Thurston Moore, Robert Pollard, Jad Fair, Roger Miller Contribute to Third Penny-Ante Book, Three; Phil Elverum, Growing, Lucky Dragons on Complimentary CD

by Mango Starr on 07-21-2009

According to a rather lengthy update from Weezer, their as-yet untitled seventh album is "pretty close to a wrap now (after a mild false alarm back in the spring)." The band expects to announce the release date and title in the coming months, as well as the album's first single and video, as long as they can keep the in-fighting to a minimum.

Weezer also briefly mention plans to release a deluxe reissue of Pinkerton. Unfortunately, they didn't provide any details except for this limp line: "at last -- if all goes as planned."

Yes, pretty slim on the meat. Instead, the lengthy post primarily discusses Guitar Center, an 8-bit Weezer album, their mailing list, Michael Cera in Paper Heart, a tribute show, The Rentals, Twitter, and... Sugar Ray:

Upcoming new Sugar Ray album Music For Cougars includes their cover of a song recorded but never released by Weezer, "Love Is The Answer". The original Weezer version of the song remains in the Make Believe era vaults, but now Sugar Ray's version will be available as of July 21, when their album drops.

Now that I've spared you from reading the lengthy post yourself, please do me a favor and go listen to whatever it is the kids are listening to these days and enjoy life to its fullest! I want all of you to have the opportunities that I didn't have since I wasted so much of my life reading that post.

by Ze Pequeno on 07-20-2009

If there is one thing that has annoyed the hell out of the music lovers in recent years, it is the use of DRM (digital rights management) in music tracks to prevent piracy. From the CDs that were impossible to play on Discmans (remember those?), to implementing nigh-impossible-to-remove malware on your computer, to crappy file formats that you couldn't play on your iPod, DRM has been the industry's version of the F-22: blunt, powerful, expensive, and largely useless. In recent years, however, a massive pushback against DRM from consumers, various lobbying groups, and even music stores such as Apple's iTunes have sent messages of the inevitable to the industry's leading anti-piracy mechanism behind lawsuits.

Now, DRM's death, at least in music, is all but a certainty. In an upcoming interview with SCMagazine, RIAA lead spokesman Jonathan Lamy was asked about the organization's view on DRM at this point in time. His response?

"DRM's dead, isn't it?"

This marks the first on-record statement by the organization, which championed DRM as recently as last year, being so overt about its inevitable withdrawal of support. While other anti-piracy fronts such as the IFPI have also admitted that DRM-free music stores would sell a lot more music, the ever-vigilant and ever-litigious RIAA has been, up until now, constantly supportive of DRM, even in the aftermath of the Sony rootkit scandal. Its admission of DRM's death will likely accelerate the process of removing all DRM at major online stores.

Today is but a small victory for music lovers everywhere. Let's all go get cake and hope that the game industry, currently and desperately entrenched in DRM measures, will learn from this.

by Brom on 07-20-2009

It has emerged that Global Gaming Factory (GGF), the new owners of The Pirate Bay, will charge users a monthly fee to access the site. This money will then be used to pay off copyright holders. The exact amount users will have to pay has not been decided on; however, by sharing more files on the network, you can reduce the amount you have to contribute, says Wayne Rosso, newly appointed by GGF to facilitate the model (and described by Torrent Freak as someone “who has previous experience with failing P2P services” -- lol!).

This will represent another victory for the labels in what has already been a good year in their war against file-sharing. Nevertheless, questions remain over whether The Pirate Bay will still continue to draw much traffic if users have to pay for it, and with plenty of other sites aiming to provide a similar service free-of-charge, one begins to question the sustainability of GGF’s model.

by Annapocalypse on 07-17-2009

In a recent survey from two British research companies, The Leading Question and Music Alley, both concluded that UK music fans prefer buying CDs to downloading music. Straight from the source itself:

The Leading Question/Music Ally Speakerbox survey is the biggest face to face survey of UK music fans. The syndicated, proprietary project involves 1,000 face to face interviews with music fans aged 14-64 and a series of in depth focus groups which took place throughout the UK.

Of course, every study has multifarious factors that confound the results, but if this survey is a somewhat "accurate" portrayal of British music consumption, I have to ask: how can the Brits be so far behind the times? Despite the overwhelming growth of digital downloads, the survey found that:

- 73% of music fans are still happy buying CDs rather than downloading
- 66% of 14-18 year olds prefer CDs
- 59% of all music fans still listen to CDs every day
- CD burning is top of all sharing activities (23%), above bluetoothing (18%), filesharing single tracks (17%), and filesharing albums (13%)

Well, kudos to them for purchasing physicals, but I'd prefer to buy vinyl (sounds and looks better, more longterm investment, etc.) rather than waste my pounds on CDs and a new Sony Discman. Though, I guess I still can't find a vinyl copy of The Cherry Poppin’ Daddies.