56% from the beginning of that sentence to its end.

• World Leader Pretend, a New Orleans band who released an album on Warner Bros. earlier this year, will perform on NBC News' Today Show as part of the "Make a Difference Today" hurricane relief program. On Thursday the 29th the band will perform at noon at Rockefeller Plaza. On Friday the 30th they'll have an 8:30am interview and performance on The Today Show. This is one helluva young band. Keep an eye on them.

• For whatever reason, the announcement of a track listing passes for news these days. So here you go, have fun: Madonna has finalized her track listing for her upcoming album Confessions on a Dancefloor.

• Mile Davis was a featured article at Wikipedia yesterday. It's a fine entry. Nice that Wiki broke it up into his various period (early life, bebop and the birth of the cool, first quintet and sextet, etc.).

Posted by Glenn at 8:16 PM | Link
|Music|

• The second edition of EAT, Robert Pollard's literary magazine, is now available from Rockathon Records.

• From Blabbermouth.net, Ted Nugent's new competition-based reality show will debut on OLN in November. Sounds like a survialist's "Survivor."

• The Philedelphia Daily News' Dan DeLuca says Gretchen Wilson's new album, All Jacked Up, "is overbearing in its relentless efforts to play to its target demographic." And you expected a Northeast newspaper to love it?

• Tons of info on upcoming Flaming Lips projects at an article at MTV.com. At War With the Mystics, allegedly a return to guitar-rock, has an estimated release date of early 2006...though there's always a chance it will join the band's Christmas On Mars movie in that release date-less black hole that exists somewhere near Oklahoma City. Yeah, it's been "coming soon" for quite a while. My "Where Is Christmas On Mars?" post from October of 2003 says it all.

• Rolling Stone Dot Come profiles the incredibly rawkin' Immortal Lee County Killers. The Nashville-via Alabama trio's third album was released a few weeks ago by Tee Pee Records.

• The Gauntlet interviews Napalm Death. The band's new record is "their most brutalizing slab of grinding madness since the band’s early output on Earache Records." You read it right: brutalizing slab of grinding madness. Yowza!

• Biggie Smalls and Bob Marley "duet" on a single that's out today at AOL Music, reports Billboard.com. The song is taken from the upcoming album "The Notorious B.I.G. Duets: The Final Chapter," out November 29th on Bad Boy.

Posted by Glenn at 8:57 AM | Link
|Music|

Ever notice that at any point in time there's a vocal mob that declares music to be worse than it was in the past. There's no more long term artist development! Today's music sucks! They don't make music like they used to! Labels these days just don't care about putting out good music like they did in the past.

The feeling that the quality of music is on a downward slope is extremely pervasive. These days it's often used in the context of P2P. The poor quality of music, goes the reasoning, has pushed people to P2P networks. When the price of an album is the issue, many argue that albums today have only two or three good songs, and $18 (or whatever) is too much to spend on a few songs.

It's enough to make you think the past was filled with nothing but classic full length albums, excellent from the first song to the last. But nostalgic remembrences have a tendency to selectively omit the crap. Case in point: This list of the top albums of the week of September 22nd, 1990.

Coolfer happened to run across this chart and, well, it looks like if music sucks today then it can't be any worse than it was back then. Or was MC Hammer better than we remember? Am I to believe people were buying Wilson Phillips' debut because it was brimming with quality songs? Poison's Flesh and Blood was at #7, Michael Bolton's Soul Provider #8 and New Kids on the Block's Step By Step was at #12.

No, they don't make 'em like they used to. (Thank goodness.)

Posted by Glenn at 4:31 PM | Link | Comment (4)
|Music||Music Industry|

• Hits' Rumor Mill quiety dropped something I wasn't aware of: The upcoming Jurassic 5 album will have a duet with Dave Matthews. In the blogging world I believe the tired ol' phrase is "jumped the shark." It has never been more fitting. Congrats on losing those last two strands of street cred, J5, and good luck playing catch up with the Black Eyed Peas.

• Strokes! Strokes! Strokes! Strokes! Oh...wait. For a second I thought it was 2003 and every music blogger had to excitedly post about every bit of news about The Strokes. Two years is a long time in blog years. I wonder if Billboard.com's piece about the Strokes' upcoming album will even make a blip at Technorati.

• Oh no! Another reggaeton article in the mainstream media. This one is by the Associated Press. Nothing like being behind the curve.

• Hey, Suede fans. The Stranger thinks you'll like Seattle band The Purrs.

• A cold, hard fact in a Village Voice article that hopefully nobody is foolish enough to take offense to (although its very publication intimates somebody was trying to use race to stir things up): "There're more white people than black people in this country, and people will get into artists or their projects based on their familiarity."

Posted by Glenn at 9:23 AM | Link | Comment (1)
|Music|

• AP music writer Jake Coyle wrote "Indie Bands Move Closer to the Mainstream" to coincide with indie-heavy CMJ, I assume, but it's a year too late. CMJ founder Bobby Haber believes the entire indie music scene "has come to the fore" and calls "it" a "watershed moment" (though I'm honestly not sure what "it" is).

• The Guardian talks to Andre 3000 of OutKast: " Five feet 10 inches of lithe-hipped, goatee-bearded, afro-haired cool."

• The NY Times' Joe Caramanica looks at art-metal, "a curious scene populated by a new generation of metal acolytes onstage and younger fans often unfamiliar with metal's headbanger heritage." There's a quote from a co-owner of San Francisco's Aquarius Records, which is fitting since the small, influential store has long been a champion of bands such as Sunn O))), Mastodon and Pelican.

Posted by Glenn at 9:17 AM | Link
|Music|

CMJ is over. While the Sparks cans are being recycled and the country's college radio station managers are heading back home, let's take a look at the coverage on the four-day music frenzy.

So whose stock rose and who failed to impress?

The NY Times' Jon Pareles highlighted Apollo Sunshine, Tom Vek, Xbxrx and others. He praised New Buffalo for her use of samples in her solo set at the Hiro Ballroom (though he didn't mention that the samples were on pre-recorded music that she played on an instrument that found its way into more than one CMJ set: an iPod).

Stereogum declared that We Are Scientists "kick ass," Halopaw's set "failed to impress," loved the Giraffe's show at the Pussycat Lounge, claimed The Morning After Girls "showed promise," proclaimed Clap Your Hands Say Yeah lived up to the hype and admitted Devendra Banhart's band "actually rocked."

Tom Breihan said Lady Sovereign "owned the stage at Webster Hall."

In Spin's day two recap, they championed the bland Hockey Night and named The Vacation's gig at Ace of Clubs as the "show of the night" and found a workable euphemism for Foreign Born's boring show.

Daily Refill said Two Gallants was the best show she saw this year.

Brooklyn Vegan didn't use very many adjectives to describe the shows he saw, but did use the word awesome three times to describe The Gossip's set at the Knitting Factory.

Coolfer didn't see many shows this year but I did catch a few that are worth noting. Test Icicles (pictured above) had a good crowd in Scenic's air conditioned little dungeon. Before the show an employee of Domino Records (the band's label) told me he'd give me $1,000 if I didn't as much crack a smile during the show. Safe bet. The Icicle's spazz rock had me chuckling throughout and the Slayer-meets-meets-Bloc Party songs showed the band is happily off in a world of its own.

Another standout was the Silversun Pickups' brief set at the Filter space on Saturday. I expected, after hearing a few MP3s, a lighter shade of indie rock. Instead I heard a loud and often blistering rock band with a well honed pop craft and the ability to improvise. Central Village was there and enjoyed the gig, and my friend Erik said that was the best of the many shows he had seen the perform.

Finally, I must mention Aloe Blacc's performance at Nublu in the wee hours of Saturday morning. Blacc (pictured above), a member of Emanon, will soon be part of the Stones Throw family (I ran into Peanut Butter Wolf earlier in the evening outside of the Canal Room) and I'm willing to bet his debut album will be a stunner.

Posted by Glenn at 8:27 AM | Link | Comment (6)
|Music||New York City|

• RollingStone.com offers "10 Artists To Watch." The Go! Team. The Magic Numbers. Saigon. Giant Drag. Matt Pond PA. James Blunt. SiA (of Six Feet Under fame). A few others. Looks like being a hyped British band (or an Aussie living in London in the case of SiA) is the best way to get on these kinds of lists. Kinda old news for avid blog readers, though. Would have been nice to see RollingStone.com step out and present a more hot indie artists rather that trot out a few artists new to major labels.

• Contrast in specialties: The Source gave Little Brother's The Minstrel Show 4.5 out of 5.0. Pitchfork gave it 6.0 out of 10.0 (which can be reduced to 3.5 out of 5.0). If Pitchfork seriously needs help realizing Little Brother's value to hip hop discourse, it should read this opinion piece at HipHopDX that attacks the every day mistrel shows in American hip hop.

• Caral Barat (ex-Libertines) has recruited former Cooper Temple Clause bass player Didz Hammond for his latest, unnamed band. (Source: Yahoo Music UK)

• Sticking with the UK, Blabbermouth has info on the upcoming Darkness album. One Way Ticket To Hell...And Back will be released November 28th.

Posted by Glenn at 9:12 AM | Link | Comment (6)
|Music|

CMJ is, as I often say, nothing but 50% more bands and 100% more people. New York has an oversupply of live music in an average week, but for four days once a year hundreds of bands descend upon the city's clubs and transform that oversupply into a glut. They'll play a showcase or two or three in hopes of being one of the very few to come out of the event with that magical, almost indescribable attachment to their careers: The CMJ Buzz.

CMJ isn't necessarily about who's good, it's about who's hot. Who will be create this year's buzz? Coolfer has a few thoughts on some of this year's contenders for The CMJ Buzz, and almost all of them happen to be both hot and good.

