RIAA lobbyist becomes federal judge, rules on file-sharing cases

[Link]

More from the puppet theatre!

The news, first reported in a piece at TorrentFreak, nicely illustrates the revolving door between government and industry. And it reminds us just how complicated questions of influence can be.

Can't buy me mp3's

Website pays $1M fine for selling Beatles tunes
My Dad sends me this link, saying "Compare what they sold and what they were fined."

Within the first week, more than 2 million Beatles songs were purchased online for $1.29 apiece and 450,000 albums were sold.

So let's do the math, and we're assuming US figures...
2,000,000 songs @ $1.29 = $2,580,000
Which alone is pretty crazy, unless we also assume that the 450,000 albums are separate from that figure, and assuming $10 per album... We're talking over $7 mil total here.

It makes you wonder how much money the big labels really lost by not jumping on the digital bandwagon earlier, and how damned desperate they've become to save their dying business model.

$1 million lawsuit for as much as $7 million actual damages... ties into how insane that LimeWire lawsuit was... $75 TRILLION? Really?

Really?

New Symphony of Science tune

[via Friendly Atheist]

Is it April 1st already?

Limewire Being Sued For 75 Trillion

"plaintiffs are suggesting an award that is more money than the entire music recording industry has made since Edison's invention of the phonograph in 1877.'"

Bieber-Slipknot mashup

This makes both artists almost listenable... very well done:


[via BuzzFeed]

Pretty Hate Machine in-depth analysis

Solid read for audio and NIN fans over at the NIN Hotline:
Halo Profile 02R: Pretty Hate Machine 2010 by Botley

And check this out: the 33 1/3 series of Pretty Hate Machine is finally shipping!

Henry Rollins shills for luxury cars

I heard this TV spot last night and went:
"Huh?"

Then I checked that the voice over was who I thought it was.

It's true: Henry Rollins, hardcore punk godfather, is voicing commercials for luxury cars. I guess this kind of thing shouldn't come as a surprise, considering Gang of Four recently sold a song to Microsoft.

Still, it's kind of disappointing. Reading through Mr. Rollins' bio, I noticed that he also voiced a commercial for Apple back in 1999. So, it's nothing new for him.

Maybe he owes lots of money to the government, like Nicholas Cage. It would be hard for anyone to turn down huge sums of cash to do that kind of work, but it kinda sucks that it has to be this guy.

Lupe Fiasco's mess

So this new album from Lupe Fiasco got a huge turd of a rating from Pitchfork...

I guess the writer hasn't been keeping up with all the hate and buzz going around this album, as Lupe himself hates it and blames the label for its terribleness.

I wonder how much of all this is Lupe trying to save face from making a bad album, and how much is the outspoken rapper once again speaking his mind?

James Blake - Wilhelm Scream

It feels as though this guy is providing the bridge for dubstep to crossover to the mainstream.

Perfect soundtrack for this rainy/wet T.O. weather.

The album is highly recommended.

My favourite podcasts

I've been meaning to do a post like this for a while, listing a bunch of podcasts that I follow. After just finishing the post, I can see why I've been putting it off... Jeez, so much work! :)

The URLs are copied right from my iTunes, so hopefully they'll work for you. Copying the name into the iTunes podcast directory should get you right to these podcasts.

Here they are, by some sort of categorical order...

Music podcasts:

CBC Radio 3
-From the national broadcaster, it's a weekly podcast of Canadian independent music. CBC Radio 3 has a bunch of great podcasts, but I find that one is plenty of listening. The R3-30 is a chart show of the latest Canadian tunes that's worth checking out as well.

[Show link]

Average length: 50-60 mins

NPR: All Songs Considered
-Pretty hip podcast that covers mostly indie rock and electronic music. They'll do theme shows like Holiday songs, Best of the Year, Best of the Year (so far), A nostalgic look at the 90s, and so on. SXSW is coming up, and their coverage is great.
Maybe I'm just not in touch when an era when this terminology was more popular, but everything is a "record" with them. An album is a "record". A single is a "record"... It does make the hosts sound their age, but don't let that hold you back, they know what they're talking about.

Average length: 35-50 mins for standard show, 60-90+ mins for special shows

[Show link]

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Pro audio:

AES Journal podcast
-Short podcast from the Audio Engineering Society talking about the studies in their latest journal. Super technical stuff and really only for audio engineers.

Average length: 5 mins

[AES link]

Ryan on the Radio: The Producers
Ryan Drean interviews radio imaging producers and the top voice over talent. I love the tech talk and sometimes producers will post screen shots of their Pro Tools sessions and plugin sessions. Audio nerd stuff here.

Average length: 60 mins (in two parts)

[Show link]

Sound on Sound
An analog to the popular pro audio magazine, the two charming hosts talk about what's in the latest issue as well as answer listener questions. A light tone to some serious tech stuff.

Average length: 30-35 mins

[Magazine link]

---

CBC podcasts:

The Age of Persuasion
-Host Terry O'Reilly takes you on a tour through the history of advertising. A bit much on the side of ad-porn, but there are some interesting nuggets throughout, though I would prefer a more critical rather than whimsical look at the ad world. An entertaining and informative listen.

