Cat Power's Chan Marshall Gets Sad Again; Is It Wrong for Me to Be Happy About This? Maybe Australia Will Cheer Her Up!

By Nat Towsen on 12-07-2009

Apple Inc., a 33-year-old computer software and consumer electronics corporation, has agreed to purchase Lala, a four-year old music-distribution start-up. Presently, Lala offers a service that allows users to either download a song, or pay a small fraction of the download price to stream the song an unlimited number of times. Users can also upload their preexisting music collection to Lala's server to later stream from any device with an internet connection. Although Lala's user base seems to be satisfied with the service, the company has failed to achieve mainstream success, leaving their financial prospects in a dubious state.

Apple Inc., whose success in recent years has been defined by their paired domination of the digital music distribution and digital music player markets, is obviously monitoring the success of mobile music streaming services like Pandora for iPhone. Cloud computing, while an alarmingly accurate fulfillment of the dystopian fictions of our upbringings, seems to be the direction in which media-access is developing. A major fear about cloud-based storage, that data could be lost should the host go bankrupt, would be easily abetted by the financial stability and public reputation of a corporation like Apple.

The success of the iPod over the numerous challengers that have sprung up throughout the years has been largely dependent on its exclusive compatibility with iTunes. Now, facing serious competition in the mobile device market from Android-based phones, especially the new Droid, Apple might be looking for a new, innovative music service to pair exclusively with the iPhone. While the buyout does not allow Apple to acquire Lala's streaming licenses, it does allow them to acquire a team of engineers with several years experience with cloud-based music streaming, jump-starting the process toward a new service.

In late October, Google announced that it would partner with Lala and iLike to create a Google Search-based online music service. With Apple and Google butting heads of late, it would seem that Lala's involvement in the project is likely to be quickly phased out. Of course, this does raise an interesting question: Did Apple buy the ambling startup as a tactical attempt to prevent Google from taking a lead in the music distribution market? Did Apple rescue Lala just to watch it die? And, once Lala was dead, would all of the other Teletubbies demand to watch it die again? (That's the joke from the headline!)

By Nobodaddy on 12-07-2009

Ever since Animal Collective decided to turn into the underground (relatively speaking) version of a Boy Band, it’s been pretty clear that, sooner or later, their very own 21st-century version of A Hard Day’s Night would be upon us. Screaming girls, campy acting jobs, plot-shirking camera mugging, bloated musical montages crammed into scene after scene sporting goofy variable frame rate effects, etc.

Now, at long last, the forever-in-the-making Animal Collective movie, directed by collaborator Danny Perez (who has worked on their pretty badass “Who Could Win a Rabbit” and “Summertime Clothes” videos), is finally making its big debut at next year's Sundance Film Festival which runs from January 21-31 in Utah. And, well, lets jut say that those Hard Day’s Night comparisons might be a little off the mark here (except for the “bloated musical montages” part, of course!).

The film has been given the brilliantly-fun-to-say title of ODDSAC. Speaking about the absurd name choice with Pitchfork earlier this year, Dave Portner (Avey Tare) said, "There's a few titles we're all psyched on, but it's a matter of finding out what sits right, what looks right in terms of putting it in the credits." And I guess what could look more right on a giant screen than the word ODDSAC spelled out in all caps? Sheesh. Actors...

Anyway, describing the film’s plot, Portner continued: "The whole thing cohesively doesn't have one narrative; it's more of a visual or psychedelic thing. There are parts that are almost completely abstract, and there are parts that are little bit more live-action." In other words, the thing will most likely look a lot like their records sound. Hopefully they’ll have an Emcee or two on hand at the festival to make keep reminding the patrons that the brown acid that is circulating around is not, specifically, too good.