One artist who's coming into CMJ with a truckload of momentum is Lady Sovereign, the UK grime sensation. She's been in the news recently here in the States. Pitchfork picked up on the story about Jay-Z wanting to sign her to Def Jam in the U.S. Her debut New York show was tainted by food poisoning but the weakened rapper still thrilled the capacity crowd at the Knitting Factory. This time Lady Sov will be in the middle of a bill at the dreaded Webster Hall. Chances are good she'll be the main draw of the evening.

Neo-hippie Devendra Banhart (pictured) has a new album coming next month and it easily lives up to the mythical aura that surrounds this San Francisco singer-songwriter. He's been through New York a number of times and has been an underground favorite for some time. Why might he capture some CMJ buzz? Cripple Crow, his new album, is sure to be considered by many as among the best of the year (Pitchfork gave it a 8.4 yesterday) and it looks like all the previous press, word of mouth and new record label (XL) could combine to send him into a higher orbit over Planet Music Hipster.

Voxtrot has been to town but has been getting a bit of blogger buzz and may be able to grab some curious listeners this week. Tom Vek could make a good showing. Spinto Band is another that is on the tip of a lot of tongues, so watch out for them. One last one: Smoosh. It's fun to say and these two young girls make fun music, and they just might rise above the din this week.

Posted by Glenn at 3:56 AM | Link | Comment (3)
|Music||Music Industry||New York City|

• Kanye West found out football fans in Boston don't value off-the-teleprompter remarks during a NBC benefit telecast nearly as much as the country's television and pop critics treasure celebrity do. The boo birds came out during an NFL season kick off event in Boston last night. The Boston Globe reported the "boos were thunderous and lasted for much of his number."

• Today Billboard reported on two New York bands who were major label flops. The Mooney Suzuki, two years ago a majorly buzzed about band, went nowhere with Columbia, became a casualty of the Sony BMG merger (though to be honest weren't exactly lighting it up prior to the merger) and has signed with V2. Another Columbia disaster, Northern State, has split with Columbia. The hip hop trio's album sold a puny 7,100, or about 10,000 fewer than some teenage emo bands sell through regional touring and using a little elbow grease at MySpace.com.

• Neko Case has finished her fifth solo album reports Straight.com. A pubicist for Mint Records, her Canadian label, said the album, set for a February release, is titled Fox Confessor Bring The Flood. Guests on the album include Joey Burns and John Convertino of Calexico, Dallas and Travis Good from the Sadies, Howe Gelb from Giant Sand and Garth Hudson from The Band. Case is known in most parts as the fiery female singer in The New Pornographers.

• Voxtrot is a band that is making a few waves in the Blogosphere, and it might come out of the upcoming CMJ Music Marathon with a higher profile. This might help: Its Raised By Wolves EP was added to CD Baby yesterday. Check the quote from Central Village. Nice.

• On somewhat of a side note, Coolfer caught the last minute or so of Weezer performing "Beverly Hills" on Letterman last night. Rivers Cuomo looks like he's aged ten years in the last two or three. Yikes!

Posted by Glenn at 5:05 PM | Link | Comment (4)
|Music|

It looks like Pitchfork-bashing could very well be the next Olympic exhibition sport. The latest example is Yeti Don't Dance's post "Pitchfork Consistency." Jerry from Yeti made a chart that captured the average score given by various Pitchfork reviewers and the total number of reviews written by each.

Why bother? Jerry was "inspired by the consistency of Jason Crock's low reviews." (Others, such as Tuning Fork, find much to target in the average Pitchfork album review.) The chart doesn't show a mean rating or each writer's standard deviation, two statistical measures that would shed more light on consistency (or lack of), but it's an impressive chart nonetheless.

Click to see the entire chart...

Continue reading "Pitchfork Tracked" »

Posted by Glenn at 4:52 PM | Link | Comment (1)
|Music|

Photo taken at Times Square in Manhattan. Click to see a close-up of the (one can safely assume) expensive billboard with album title in seven-point type that's hidden to the side of a stuffed bear.

It is, I suppose, a nice break from the usual solo artist album cover format, a.k.a. the "Phil Collins Close Up."

Continue reading "There's An Album Title Here Somewhere" »

Posted by Glenn at 4:45 PM | Link | Comment (3)
|Music||Music Industry|

Though it's not in stores until next Tuesday, Bloc Party's Silent Alarm Remixed is for sale at iTunes, Rhapsody, MSN Music and possibly other online stores that I didn't bother to check.

Rejoice, pop fans. Ashlee Simpon's single "Boyfriend" is now at iTunes, MSN Music and others.

Rhapsody has an exclusive a live version of the Bob Dylan song "Boots of Spanish Leather." It's not on the new No Direction soundtrack. I wish I could find out if this song will eventually be available at other stores. Bob's website is of no help.

Rhapsody has added Sonny Rollins' Without a Song (The 9/11 Concert). I haven't even given it a cursory listen yet but what few parts I heard sound pretty good.

New singles at the usual online stores are "Why Go?" by Faithless (iTunes link) and "Our House" by Phantom Planet (iTunes link), a cover of the Crosby, Stills & Nash classic, not the Madness song.

New at eMusic are Greg Dulli's Amber Headlights (One Little Indian), Joan Baez's Bowery Songs (Koch), Sloan's Navy Blues (Koch) and One Chord To Another (Koch) and Llasa's superb The Living Road (Nettwerk).

eMusic has a page dedicated to the Ethiopiques series on Buda Musique. This is some of the best music available on eMusic. Every volume is at least great and some are incredible.

One podcast worth checking out at iTunes is KEXP's live performance of Boom Bap Project.

Posted by Glenn at 9:22 AM | Link
|Music|

• Reggae's New Old Sound, Led by a Marley. (NY Times) Kelefa Sanneh's article is a whirlwind account of reggae's last few years, and he calls the new album by Damien Marley "an important moment for the genre." Excellent article.

• Bad news, rave kids (if there are any of you left in 2005). Ecstasy may not be the benign drug that many in the dance music crowd have claimed it is. A scientist's study indicates ecstasy users are more prone to disease.

• Sigur Ros will preview its new album Takk at MySpace.com starting September 9th, four days before the album is released.

• Other than a new Apple gadget, nothing gets the hipsters more riled up than news that the Arcade Fire are planning its next album. "Hopefully it will be out within a year but it’s hard to say," bassist Tim Kingsbury told NME. No, I don't think the band's fans can wait that long. Maybe Jon Brion can leak some tracks before they're completed, just to hold over the fans?

Posted by Glenn at 9:16 AM | Link
|Music|

Antony and the Johnsons were surprise winners of the Mercury Prize, the award that goes to the best British album. The surprise wasn't related to the album, I Am Bird, but rather to the citizenship of lead singer Antony Hegarty. It seems he was born in Chichester, England, and thus was eligible for a nomination. Hegarty's family relocated to California when he was 12. He moved to New York City when he was 20, roughly 14 years ago. The band is based in New York City and Antony is, as the Kaiser Chiefs' Nick Hodgson pointed out, "an American, really."

My pick, Kaiser Chiefs, didn't take the prize. Guess they'll have to work extra hard from here on out. The Mercury Prize is usually given to a debut album -- Brits are even more youth-obsessed than Americans -- but this year it was not to be. Was it the NY Times Sunday Magazine's big ol' honkin' Antony article that swayed voters? That article has gotta have the highest words/sales ratio in the history of any musician covered by the Sunday Magazine. (4,696 words according to Microsoft Word's handy dandy word count tool.)

This page has a list of all previous nominees and the winners.

Posted by Glenn at 3:00 PM | Link | Comment (4)
|Music|

• Micheal Jackson has written a song for the victims of Hurricane Katrina (Billboard.com article). Looks like it's going to be a crowded recording studio. Jackson is going to invite other artists to help him record "From the Bottom of My Heart." Prince has already recorded two songs, "SST," that will be a Hurricane benefit. He has also released a cover of the Mavis Staples song "U Will Be Moved" to benefit disaster relief. Both are available at his NPG Music Club.

• View a Quicktime trailer of the Guided By Voices DVD, Electrifying Conclusion (out November 15th on Plexifilm).

• Shoegazer fans, download "Whatever Season," "New Moon" and "Between The Lines" by Sambassadeur. The Swedish band will release its debut album on hip British label AC30 and also hip Swedish label Labrador. The breezy vocals are there, not so much the standard rolling waves of feedback that usually gets the shoegazer tag. Kinda reminds Coolfer of The Primitives' slower songs.

• Boston's Weekly Dig interviews rapper Kool Keith. KK is in his own world, isn't he?

• Elton John talks about future projects. (Advocate.com)

Posted by Glenn at 2:38 PM | Link
|Music|

How many articles has Coolfer seen that trumpeted the arrival of reggaeton? Don't know. Lost count. Here's another, compliments of Reuters writer Leila Cobo. "Music biz catching reggaeton fever" proclaims the title. Inside Cobo writes that "labels across the board are vying to sign and develop new talent."

Jose Behar, president/CEO of Univision Music Group, told Cobo, "We had lost the tropical consumer." Classic. Judging from the thousands upon thousands of pirated CDs being sold along Eastern Parkway during Monday's West Indian Day Parade in Brooklyn, Coolfer isn't sure you've won all those tropical consumers back just yet.

Yeah, reggaeton is here. Even Wikipedia has a lengthy entry on the genre. That won't keep another reporter from writing another "Reggaeton has arrived!" article. I'd put the over/under at roughly four days.

Posted by Glenn at 2:18 PM | Link
|Music|

Though feared missing since last week, Alex Chilton (Big Star, The Box Tops) "is alive and well." Jon Sparks reported at The Commercial Appeal that friend and musician Ron Easley received a call from Chilton early Monday morning. Chilton was evacuated by helicopter from his home on Sunday and was at a hotel in an unspecified city.

Posted by Glenn at 11:42 PM | Link | Comment (1)
|Music|

More sad music-related news in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Musician Alex Chilton (Big Star, Box Tops) is listed on a missing persons page at the Times-Picayune website. An article at the LA Times (published Friday and seen here at the Chicago Tribune) by Times music writer Robert Hillburn says according to a Rykodisc spokeswoman Chilton stayed at his home in New Orleans during the storm and has not been heard from since.

