Study Says Music Industry Up! Earth Will Soon Be Available in Only MP3 Or Vinyl Format.
By Valley Girl Magic on 10-30-2007
Looks like the only part of the music industry that's really going the way of the dinosaur is CDs.
Well, like, duh.
Some duder named Chris Anderson compiled this fine little list of stats:
- Concerts and merchandise: UP (+4%)
- Digital tracks: UP (+46%)
- Ringtones: UP (+86% last year, but probably just single-digit percent this year)
- Licensing for commercials, TV shows, movies, and videogames: UP (Warner Music saw licensing grow by about $20 million over the past year)
- Even vinyl singles: UP (more than doubled in the UK)
I've decided that soon the world will completely exist on the internet, and cities will become ghost towns. Vinyl will live on, but only through mail-order, and those vinyl people already never leave their houses anyway.
I guess the fact that concert sales are up kind of contradicts that ghost-towns-with-rebel-vinyl-collectors idea.
But then again, they could just do that "playing a show" thing on a sound stage and stream it. It'll happen.
I also predict the continuing increase of music being written only for ads and various products, to the point that bands cease to write songs that lack some kind of product placement or marketing potential. Cuz you know, people just really want to buy stuff.
The Rolling Stones to Release Album on USB (Not Through Victoria’s Secret), Parents Call You to Help Them Figure Out How to Use “This USB gizmo”
By Josh Fenderman on 10-30-2007
You finally taught them how to send an e-mail. You got them to stop saying "YourTube." Thanks to you, they know not to trust anyone who claims to be the heir to a small nation's fortune. You thought they were setup and ready to happily live out their years Googling squash recipes and online shopping for L.L. Bean vests that you'll never wear. But that would be too easy.
Just in time for a confusing Christmas morning, The Rolling Stones come along and release another greatest hits compilation on a damn USB memory stick.
Rolled Gold+, a re-release of the 1975 hits package Rolled Gold with 12 extra songs tacked on, will be released November 15. The USB release is already listed on Amazon.com UK with a November 5 release date, but has yet to appear for pre-order stateside.
So, if you don't have Forty Licks, Hot Rocks, More Hot Rocks, Singles Collection: The London Years, or any other Stones collection of any sort, and you want an album that you have to plug into your computer and download to an MP3 player to play, then the Rolled Gold+ USB release is exactly what you've been waiting for.
The 40-track album will also be released on CD, which may be a better gift idea for moms and dads who have just recently been weened off the hi-fi.
Has anyone heard these songs before?
Mike Patton Voices Bionic Commando Video Game, Mutilates Hitler’s Head
By Squeo on 10-30-2007
No, that sound you're hearing isn't overproduced metal riffs segueing into light tropicalia led by a snarling wolverine. It's the sound of a man with a very important mission, a free-world-affecting mission: to destroy the Badds using only his wits, his brute strength, and his extendable bionic arm that could potentially be used in inappropriate ways. Originally released for NES, Bionic Commando is now in development for all the next-gen systems (N-Gage, Amiga CD-32, Atari Lynx), and the game's developers felt that the only person qualified to voice a man-machine hybrid was a real-life freak of nature: Mike Patton.
Patton is no stranger to the world of videogames (some say he hosts the best LAN parties), as his voice has been used this year alone in both The Darkness and Portal, the latter of which would be in our Eureka! section if only it were an album. Patton was available for further elaboration on his role in Bionic Commando, but there was too much mustard on my sandwich this afternoon, and I have instead opted to lie down for a few minutes. More details to come, as soon as I take a shower.
Throw Some Ds On That Bitch: Bob Dylan Peddles Caddies
By Joseph Coscarelli on 10-30-2007
D is for Dylan, of course. Remember a few years back when Sir Zimmerman's Viagra really kicked in, and he did a not-so-hot TV advert with the busty babes from Victoria's Secret? There was standard outcry from those who thought an Original Outlaw like ol' Bob shouldn't be Robert Johnson-ing his soul for corporate conglomerates, but Dylan prevailed with a payday and even won back some former disciples with 2006's pretty-good-for-a-has-been Modern Times. But, to be sure, there's something inherently different between Bob selling bras and The Shins taking a tiny dicking from Mickey D's, letting them use a song in the background so dude can put a down payment on a house. If Dylan needs a paycheck, then I'm Heidi Klum.
Regardless, Bob Dylan is at it again, this time taking cues from rapper Rich Boy and getting himself a Cadillac. In what the press release calls an "innovative multi-platform marketing campaign," a new series of TV spots will double up, hawking both the 2008 Cadillac Escalade and Dylan's own "critically acclaimed" XM Radio show, Theme Time Radio Hour. Isn't one old rocker with a satellite radio show enough? Does the world really need another Little Steven's Underground Garage? In association with the beginning of the campaign, the Radio Hour even ran a Cadillac-themed episode last week, undoubtedly featuring tons of radio rap circa-2005.
In a curious twist, one of the spots even features music from everyone's favorite neo-troubadour and Joanna Newsom's arm candy Bill Callahan, formerly known as Smog and/or (smog). The song "Held," from 1999's Knock Knock, scores one version of the commercial which also features Dylan admittedly looking pretty dapper in a desert setting, hugging curves (professional driver on closed course) in none other than a blinged-out, eco-friendly Escalade. Dylan, though, might as well be speaking Mandarin, because he sounds like he did on MTV Unplugged. Oh, and there's no hot women. Win: Victoria's Secret.
Two of the ads can be seen here.
First Nation Change Name to Rings, Add Avey Tare’s Sister to Band
By Mango Starr on 10-30-2007
First Nation have changed their name to Rings. No, seriously! Since Melissa Livaudais left the band, Nina Mehta and Kate Rosko wanted a fresh start with newly added member Abby Portner, the probably super awesome sister of Animal Collective's Dave Portner (Avey Tare). So voilà : name change. Or is it "new band"? Crap, why does indie rock have to be so difficult??
Oh wait, shh... looks like the band is about to speak up!
We changed our name because we are a new kind of band. We thought the name First Nation would produce positive dialog, but it didn't. It's so loaded with identity politics, which is fine, cuz we actually do support other people's ways of self-representing. But, the name never opened up that space for talking about names and identity and social and political structures. It never translated like that... and even if it did, that's not what this new incarnation of our band is. For now, we're like a pop band for teenage girls. and for now, Rings makes sense. It's a name for our circular compositions, the bonds between us, our decision making processes, our mystic beliefs, the circular shapes around us, interlocking, connected, feminine, whole, continuous...
Rings' new album, Black Habit, will be released January 15, 2008 on Animal Collective's Paw Tracks. The album was self-produced with help from KristÃn Anna Valtýsdóttir, forever known as the ex-müm girl, but in my heart as Kria Brekkan, who released Pullhair Rubeye (TMT Review) earlier this year with Home Depot CEO Avey Tare.
According to the press release, Rings' style now is "a loose tribal pop sound that thrives on vocal harmonies and pulsating drum rhythms." Well, shit, half our review is written already.