Posted by Glenn at 8:14 PM | Link | Comment (3)
|Music|

Blues artist R.L. Burnside died in Memphis yesterday at the age of 78. Burnside gained notoriety outside of Mississippi when he appeared in the 1993 documenatary "Deep Blues" and later recorded with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion in 1996. He went on to record albums throughout the '90s and through 2004's A Bothered Mind. His 1998 album Come On In fused the blues with electronica and found mild success.

FoC Ben Sisario has a typically excellent obituary at the NY Times.

The Fat Possum Records website has an address to where donations can be sent. It says all proceeds will be directly to Burnside's widow, Alice Mae.

Posted by Glenn at 8:49 AM | Link | Comment (1)
|Music|

It's about &#! time Fiona Apple went on the record. RollingStone.com has a short article with some quotes from Apple about her recording sessions with producer Jon Brion, her feelings about the results and the subsequent sessions with producer Mike Elizondo. Don't get too excited, it's not the revealing tell-all that will shed much needed light on the "Free Fiona" debacle.

Of the Jon Brion-produced tracks (that were eventually leaked) she said, "'...I didn't have enough time to live with the songs before recording them, so I really didn't know what I wanted.'"

One blurb seeks to clear up most of the confusion and controvery over the last 10 months or so: "Apple's label, Sony, never shelved the record."

Never. Shelved. Hmmm. Somebody better tell the fanatics at FreeFiona.com. They're convinced their little publicity stunt is what prompted Sony to schedule the album for release.

Posted by Glenn at 8:20 AM | Link
|Music|

• These Kids Today: A Bit Pop, a Bit Punk. (NY Times) "Squeeky clean" punk bands meet bubble gum pop stars.

• The Fauquier Times-Democrat profiles vinyl collectors. (Via Largehearted Boy)

• The Bravery vs. M.I.A.: "An Honest M.I.A." (Via PolloxNiner)

• Producer Scott Storch told MTV.com he and Paris Hilton have created "amazing" music. "We've got different-style records — from serious, heartfelt rock songs to club-oriented, sing-along, hot records. It's balanced." What happened to those Le Tigre sessions, Paris? Did both parties decide their release would kill whatever cred the band is clinging to?

Posted by Glenn at 9:08 AM | Link
|Music|

Apple's dominance in digital music means consumers are often presented with a choice. They can buy a copy-protected CD and not have the ability to upload the tracks to their iPod, or they can buy the tracks at an online digital store. SunnComm copy protection, which Sony BMG employs on its CDs, is not compatible with FairPlay, Apple's digital rights management system. The discs contain Red Book tracks for CD players and Windows Media for copying to a computer.

Kinkysweet Recordings, a dance music label born from the ashes of Moonshine Music, wants to let consumers know its music is DRM-free and will function normally with iPods. (DRM-free means it's a normal CD that can be ripped to MP3 files.) Kinkysweet has gone through the trouble and expense of stickering some of its CDs with a sticker that reads, "iPod FRIENDLY" and underneath that "This audio CD is compatible with all portable media players." The CD pictured is Frequent Flyer: Mile High Club. (My apologies for the blurry photo.)

An employee at the store told me the sticker has been a good selling point. Not a surprise, especially considering shoppers who want to by Frequent Flyer: Mile High Club don't have the iTunes option since the album is not for sale there.

Extra credit:

• Copy Monopoly. (Pollstar) An article on SunnComm's technology in this tour trade magazine.
• Copyright Crackdown. (PC World) A similar article with a different tone.

Posted by Glenn at 9:00 AM | Link
|Digital Music||Music||Music Industry|

• Piggy D'Amour of pioneering metal band Voivod died on Saturday at the age of 45.

• Wikipedia's feature article of the day yesterday was this lengthy entry on Iron Maiden.

• Sticking with the English but getting quite a bit older, here's a profile on Mick Jagger at The Guardian. One thing in this article jumped out at me, and it's something that Lessig's crowd should note: The Stones "were outraged to learn that Germany's Christian Democrat leader, Angela Merkel, had appropriated their Seventies hit 'Angie' for her election campaign rallies." This isn't a fair use issue -- Merkel's camp insists it got permission from the German music distribution rights agency to use the song -- but it foreshadows a day in which fair use could be used in many ways the authors and rights owners would hate. Can you think of any artists who would like to hear their songs played at a David Duke rally? Me neither.

• New at eMusic is an album that's exactly the kind of thing you want when you've got a set number of songs to download each month. Faust's 1971 self-titled album comes it at over 44 minutes of incredible krautrock -- and it's only three tracks. After I downloaded those I got 46 minute of John Cage and David Tudor -- two tracks.

• Great feuds in music. (Blogcritics)

• Dylan looks back with PBS documentary, CDs, books. (Reuters)

• N.Y. Hands Garfunkel Another Pot Charge. (Billboard.com) Joint in the ashtray. I'm surprised Billboard didn't take this opportunity to throw us a pun. The Boston Globe couldn't pass up the opportunity. "Another Work Of Art" says its headline. E! Online's pun was better: "Troubled Waters For Garfunkel." The Arizona Republic had a funny headline: "Garfunkel suffers Woodstock flashback."

Posted by Glenn at 9:36 AM | Link
|Music|

• RollingStone.com's five-star review of Kanye West's Late Registation, in stores today, calls it "an undeniable triumph, packed front to back, so expansive it makes the debut sound like a rough draft."

• The NY Times' Jon Pareles writes about two Bob Dylan companion pieces in "The Contrarian of a Generation, Revisited." Both are titled "No Direction Home." One is the Martin Scorsese documentary that will air on PBS on September 26th and 27th. The other is the Columbia/Legacy soundtrack that is in stores today. He writes, "Neither the album nor the documentary significantly revises Mr. Dylan's history."

• Download the first One Little Indian Records podcast.

• Billboard.com revealed some details on the DVD of Guided By Voices' final concert last New Year's Eve in Chicago. The 60-plus song set will be released on November 15th by Brooklyn-based Plexifilm. (Billboard.com reports the DVD has not yet been named. The news page at singer Bob Pollard's website says the name will be "The Electrifying Conclusion.") Though the band folded, its old website -- which has gone unchanged for some time -- still has its MP3 page with dozens of free downloads. Bob Pollard's website is more up to date and briefs readers on his many post-GBV projects. It has a decent MP3 page as well.

• Danceblogga has the nominees for the annual House Music Awards.

• Check out Indie Don't Dance, a music/MP3 hybrid blog that's a good place to find new music. (Via Seeking Irony)

Posted by Glenn at 9:06 AM | Link | Comment (3)
|Music|

David Carr of the NY Times' profiled Pitchfork yesterday in "Garage Rock Meets Garage Critics." He pinpointed a few of the reasons the site is so successful. "Pitchfork is home to the kind of full-on rant-think piece-takedown that was once the specialty of long-and-strong journalism legends like Greil Marcus and Lester Bangs," he wrote, later adding that it has a style of writing much like that of alternative weeklies "but it is ambitious and passionately prosecuted."

Xeni Jardin, co-editor of Boing Boing, points to a "new credibility" on the Internet. "At this moment in our cultural history, a lot of the better content on the Web is seen as unmediated and more honest," she said. Pitchfork has oodles of credibility, that's for sure. One gets the feeling it can't be sold. (In indie rock language that means it can be snooty.) How coincidental that on the same page in the Times's business section was an article about Liz Hurley on the cover of Shape magazine that carried the sentence, "Magazines, of course, often blur the line between advertising and editorial content." And therein lies the cred problem.

Posted by Glenn at 8:35 AM | Link
|Digital Music||Music|

And why is he currently Amazon.com's #2 music seller? And why is an album that came out on July 27th, 2004 suddently rising the chart? (The Amazon.com chart that is. He's not even on the current Billboard Top 100.)

Coolfer did some research on this artist who has flown under the radar. A Griffin House's bio says he "has taken the lessons he's learned from such industry legends as Woody Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen." The Springsteen quality is evident on the first notes of his album Lost & Found.

Imagine Jack Johnson if he ditched the surfboard and took "On the Road" with him on a hitchiking journey across the Midwest (his birthplace), stopping for a few months to work in a mill near Nashville (his current home) and ending up in Asbury Park, New Jersey. More workingman than Johnson but not so gruff that pop fans are scared off.

Griffin's website has three free MP3s downloads: "Tell Me A Lie," "Liberty Line" and "The Way I Was Made."

Posted by Glenn at 8:30 AM | Link | Comment (4)
|Music|

With news of Warner Music Group's launch of a digital-only "e-label" -- an logical step called by most either too late or too little -- some old complaints have once agained reared their heads. The album, to some an anachronistic symbol of a failing business model, is taking heat.

A typically negative view of the album format can be found at Peter Paphides' "analysis" at the Times Online. "Ten years ago, when New Order released their dodgy Republic album, fans were held to ransom: to get its three or four decent tracks, they would have had to endure six or seven of pure filler."

Here's where I disagree. That was a good album, and New Order was proud enough of those tracks to put them on the album. That's a band that doesn't rush to release an album. But it's not just that band, and the debate over the album format shouldn't center only around an assumption of label and band greed.

The album is still a defining artistic statement and the de facto measure of an artist's career. Any musician worth his/her salt has put out a good album. Not a good single. Not a good MP3 download. A good album. Do I expect future artists to think so little of themselves that they aim to release singles or three-song EPs? Not at all. The album format is still what matters. Egos will demand albums. Fortunes are made on albums. Better than the single or EP, the album portrays all a band's strengths, moods, conflicts and thoughts. If a band is one-dimensional and shallow then by all means let's relegate it to a career of one-offs. If a band is genuinely good it shouldn't stop at an EP, it needs to offer more to listeners.

Granted, there are plenty of bad albums, and there are many more that are merely mediocre. In the old days -- pre-digital era -- consumers were strong-armed into buying the entire album. But as Lou Reed sang, "These are different times." People can choose not to pay and find just about anything on P2P networks (if they want to roll the RIAA dice) or they can buy a la carte at online stores. In fact, in a time when buyers can preview online (band websites, MTV.com, VH1.com, MySpace.com) and often at retailers (listening post, new digital kiosks) there's no excuse for buying bad albums because there shouldn't be any surprise.

But buyer beware: Buying three or four tracks may encourage the mediocre to keep recording. Here's my theory on the sub-album model of the e-label: The downside of the digital revolution is that it will eventually provide a business model that will support mediocre artists who don't have the goods to make a good album. You see, good bands make good albums while mediocre bands make three good songs and a ringtone. Buying albums will foster long term artist development and more worthwhile music. The three-song-and-a-ringtone model encourages labels to seek a quick return on a flavor of the month. It won't weed out the weaker artists, and it will ruin the process of natural evolution that previously ended the careers all but the stronger artists.

That's my theory. It may hold water, it may not. Regardless, I'll stick with albums, thank you.

Posted by Glenn at 4:31 PM | Link | Comment (8)
|Music|

• Musically the band may not have changed much, but just the fact that Time has an article called "Major Label, Minor Key" is a sign of Death Cab For Cutie's big league status. (Time doesn't spend too much time on indie labels.) When you get outside the usual circle of music scribes you get descriptions like "go-to band for a particular kind of postadolescent melancholy." And here I've been busy with semantics while debating the band's indie rock status.

• Franz Ferdinand Plan To Release Exclusive New Singles. (Stereoboard.com) The band likes the idea of releasing "something on its own as a single."

• AOL Music Ramps Up Album Pre-Releases, Grabs Stones Content. (Digital Music News) This week will see album previews by the Stones, Brooks & Dunn, Kanye West, Death Cab For Cutie and Bob Dylan. This is great exposure for these artists. Also of note is AOL's page of free MP3s.

• Ladytron: Rise Of The Machines. (The Independent) "Anyone familiar with the glacial electronic surfaces of the first two Ladytron albums will be surprised at how physical, how dirty, how rock the new album often sounds." Simon Price, author of Everything, a great book on the Manic Street Preachers, has a fine article here.

• Coolfer has ignored the Osbourne/Iron Maiden Heavy Metal Beef until now. Billboard.com's article about Sharon Osbournes' admittal/press release is one for the ages. Of the involvement she had with cutting Iron Maiden's sound during the band's performances she wrote, "Was Dickinson so naive to think that I was going to let him get away with talking sh*t about my family night after night? I don't think he realizes who he's dealing with."

Posted by Glenn at 9:23 AM | Link
|Music|

Hip hop lived up to its reputation early Sunday morning when Suge Knight, co-founder of Death Row Records, was shot in the leg at a party thrown for Kanye West in Miami. Knight was in good condition after having surgery to remove the bullet and repair a fracture bone.

The Miami Herld reported late last night that there had been no arrests. A police spokesman said the investigation was being hampered by witnesses' "unwillingless to talk." NBC10 reported this morning that police had received "more information from the bartender than from the people who were with Knight." What a surprise, eh?

The headline of AP music writer Nekesa Mumbi Moody's article was "MTV Pulls Off Awards Despite Drama." Neither rain nor hurricane nor night club shooting can prevent the MTV Music Video Awards from making its appointed rounds. Such dedicated professionals.

Posted by Glenn at 9:10 AM | Link | Comment (8)
|Music|

Not that you can listen to it, but this column must mention that iTunes is carrying the VOID (Video Overview in Deceleration), the new video compilation by The Flaming Lips. The 18-track set collects the band's videos from its stay at Warner Bros. Recors -- which pretty much covers all their best albums save their last one for Restless Records. Oddly, Rhapsody has an audio version of this DVD compilation. Since Warner Bros. hasn't issued a greatest hits of the band this will do just fine.

Just added to iTunes is Badfinger's Airwaves. The 1979 album is out on Wounded Bird and for whatever reason this Rhino Records version just popped on iTunes. No mention of it at the Rhino website, and no trace of it on other online stores. Oh well. Enough investigation. For power pop lovers who want to branch out beyond those albums typically heralded as part of the genre's must-have canon.

It's hard to believe any online music store's hip hop catalog could be without classics like The Notorious B.I.G.'s Born Again and Life After Death. They were both just added to iTunes.

One podcast that caught my attention was the live in-studio at KEXP by Amusement Parks On Fire. The young band is a favorite of morning host John Richards, who can be heard praising the band as he introduces the band at the beginning of the podcast. Its songs blend a bit of emo with a love for sounds of the past (upbeat shoegazer and Dinosaur Jr's love of feedback and distortion). Check out the KEXP podcast page for four more in-studio podcasts.

Another podcast worth checking out is the inaugrial One Little Indian Records podcast. For kicks, check out Seth and Jessica's Worst Music You've Ever Heard podcasts. They two play only music created by themselves, their friends or amateur bands.

At Rhapsody, a blast from the alternative rock past: Dumptruck's 1985 album Positively Dumptruck. All Music's bio says the Massachusetts band was "among the favorites of U.S. college radio in the mid '80s."

Herbie Hancock's new album Possibilities is exclusively at Rhapsody. It's a star-studded affair that finds the music legend paired with such pop stars as John Mayer, Christina Aguilera, Annie Lenox, Sting, Trey Anastasio and Paul Simon. The album comes out next Tuesday.

Posted by Glenn at 10:07 AM | Link | Comment (3)
|Music|

• The New Republic editor Michael Crowley on the difficulty of being a "rock snob" in the P2P-and-iPod era. (Via The Morning News)

"Snobbery subsists on exclusivity. And the ownership of a huge and eclectic music collection has become ordinary. Thanks to the iPod, and digital music generally, anyone can milk various friends, acquaintances, and the Internet to quickly build a glorious 10,000-song collection. Adding insult to injury, this process often comes directly at the Rock Snob's expense."

That's when the true rock snob goes back to vinyl, Michael.

• Kanye West Meets the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds via the productions skills of Lushlife. (Via Stereogum)

• Present at the Creation of a Memorably Loud, Thrashing Sound. (NY Times) A review of Tim Irwin's documentary "We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen."

• Smog grows more positive, not smug. (San Jose Mercury News)

• 50 Cent Hijacked By Car Dealer. (The Smoking Gun)

• More Family Troubles For Eminem. (The Smoking Gun) The Smoking Gun is on fire! More legal gossip!

Posted by Glenn at 9:25 AM | Link
|Music|

• Sweet Baby James. (Saint Louis Post-Dispatch) The standard music business model doesn't apply to him says James Taylor. "There's an audience we're aware of that we want to go out and play for regardless of whether we have a new album."

• mtvU.com is all over the new Death Cab For Cutie album. You can stream the new album Plans in its entirity and view of live performance of "Your Heart is Empty Room."

• Reggaeton's Big Star Hits the Big Time. (NY Times) Here's the umpteenth article about Daddy Yankee and/or reggaeton in the last month or two. Like those before it, Jon Pareles' article on one of reggaeton's biggest stars focuses on the genre's surge in popularity. It's a tired angle at this point. Everybody knows reggaeton has arrived. Even the USA Today had an article about it. But Pareles points to one interesting part of the story: Daddy Yankee's U.S. arena tour will be reggaeton's first.

• A great set at the Mercury Lounge last night by The Most Serene Republic, one of Arts & Crafts' new bands. Pictures at Coolfer's Flickr page.

• Rap Music Blamed for 'Syzurrp' Addiction in Houston. (SOHH) Prescription cough syrup with codeine is being called "a major drug problem."

• The Barsuk Records website has an MP3 of Nada Surf's "Do It Again" from the band's upcoming album (out September 13th).

• Hip-Hop Artist Madlib, Man of Many Names. (NPR) MSN Music Filter writer/blogger Oliver Wang covers Madlib on NPR.

Posted by Glenn at 8:51 AM | Link
|Music|

A good follow-up to my weekend thoughts on an article on politics and pop music at The Guardian came from the LA Times' Geoff Boucher. In "The Iraq war, set to new music" he highlights three examples of pop stars injecting politics into the music. One was mentioned in my previous post, Green Day's "Wake Me When September Ends." The song itself doesn't hing at a political statement but the video is a Hollywood-style epic that frames the Iraq war in terms of a young couple's personal relationship. Some may see it as anti-war, other won't.

The boldest anti-war statement being made today? It's from Barbra Streisand. The video (pictured) to her song "Stranger In A Strange Land" (from her upcoming album, a collaboration with Barry Gibb) is currently being streamed at Amazon.com. Here's a sample of the lyrics: "You may be someone else's sweetheart/Fighting someone else's war/And if you suffer for the millions/Then it's what you're fighting for."

Just like The Guardian article said, the most political pop music being made is being made by women.

Posted by Glenn at 9:43 AM | Link
|Music||Politics|

• With Late Registration hitting stores next Tuesday (or well before that around New York City) Kanye West is reaching media saturation. MTV.com piles more Kanye on a fatigued public.

• Jamie Foxx, Vibe cover story.

• Soundway Recordings, a fabulous English label with a mission to "to release underground tropical dance music with a funky flavour," sent out an email yesterday with info on its upcoming 7" by The Blue Rhythm Combo. It included links to song samples. I know most people don't like downloads unless it's the full song, but this is better than nothing. So give a listen to "Get Down" and "BRC's Groove" and hopefully they'll show up on a future Soundways compilation.

• Speaking of emails, there were some good nuggets in Sigur Ros's email that was sent yesterday. The band's launched a download site that links to its song that are available at iTunes Europe and iTunes U.S. and Canada. There were also a few words about the band's involvement in the Icelandic film, "Screaming Masterpiece." Smekkleysa, the band's record label in Iceland, is selling the soundtrack. Sigur Ros has three songs on the soundtrack, including "the final chapter of their unreleased orchestral piece Odin's Raven Magic." Other artists on the soundtrack include Bjork, Mum, Slowblow, The Sugarcubes and Johann Johannsson.

Posted by Glenn at 9:31 AM | Link
|Music|

• Just when I thought everybody who could possibly have a page at MySpace.com had a page at MySpace.com...now the Kronos Quartet has one as well. Too cool! It's currently streaming four tracks from the new Nonesuch album the quartet did with Bollywood playback singer Asha Bhosle, You've Stolen My Heart: Songs from R.D. Burman's Bollywood.

• Keys Blends Old With New On 'Unplugged'. (Billboard.com) Two albums and she's already milkin' it.

• Record company's private detective tracks down missing jazz singer. (Independent) Madeleine Peyroux had gone missing but it turns out she was in New York with her manager.

• For all two of you who care, Billboard.com has a blurb on Eric Matthews' prompt follow-up to his recent album on Empyrean Records. The double-album will arrive January 24th.

Posted by Glenn at 9:18 AM | Link | Comment (2)
|Music|

I hear ya, Rolling Stone Dot Com. Sometimes it's hard to get too excited about music these days. Unless labels end the year on a hot streak I don't expect the chore of constructing my year-ending Top Ten list to be very easy.

Posted by Glenn at 12:26 PM | Link
|Music|

• Bob Moog (pictured), creator of the Moog synthesizer, died yesterday at the age of 71. Read a message from Mike Adams, Moog Music president, and this Bob Moog biography.

• The Source's Editor-In-Chief Resigns. (AllHipHop.com) I'm a bit late on this one. Joshua Ratcliffe resigned as Editor-In-Chief over a difference in opinion about Little Brother's album The Minstrel Show. Ratcliffe wanted to give the album a four-and-a-half mic review. Chief Brand Executive Raymond Scott and CEO Dave Mays wanted four mics.

• Today's "Previewing the Week Ahead" post has ten MP3 downloads from albums being released tomorrow. There are more links, too, to MySpace.com pages (with album streams) and e-cards that let you preview albums.

• Q&A: Oasis' Noel Gallagher. (Billboard) "Not being negative toward Liam, he's just not Chris Martin, he's not Bono, he's not Michael Stipe. He's Liam. For all intents and purposes, Americans don't get Liams. I think we're musically as strong as those three bands put together, but as characters we're different." Noel is in fine form. This interview is definitely worth your time.

• Smoothing the Changes (LA City Beat) Danceblogga Dennis Romero on NYC duo Astro&Glyde: "The next generation of progressive is here."

• Courtney Love 'expecting Steve Coogan's baby'. (The Guardian) Yeah, that's what I said. Who's Steve Coogan?

Posted by Glenn at 8:21 AM | Link | Comment (2)
|Music|

Pop music's political voice is carried predominatly by women artists argues The Guardian's Lynsey Hanley in "Rap On The Knuckles," a feature about Ms. Dynamite's new album that looks at the broader issue of protest in song.

"Because it is women in music, most notably, those working in hip hop and R&B, who are making the most of their chances to be heard by writing and recording songs with explicitly political lyrics. Ms Dynamite's new album includes songs about domestic violence, gun crime, low aspiration, war and poverty, while Sri Lankan-British artist M.I.A, among the favourites to win this year's Mercury, has sold more than 100,000 copies of her class- and culture-conscious debut Arular, itself named after songwriter Maya Arulpragasam's Tamil activist father."

Are female artists more apt to inject politics into their lyrics? Or is it that listeners are more welcoming of politics in music if it comes from a female? Perhaps there's a difference between the U.K. and America. I'd like to think we're accepting of politics in music but looking at the charts I may be wrong.

Every time I think of a popular American artist -- male or female -- who would generally be considered politically active, I wonder how often those politics make it into song. Bruce Springsteen? Not really. P. Diddy and the rest of the "Rock the Vote" opportunists? Nope. Staind, who have the current #1 album? No. Black Eyed Peas? Not a chance. Eminem? Very, very little. The Killers? Only if eyeliner becomes a campain issue. The most politically charged statement in Green Day's American Idiot comes from its title. Audioslave? Some vaguely political lyrics even though it's a very politically aware and active band.

System of a Down? Yes. Finally I thought of one. Country artists, now there's your politics. Not always popular within the musical elite, but pop country artists are much more likely to be political than other pop stars.

In "The Rap on Kanye" Newsweek's Lorraine Ali finds Kanye West still hasn't found modesty. Of his upcoming album, Late Registration, West told Ali, "I'd like to add that I think this is the best-produced record—ever." Ali herself calls it "the most dynamic and original album of the fall—maybe even the year." It was co-produced by Jon Brion, producer of the leaked version of Fiona Apple's Extraordinary Machine.

Posted by Glenn at 11:52 AM | Link | Comment (2)
|Music|

Remember the tiff between Nike and Dischord Records over a shoe ad that stole/paid tribute to the band Minor Threat? This from a recent Dischord Records email:

"We'd like to express our appreciation and gratitude to the many people who have written us to express their support and outrage over Nike's misappropriation of the Minor Threat Imagery for their skateboarding demo. We would also like to acknowledge the people at Nike skateboarding for their apology and prompt removal of all offending posters and web-ads. The members of Minor Threat continue to work on a creative resolution to this matter and will have more to say when an agreement is finalized."

Coolfer was with Jason Kottke on this one. In his post "Theft or Homage" he wrote:

"Isn't punk all about taking without permission? Or does that not apply when you don't like the folks doing the taking? Lighten up, Dischord."

Dischord hasn't lightened up, and Nike apologized like a cheating husband caught red-handed.

As if this story wasn't interesting enough, there's another angle thanks to a recent article at the Washington City Paper. Dischord doesn't approve of a multi-national paying homage to Minor Threat yet Ian MacKaye -- who was in Minor Threat and is a co-founder and co-owner of Dischord -- didn't mind when a Los Angeles-based porn director named himself Eon McKai. "It's strange, but nothing to lose sleep over," he says. "I figured it was just somebody trying to be funny."

Did Coolfer miss a memo? Does straight edge philosophy now embrace casual sex?

NSFW: The Eon McKai website

Posted by Glenn at 4:02 PM | Link | Comment (3)
|Music|

• Franz Ferdinand is previewing its new single, "Do You Want To," at its MySpace.com page. Guess what? It sounds like Franz Ferdinand -- which means it sounds better than 99% of the wave of soundalike bands that followed its debut album's success. The full album will be on Franz's MySpace page on September 27th. (The album comes out October 4th.) Coolfer is told the band will be on the cover of the next Urb Magazine.

• Hunt For Missing Singer. (Daily Record) Universal Classics bosses and her management have not been able to contact jazz singer Madeleine Peyroux for nearly a week.

• Why Ibiza is dancing to a different tune. (The Telegraph, via Danceblogga) Live bands in Ibiza A DJ playing un-mixed Jimi Hendrix in an Ibiza nightclub? It's true. Said Andy McKay, co-founder of Manumission, "We have to accept that there is a side of Ibiza that's a little bit stale. It does need reinvigoration. I know that if Ibiza is to retain the ridiculous level of success that it's currently got, it has to embrace live music."

• Kano: A one-man grime wave. (The Independent) "I'm about keeping the music true to its roots but taking it as far as it can go, wherever that may be." The East London rapper was in NYC last weekend. Pics at The Fader, via Catchdubs.

• Live: Josh Wink + Stacey Pullen. (Pitchfork) Nick Sylvester with a great recap of the PS1 Warmup in Queens, NYC.

• Hello! Suprise! A guide to Swedish pop music. (Via Largehearted Boy)

• Swervedriver.com's download page has 55 live downloads. Entire albums are represented, but in live form rather than studio recordings. (Via Ice Magazine)

• For some, misogyny's spelled r-a-p. (Knight Ridder) "It's becoming harder for women of the hip-hop generation to defend the culture when the mainstream is latching on to the ho-stomping, booty-shaking elements of hip-hop."

Posted by Glenn at 8:32 AM | Link
|Music|

Online music store eMusic has passed the 100,000 subscriber mark according to a press release. Impressive. Said David Packman, new president and CEO, "eMusic has proven that there is a meaningful market segment of customers seeking music beyond the commercial mainstream."

Full disclosure: Coolfer subscribes to eMusic. I'm in for the 40 songs-for-$10 plan. I get files in the MP3 format, so no DRM complaints. The only beef -- and I have this beef with just about every online music store/service -- is that the world music selection is sub-standard. There are quite a few decent world labels on the roster but the quality and breadth lags behind other genres. (Part of the problem: Much of the best music from other countries isn't even released domestically.)

eMusic has constantly improved and is a getting to be a fantastic store. One hundred thousand subscribers can't be wrong.

Posted by Glenn at 8:08 PM | Link | Comment (4)
|Digital Music||Music||Music Industry|

Canada-based indie rock label Arts & Crafts has its own online download site, Gallery AC. Currently it has a live acoustic show from Broken Social Scene available for download for $1.50 per song. Or you can save two pennies and buy all six songs for $8.98. It was recorded in Paris in June of 2004, and according to the website it has "an Apostle of Hustle jam to an Amy Millan ditty, a new Jason Collett tune to dare-we-say revered BSS classics.

It also has a free download of a new Broken Social Scene song, "7/4 (Shoreline)," from the band's upcoming, self-titled album.

Thus far iTunes has a digital exclusive on the The Killer's Hot Fuss Deluxe Edition. Other than the slightly different cover, this new version has three new songs in addition to the original 11: "Glamorous Indie Rock & Roll" (which appeared on the import version of Hot Fuss), "The Ballad of Michael Valentine" (from the "Somebody Told Me" single) and "Under The Gun" (and from the "Somebody Told Me" single).

DM Records, based in South Florida, just released Reggaeton Remix by Lil' Jon & The East Side Boyz. The songs are remixes of tracks found on Lil' Jon's Get Crunk, Who U Wit: Da Album that was released in 2001 by DM.

The Delays, who charmed Brit pop lovers with their debut album Faded Seaside Glamour, have a live album that was just added to iTunes. The 11-track album KCRW Presents: Morning Becomes Eclectic Live includes a seven-minute interview with the band. The mix is a bit heavy on the vocals but the sound quality is more than adequate for the more serious fans. Newbies should stick with the studio album.

Tommy Lee, drummer for Motley Crue and now the star of a reality television series, has an exclusive interview on Rhapsody. Listeners get to hear Tommy talk about his favorite drummer (Jon Bonham), what band he hates (The Darkness), if he's smoked crack (yes he has) and what he spends his money on (gadgets for his recording studio).

More exclusives at Rhapsody: the debut album by The Godfathers, Birth, School, Work, Death: The Best of the Godfathers (released in 1996); the new "Paralyzed" (Loudbomb Club Mix) by Bob Mould

Posted by Glenn at 9:33 AM | Link | Comment (1)
|Music|

• The Village Voice dedicated a full page to The Willowz. Joe Levy has his finger on the pulse of a band that's not easy to pin down. "Their songs are as much shapes as tunes, short but not easily summarized. This is not the sound of a style or a time. It's more the sound of a place: the sprawl of suburban Los Angeles, where they grew up." The Willowz: Highly recommended by Joe Levy and Coolfer. Check the Coolfer picks of the band's most recent New York show.

• Man rocks to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at the South Street Seaport. (Quicktime, via The Morning News) Video of the year.

• Stream the a new stellastarr* song single "The Driver" in RA lo or RA hi.

• The SF Weekly has the (allegedly) first ever "Ask A Music Blogger" Q&A session to make it to print. Best album of the year thus far? We're told it's The Hold Steady's Separation Sunday. Song of the Year? Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl." Surprises this year? Lack of Stateside support for many U.K. aritsts. (Note: Most mentioned do not have U.S. releases to support. That explains that.) Yep, sounds like a music blogger! We're all alike, aren't we?

• The Rebirth Of Cool. (The Jewish Week) Irving Fields' 1959 album "Bagels & Bongos" will be re-released next week by Reboot Stereophonic, "a new label dedicated to resurrecting the forgotten classics of Jewish music."

• Hell's Angels. (Pitch Weekly) Flee the Seen took home three awards at the Pitch Music Awards in Kansas City: Best Female Vocalist, Best Punk and Best New Act. The female-fronted band has opened for Alkaline Trio, Weezer, Cake, Death By Stereo and many others. It's got one album out but no agent, no major deal in the works and not much press. Oh, and like Sufjan Stevens, Flee the Seen is a Christian band, though "it's not the right-wing overzealousness that can alienate as many fans as it attracts.

• Band name battle would be comical, if it wasn't serious. (Queensland News) What a pun. It seems Archie Comics Publications has sued The Veronicas and Warner Music Group.

Posted by Glenn at 9:22 AM | Link
|Music|

• John Loder, founder of Southern Records, died at the age of 59.

• Exhausted Eminem Cancels European Tour. (Billboard.com) The 12-date tour was to include D12, 50 Cent and G-Unit. A statement by Interscope said he is "currently being treated for exhaustion, complicated by other medical issues."

• Newport Salutes Jazz Drummer Roy Haynes. (Newsday)

• At DanFogelberg.com is a note from Dan about his recovery from advanced prostrate cancer. "It has certainly been the most trying experience of our lives and yet has proven to be one of the most illuminating as well."

• "Is rap tomorrow's jazz?" (LA Times) An op-ed piece about race relations and music by Thaddeus Russell, a professor of history and American studies at Barnard College.

• In a Q&A with readers the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal's Gemma Tarlach mentions three bands that she thinks can make it on a national level: Cincere, Call Me Lightning and Black Elephant.

Posted by Glenn at 9:19 AM | Link
|Music|

Tuning Fork, the blog devoted to critiquing the album reviews at Pitchfork.com, harped on writer Brian Howe last week for allegedly borrowing ideas for the review of the self-titled album by Chicago band Sybris. Tuning Fork compared bands referenced in the band's bio to the bands mentioned in Howe's review. There was, it seems, some correlation. One name in particular ruffled the T'Fork's feathers.

"I could go on but I think the above is a very nice example that YES bands do sound like other bands but does a writer have to use the same exact point of reference? Edie Brickell? Listening to Sybris a million other one of a kind voices come to mind but I have to be honest, E.B. was not on the top of my list. In fact it would have never even crossed my mind had it not been placed in my head via the label site."

What's the big deal? Well, just like most people assume the music they hear on the radio is not bankrolled by a label, some of us like to know that writers aren't getting lazy or are knowledgeable enough about music to write a review without an assist from a publicist. Time after time Coolfer has seen ideas and names in reviews that obviously came straight from the desk of a publicist. It's an easy trick. If you're a publicist and you want to get a certain band name-dropped in an album review, just mention that band in the one-sheet or band bio. There's no doubt somebody will use it even if that band bears no resemblence to the one being reviewed. Angry Somoans meets Enya? Sounds crazy, but if it's in a bio it'll make it to print somewhere.

Posted by Glenn at 9:15 AM | Link | Comment (6)
|Digital Music||Music|

The controversy surrounding Fiona Apple's Extraordinary Machine will be back as Epic has penciled in an October 4th release date for the long delayed album. The NY Times' Jeff Leeds reports today on the reworked version of the album that was leaked on the Internet. It will have nine re-recorded versions, two unchanged versions and one new song, "Parting Gift."

Now that fans have grown accustomed to the older versions, there's sure to be some people who will not like the new versions as much. But record execs insist Fiona never considered the leaked songs to be the final versions. Mike Elizondo, who produced the songs, said, "I think from right out of the gate, this is the collection of songs she wanted for her record."

That's a far cry from the Sony-bashing statements in the press when the album was leaked. Back then Epic Records was said to be holding back Fiona. Now the story given is that Fiona herself held back the songs.

Via the Free Fiona forum Coolfer found a blog post from a person who claimed to have worked on the set of the video for the song "Parting Gift." (Picture above.) Leeds' article said Epic will "take a laid-back and low-cost approach to marketing the album, relying partly on word-of-mouth to build an audience." Looks like they'll rely partly on the standard heavy video rotation -- because that's what sells records.

Posted by Glenn at 9:20 AM | Link | Comment (5)
|Music|

Airports and hotels around the country are buzzing after the USA Today primer on the latest music craze to sweep the nation, reggaeton. Steve Jones puts finger on pulse for those of us who reside in upper-middle-class gated communities.

"A Spanish-language fusion of dancehall reggae, hip-hop, salsa, cumbia, merengue and other Caribbean flavors, reggaeton (pronounced reggae-TONE) percolated for years in the streets and clubs of Puerto Rico before making its way to the continental USA. Its infectious, driving rhythms and the sexy bump-and-grind dancing that it inspires made it a favorite in clubs, particularly in such cities as New York and Miami."

My apologies to you in Des Moine who are reading about reggaeton for the first time, but Coolfer assumed people were more clued in. Maybe not, judging from the number of wide-eyed articles being written about this type of music that was a force in mainstream music last year -- if not two years ago -- and has ruled the underground for years.

Posted by Glenn at 9:30 AM | Link | Comment (4)
|Music|

As if year-end lists weren't bad enough, now people are making "best of" lists at the mid-year point. What a bunch of music geeks. (Ahem.) Coolfer has given you my best of the year thus far. Information Leafblower did as well. There are more.

Amazon.com's music editors have their own list, the Best of the Year So Far. M.I.A.'s Arular (called by one FoC "a hip hoop album that's okay for indie rock hipsters to like") tops their list.

eMusic's editors have a list. Much like its rock catalog, the list is heavy on the indie rock that has been deemed hip this year: Spoon's Gimme Fiction, Thievery Corporation's Cosmic Game, The Hold Steady's Separation Sunday, etc. And one surprise: Tony Bennet's Tony Bennett Sings The Rodgers And Hart Songbook. eMusic is limited to picking those albums released by labels it sells. It should be retitled "Top Albums of 2005... So Far...That We Have Rights To Sell."

And over at I Love Music there's a thread about the best albums of the year so far. I see a few M.I.A.s, a few Roots Manuvas, some Patrick Wolf, some nods to Gang Gang Dance, a bunch of Stephen Malkmus, quite a few Sleater-Kinneys and quite a few indie cred-seeking mentions of albums that aren't even out yet.

Posted by Glenn at 1:22 AM | Link | Comment (1)
|Music|

Some bands are just different. Take The High Strung, a rock trio from Detriot-via-Brooklyn-via-Detroit. They once left their tour van in front of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio -- with a note and the keys in the ignition.

The band's latest venture is a summer-long tour of libraries throughout the state of Michigan. "This American Life" from WBEZ public radio in Chicago caught up to the band and talked about their impending tour of the nation's bookhalls: 34 in total, one every other day from June through August.

Listen to the show in Real Audio and forward to about the 7:30 mark. It's extremely funny and -- though it may not be too cool to say this -- downright cute.

Extra credit:

Download three MP3s from the band's website, all from the sessions resulting in the band's upcoming album, Moxie Bravo (to be released on Future Farmer):

• The High Strung: "A Real Meal Ticket"
• The High Strung: "Seems It's One Thing"
• The High Strung: "N Over C"

Posted by Glenn at 9:45 AM | Link | Comment (2)
|Music||New York City|

Keeping it in the Midwest, V2 Records signed Cincinatti's The Greenhornes and released the Brendan Benson-produced East Grand Blues EP last week. The band is on tour with The White Stripes through September. Jack White and Benson are buds and are both from Detroit. It's the V2-White-Midwest connection. Let the other labels worry about the two coasts, right?

Before they were more of your garden variety -- though very good -- garage rock band who put out a solid album on Telstar in 2002. With the help of Benson, The Greenhornes de-garage-ified by infusing Sell Out-era The Who, The Doors ("Shelter of Your Arms" bears some resemblence to "Riders On The Storm") and The Byrds' freeflowing, guitar-strumming easiness. Basically this is the perfect soundtrack to browsing eBay for out-of-print vinyl or reading Mojo Magazine on the subway.

Posted by Glenn at 9:40 AM | Link | Comment (2)
|Music|

As soon as this year's nominees for the Mercury Prize -- the annual award given to the best British album -- bloggers and some journalists began the oddsmaking. The Kaiser Chiefs are seen by many to be a favorite. M.I.A. could be in the running but as one writer pointed out her album's frequent mentions to terrorism could hurt her chances in now terrorism-jittery England.

Coolfer's pick? The Kaiser Chiefs, who went to 5/2 from 11/4 in less than a week. (See previous odds after the jump.) Not only is it a band that has risen to the lead of the post-Franz pack, but it's a debut album. If the Mercury voters like one thing it's a debut album. Out of 13 Mercury Prizes, ten have gone to debut albums. There's some movement on The Hard-Fi as well -- 12/1 from 16/1 -- but they're still well behind The Kaiser Chiefs.

Continue reading "More Fun With The Print Screen Button: Mercury Prize Odds" »

Posted by Glenn at 8:56 AM | Link | Comment (3)
|Music|

Cuban musician Ibrahim Ferrer, who recently rose to worldwide prominence as a member of Buena Vista Social Club, died on Saturday in Havana at the age of 78. The cause was reportedly multiple organ failure. He was taken to the hospital on Wednesday upon his return from a European tour.

Those who have seen the Buena Vista Club documentary will remember Ferrer's supple voice and irresistable charm and especially the manner he came into the project. It was such an unlikely and warming story of a man's unexpected rebirth that was fostered by Cooder's deep respect for Ferrer and the others. From the Buena Vista bio at Nonesuch Records: "When a country-style sonero of the old school was required for the World Circuit sessions, Ibrahím was literally plucked off the streets of Havana where he was taking his daily walk."

The Chicago Sun-Times has an outstanding article on Ferrer that pulls from a past interview with the paper. And there's this from an article at the Independent:

"A legend of the Cuban music scene in the 1950s and 1960s, Ferrer fell into obscurity and poverty. He was shining shoes when the American guitarist Ry Cooder found him. Ferrer said: 'An angel came and picked me up. He said, "Chico, come and do this record".'"

Ferrer was a link to an almost forgotten past. Said Cooder, "It's the last chance in the world to work with such a voice." The Buena Vista Social Club was a rare phenomenon in music, one that brought Cuban music to the ears of those who normally wouldn't listen to son or bolero. A successful brand was created and many solo projects were spun off. Ferrer's death follows the passing of Buena Vista pianist Ruben Gonzalez in December of 2003 and guitarist Compay Segundo in September of the same year, both of whom enjoyed successful solo careers in the wake of Buena Vista's popularity. Eliades Ochoa and Omara Portuondo have also had successful careers with many solo albums to their names.

Posted by Glenn at 10:06 PM | Link | Comment (2)
|Music|

After reissues of the band's first two albums, Pavement fans may be wondering what else is remains in the vaults now that the band has been over for six years. There's more -- though its not from the band's vaults. On September 27th, Brown Brothers Recordings will release Gold Sounds, an album of jazz version of Pavement songs.

"We think the album, aside from the hipness factor of Pavement and Mssrs. Carter, Chestnut, Jackson and Veal, is as good an album as some of the all-time instrumental greats. Think Coltrane's My Favorite Things or The Allman Brothers Band Live at the Fillmore."

Lest you think this is a joke, go to the Brown Brothers website are listen to the stream of "Stereo," the first song on Gold Sounds.

Franklin Bruno's late June article, "Copycats
The cover album makes a comeback," at Slate mentioned Gold Sounds and says without Steve Malkmus' lyrics what's left is "harmony, structure, and—though this was not one of Pavement's strengths—melody."

(Thanks to Andrew for the link)

Extra credit:

• Pavement MP3s from the Matador website: "All My Friends," "Here" (Peel Session Summer 1992), "Greenlander" and "Spit On A Stranger."

Posted by Glenn at 9:20 AM | Link | Comment (1)
|Music|

After a brief Internet-lead explosion of awareness, the movement to pursuade Sony to release Fiona Apple's Extraordinary Machine has slowed to a crawl. The bandwagon picked up some popular support -- short attention span bloggers, tech writers fancy to bash a major label, mainstream media writers who love a good controversy, an uninformed SF Chronicle columnist -- but is now back to a hardcore group of fans. The FreeFiona.com website doesn't look to have been updated since roughly January.

Where is the album? What's Fiona doing now?

Coolfer spent some time poking around the message board at FreeFiona.com. This post in particular gives some interesting information of the situation surrounding the unreleased album. Taken from a post at Aimee Mann's message board, this post says producer Jon Brion asked Fiona to record a new album with him as a kind of therapy after the end of his six-year relationship. Jon and Fiona paid for the recordings and Fiona "did the album under the knowledge that it may or may not be something the label would release." The post adds that Fiona has the option to buy out her contract and release the album elsewhere but had not chosen to do so. Other posters are skeptical about these claims.

There's some potentially conflicting information about Fiona's post-Extraordinar Machine studio work. One poster referenced this interview with Mike Elizondo in the January 2005 issue of Bass Player Magazine. "I’m producing Fiona Apple's next album, which we just started," he said. But a recent Entertainment Weekly, says a post at FionaApple.org, claims Fiona is "starting a second third album with producer Brian Kehew (Moog Cookbook)."

Much more about Fiona, her unreleased album, its implications about the music industry and what people expect out of a proper album...after the click.

Continue reading "The Free Fiona Movement Slows To A Crawl" »

Posted by Glenn at 8:49 AM | Link | Comment (3)
|Music|

Nothing like a straight up rock 'n' roll show -- with a dollop of pop thrown in -- to help one recover from the indie rock blahs. Coolfer caught LA quartet Tsar at the formerly dreaded Mercury Lounge last night and it was hands down the best show of the four I've seen. (Two of them have been confirmed by singer Jeff Whalen -- a Gaucho no less -- as among the worst in the band's history. Lucky me.) In short, Tsar was fantastic, energetic, and by the end drenched in sweat. The set was tight, rarely broken for anything more than a quick guitar tuning. The debut album is a power pop gem. Tsar now has more of a sneer. The pop is still there but rock is more prominant.

New Yorkers are lucky. You'll have a chance to see them on August 11th when they hit Rothko with another Coolfer fave, Bona Roba.

Tsar released its second album, Bands-Girls-Money, on TVT just a few weeks ago. Last night's set was dominated by the new album but unlike their last show at Pianos we got a few songs from their incredible 2000 self-titled debut (released and blown by Hollywood Records), "Calling All Destroyers" and "I Don't Wanna Break Up."

Village Voice music editor Chuck Eddy, who had previously raved about Tsar's 7" single released a while back on Birdman, called Bands-Girls-Money "what may well be ’05’s most consistently catchy hard pop-rock album" in his concert preview on Wednesday. He ain't crappin' you negative.

Check Coolfer's Tsar pictures at Flickr.

Posted by Glenn at 9:40 AM | Link | Comment (5)
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Here is Coolfer's latest group of overused album review words.

• Pastoral. "Charmingly simple and serene; idyllic." Most often used in describing singer-songwriters and bands with a light, folky touch. Also popular in describing laidback electronic music such as Boards of Canada's Music Has The Right To Children. Why mellow ambient music has so much in common with rolling green pastures is beyond me. It just does. Pastoral is about to join the Hall of Fame with the likes of eschew and soundscape.

• Languid. "Showing little or no spirit or animation; listless." This definition is probably better for the context of most album reviews: "Lacking vigor or force; slow." Just about anything slow -- and that covers a large swath of indie rock -- gets the languid tag.

• Furtive. "Expressive of hidden motives or purposes; shifty." Synonyms that I hope a few critics will use: artful, calculating, cautious, circumspect, clandestine, cloaked, conspiratorial, covert, crafty, creep, cunning, disguised, elusive, evasive, foxy, guileful, hidden, hush-hush, insidious, masked, scheming, secret, shifty, skulking, slinking, sly, sneaking, sneaky, stealthy, sub-rosa, surreptitious, tricky, under wraps, under-the-table, undercover, underhand, underhanded, wily.

Posted by Glenn at 3:43 PM | Link | Comment (3)
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• Nepo: Demos.

Nepo mailed me a five-song CD of demos. No idea when I got it. Recently found it in my “to listen to” pile. The CD is in a slim jewel case with a homemade color sleeve. Kinda freaky looking, frankly. It looks budget – but it sounds very impressive. White funk meets indie rock. There's an amazing pop sensibility here, and a knack for a memorable hook, a percolating beat and a lyrical flair.

So I emailed the address on the CD sleeve to find out more. Here's the skinny: Nepo is a four-piece Brooklyn band that used to be called The O. Said the email response, "we ate, we shat, we listened to the Beatles, got assimilated by the Borg, and wrote music." You remember Self, who had a few albums out in the mid- to late-'90s? Nepo reminds me of Self. The band calls is "electrochestral weed pop." Good description.

Nepo is playing at the Lion's Den in the Village on Friday, July 29th. Set time is 8:45. There's a very good chance Coolfer will be there. Here's a download of a dizzying song.

Nepo: "The Humans"

• Aberdeen City: The Freezing Atlantic (Dovecote)

This Boston band travels in some pretty trafficked waters. Melody and dissonance. Blue lyrics woven into uplifting choruses. Lots of mid-'90s Radiohead on the iPod but everything comes out like the band shared a practice space with Elefant. Nothing new here, but music isn't all about pure innovation is it? It's nice to find a band that does what it does well.

Aberdeen City plays the Mercury Lounge on Monday the 25th. Here's an MP3 from the band's website:

Aberdeen City: "God is Going to Get Sick of Me"

Posted by Glenn at 9:17 AM | Link | Comment (2)
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"Typically, indie artists place a premium on maintaining complete control of their music and careers, often releasing albums on their own independent record labels and relying on touring, word-of-mouth, and airplay on independent or college radio stations for promotion." -- excerpt from Wikipedia's entry on indie rock

What? No mention of rainbows and smiling unicorns? It's a nice picture full of integrity and ideals, but it's just not reality. It's not indie rock in the year 2005. Bands today sign away the rights and ownership of their master recordings to indie labels just as if they were a major label. Indie labels buy ads in the Village Voice and sometimes advertise -- at great expense -- in the Best Buy weekend circular. They hire consultants to get their indie bands on NPR and college radio. If they're lucky a station like KCRW or KEXP will play it and help them sell some records. Indie labels pay for Internet ad campaigns as well as tour support. And, yes, they're very concerned about making money.

And sometimes an indie band signs with a major...and becomes what? A major indie band?

Death Cab for Cutie, still referred to in most quarters as "indie rock," have an album coming out soon on Atlantic records. Wikipedia calls Death Cab an "indie rock band formed in Bellingham, Washington." They formed as an indie but are they still indie? The band is signed to Atlantic. That's the home of Led Zeppelin's catalog. Non-indie rawkers The Darkness are also on Atlantic. So is Staind, Jason Mraz and Matchbox Twenty.

Is it time for Wikipedia to change how it defines indie rock, or is it time for indie rock to go the way of Xerox and Hoover and become just another generic term? The days of zines and word-of-mouth are long, long over, folks. Indie is a business. And sometimes indie is major. (But major is never, ever indie.) Nowadays what sets apart indie is an opposition to mainstream corporate values and practices and how overt one is about making money. Majors answer to shareholders while indies answer to nobody -- or something like that.

Majors are majors because they have money. Money talks. It gets things done. It gets your foot in the door. In financial terms indie labels are relatively broke and majors are moneyed. Money is the main difference. Let's can indie rock and re-title it broke rock. Sounds funny at first, but I could get used to it.

Posted by Glenn at 9:36 AM | Link | Comment (16)
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Nothing like a good long list of statistics about music habits, eh? Coolfer loves it. In "The OMM Poll" The Guardian details its study done by ICM that sought to find out what Britain is listening to. It interviewed a random sample of 1,083 adults over the age of 16. The British Phonographic Institute already claims that the British are, per capita, the most avid music consumers in the world. ICM found out more, particularly how much habits change over age groups and compared the differences between the sexes. So is the RIAA going to commission a study for the U.S. or do we have to sponge off of the Brits' research?

The Overall: "While music holds a defining role in the lives of a majority of Britons aged 16-24 (52 per cent), the significance of music recedes rapidly as we enter our late twenties."

Age Differences: "Twenty-six per cent of those aged 16-24 like hip hop/rap the most while 22% prefer dance. However, the passing of time seems to erode the appeal of both these genres." Eight percent of Britons say the MP3 is the format of choice -- but that number rises to 22% for the 16-24 year old consumer.

His and Hers: "Men are more likely to amass huge, unwieldy collections and dream up elaborate cataloguing systems but they are not significantly more likely to describe themselves as passionate about music." "While women are just as likely as men to be passionate about music, men are more likely to amass large collections."

New Pastime: "Did you know that one in four Britons has attended a karaoke night within the last two years?"

Time: The average listener spends 11.5 per week listening to music. (Editor: Amazingly low. Knowing that, how many really need an iPod with over 5 GB storage?)

Live Music: 28% see live music 2-3 times a year, 17% see live music once every 2-3 months and 17% do once a month. A whopping 23% see live music less than once a year. "However, the ascendancy of gigs could soon be challenged by the growing popularity of karaoke nights."

Size of Music Collection: Average = 247 albums (all formats). 76% of all albums are of the CD format. 78% say the CD is their favorite format.

Thriller: Almost one in three Britons owns Michael Jackson's Thriller. His "popularity cuts across age and gender boundaries and transcends any sense of musical elitism or snobbery."

So to sum it up, men worry about the CD collections, interest in dance music fades with age and being younger means you're more likely to prefer MP3s over CDs. Trend of the future: Karaoke. Let's see if Clear Channel starts buying up karaoke bars in a self-defense mechanism.

Posted by Glenn at 9:21 AM | Link
|Music|

For those in the New York area there are two main events (Siren Festival, Femi Kuti/Brazilian Girls at Summerstage) and a video shoot this weekend. Here's the weather forecast.

Tomorrow is the free Siren Festival at Coney Island, the annual music concert organized by the Village Voice. As usual the event is heavily weighted on underground and up-and-coming rock bands -- many of them local.

This year's line-up is a good one. Here's Coolfer's day planner:

• Nine Black Alps at the Stillwell Stage at 1:30pm. Their new EP is OK. The full length is available as a pricey import and leaves a better impression of this NME-hyped band. My gut says the live show is better than the recordings. Stream "Attraction" from live radio session (WM hi, RA hi)
• Ambulance Ltd at the Main Stage at 2:00pm. If there's any young, local band that has the songwriting and talent to take over Yo La Tengo's crown for perrennial indie rock excellence it's this band. Another 15 years under the belt would naturally help.
• Diamond Nights at the Stillwell Stage at 4:30pm. This local band's Kemado debut, Once We Were Diamonds, recalls the best strains of '70s bell-bottomed rock and synthed-out '80s fun. Judging from the comments at a recent Stereogum post, the kids are hot to see this band. Download "Destination Diamonds."
• Dungen at the Main Stage at 5:00pm. I heard good things from a friend who saw them in San Francisco last week. Hope those technical difficulties are gone by now.
• Brendan Benson at the Main Stage at 6:00pm. The reigning King of Minor Key Power Pop. Stream "Spit It Out" (WM hi or lo)
• Spoon at the Main Stage at 7:30pm. If I'm still standing I'll stick around for indie demigods Spoon. Coolfer was never the biggest fan and could practically get kicked out of the bloggosphere for not proclaiming my undying love for the band, but I'm sure it will be the money I paid to see them. Download "I Turn My Camera On."

If you don't feel like trekking down to Coney Island you can join Jessie Diamond and The Thousand for a video shoot at Trash Bar in Williamsburg. The '80s revival starts goes from 1pm to 4pm and "copious amounts of free beer" will be provided.

On Sunday there's a great show at Central Park's Summerstage. New York's Brazilian Girls will open for Femi Kuti at a concert to celebrate Giant Step's 15th anniversary. Not to be missed. Show starts at 3pm.

Posted by Glenn at 3:22 PM | Link | Comment (6)
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The new Sufjan Stevens album calls to mind Vice President Dan Quayle's spelling controversy in the '80s. Potato vs. potatoe. I'll ask the same thing Danny Boy asked...so does it have an E or what?!

For the last week or so I've wondered why there are two spellings of the new Sufjan Stevens album, Illinoise. Or maybe it's Illinois. The album cover spells it one way, with an E. Many others spell it another way.

The label that's putting out the album, Asthmatic Kitty, drops the E. Illinois. The label should be the final say on a matter. They should know, right? They set the standards, they say how albums are spelled and how to pronounce the names of their artists. (The pronunciation variations of Sufjan would have to be a completely different post. There's one for every man, woman and child in the country. Luckily the Asthmatic Kitty site answers this one for us at the info page.)

Retailers are split. Other Music spells it just as the album cover spells it: Illinoise. With an E. Insound drops the E. Amazon spells the domestic with an E and the import without an E. Barnes And Noble drops the E as well. iTunes omits the E.

The press is just as split as the rest of the country. Pitchfork dropped the E in its review. The New York Times' review spelled it with an E. The Guardian's review had an E as well. So did Filter's review.

And in the ultimate popularity contest, Google Fight results for "sufjan illinois" and "sufjan illinoise" put the 'No E' version ahead 152,000 to 40,400.

Posted by Glenn at 9:01 AM | Link | Comment (7)
|Music|

A few months ago I was in a store talking to a friend who worked in the music department. A customer came to the register so I walked over to the bins to keep myself busy until he was free. He called for me and motioned for me to come over to him. He stood next to a woman probably around 60 years old. "You may be able to help us out," he told me. The woman looked at me and asked in a slightly timid voice, "What's grime?"

It was then I knew that grime had officially arrived.

With Lady Sovereign's debut New York City gig coming next week, and with this style of music on the cusp of semipopularity in the States, Coolfer thinks it's a good time to revisit the history and state of grime before journalists in more mainstream outlets start writing about it and flubbing the details.

What is grime? Wikipedia's grime entry says it is "roots in both hip hop and electronic music and is characterised by rapid and rhythmic rhyming over sparse break beats, futuristic bleeps and guttural bass growls" and adds that it is also known as "sublow, 8bar or eskibeat." Rephlex calls it sublow and dubstep.

World Wide Words, a website about "international English from a British point of view," called grime "a black British dance genre which is emerging from the London club scene and raves via pirate radio and bootleg vinyl discs."

In July of last year the Independent defined grime as "the new underground dance genre descended from UK garage" and noted that Shystie was the first grime star to sign to a major label.

British hip hop was rarely considered hip hop and is usually bannished to the electronic sections of record stores and album charts. Grime isn't an attempt to emulate American hip hop -- which is why it sounds so interesting and fresh. It's a style of music unique to Britain, said The Guardian. "Combining the ear-crashing instrumentation of garage with the crime-riddled rhymes of rap, the sound creeping cautiously from the bowels of the underground is refreshingly and uniquely British."

Helpful links:

• Chantelle Fiddy's Worl