Average length: 26:30

Backbencher
-A radio drama about a small town Nova Scotia MP trying to make it in the "snakepit" of Canadian politics. A bit cheesey (I'm sensing a trend here), but a solid show.

Average length: 26:30

Ideas
-The title says it all. Philosophy, religion, culture, technology, social issues. A must for thinkers. Some of the shows can be hit and miss, but the good ones are really good.

Average length: 53 mins

WireTap
-Probably my favourite radio show right now. Hilarious, dry, witty, and thought provoking. I've been listening to this show for years, and it just keeps getting better. Listen to at least a couple episodes, you'll thank me.

Average length: 26:30

The National: Rex Murphy
-A dose of cranky truth from Rex Murphy and his mind like a steel trap.

Average length: 3 mins

---

Baseball

Fangraphs Audio
-Unabashedly nerdy baseball podcast from a Sabermetric point of view. For serious baseball enthusiasts only.

Average length: 35-45 mins

[Site link]

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Other

The Onion Radio News
-Maybe I should have put this one first. If there's one off this list you need to hear, it's this one. Hilarious.

[The Onion]

Average length: 45s

No Agenda
-Ok now, we're getting further away from the music pov of this blog, but I still think this is worth sharing. My friend B Matt suggested this show after we discussed a mutual interest in the crackpot site The Vigilant Citizen (which as of this writing appears to have been suspended). No Agenda is a similarly crackpot program. I find myself rolling my eyes at some of the content (ie vaccines = mind control), but it's entertaining and refreshing to hear a point of view that isn't just the usual MSM talking points.

Thoughts on the new Radiohead album

In case you missed it, Radiohead dropped their new album, King of Limbs, recently.

What's struck me about this is it seems to be a "post-review" release, in that the review matters less than what people think about the idea of reviewing this album.

Here are a few interesting articles I've read about the album:
How long does it take to “get” an album?
Radiohead, 'The King of Limbs' and Music Business Acumen in 2011
On Critical Zeitgeist and Contemplative Cows, Through The Lens of Some English Band…
Metacritic: Critics and fans love it, trolls hate it

It seems people are more interested in pointing out the band's possible decline rather than enjoying the music for what it is - textured and pensive, two adjectives that hardly relate to the cranky netizens of 2011.

I'll go out on a limb (see what I did there?) and say that this one will fit in as a 'transitional' album in their canon. Of course we won't know until the next album, or even subsequent ones, should they choose to keep making albums.

The people whining about King of Limbs (search twitter) strike me as having an awful sense of entitlement, and a feeling as though Radiohead owe them something, and frankly I find it offensive. Radiohead don't owe you anything. They made some seminal, genre changing and generation defining albums, and they nailed a zeitgeist.

To expect anyone to perform at that level indefinitely is remarkably unfair, and it's disrespectful to their great art and the band as human beings. Maybe people are just upset that the band made them pay for something well crafted and of a very high quality after years of getting things for free.

I'll finish with a quote from the Village Voice article posted above:

...I do think Radiohead are Objectively Important, in that they're the rare wildly popular band with wildly experimental instincts, capable of pushing the needle ever so slightly in terms of what the music-listening masses are willing to regard as normal and pleasurable (Kid A is enormous in that respect), I guess I have to admit that I take Radiohead personally. I am protective, I am selfish, I am defensive on both my and their behalves.

A night at the opera

[Image courtesy Canadian Opera Company]

Last Saturday night was my first experience at a "real" opera. Not a rock opera, or a compilation of arias from different operas (see Luminato 2007), but a bona-fide opera. A modern one at that.

Thanks to the Canadian Opera Company's discounted ticket program for folks under 30, the four of us in the group paid a mere $22 each for a fine dose of culture.

I first became aware of this work through Alex Ross' amazing book The Rest is Noise - Listening to the Twentieth Century, which helped me realize how and why classical music is and always will be important.

There's not much I can write in terms of a review, as I lack the basis of comparison, this of course being my first trip to the opera.

Here are a few thoughts:
-Surtitles are excellent. The libretto (the lyrics to an opera) is shown above the stage as it's being sung. I imagine the idea first came about so people could understand operas in languages other than their native tongue. Here, the opera is in English, and I still found it very helpful. Great for when you miss a line, and sometimes just because of the nature of the performance, the melody can take a back seat to clarity of enunciation.
One small drawback is that sometimes humour was lost because the line would appear above the stage before the line was actually delivered, and the audience reacted to the timing of the display rather than it actually being sung. But, what are you gonna do.

-The production design was pretty awesome. The TVs (see above image) highlight that this was a news event experienced around the world simultaneously. They can also be manipulated to show different images that reflect character's moods and thoughts. Very cool. Also: flashbulbs. The chorus took pictures during some scenes, mimicking the real events. This was not the case for the premiere.

-The cheap seats aren't that bad. We sat up on the 5th circle, and got a great view of the stage and orchestra. Not bad at all, especially for $22.

-This version (TVs and all), which I believe premiered in 2004, compared to the original 1987 premiere (see video below), is a major improvement. The performances and set design are so vibrant and stimulating. Time has served this opera well, and it only figures to get better as fact fades further away and this modern myth takes over.

-I find the third act to be a bit of a drag, and the whole thing ends on a subdued note after such bombastic and spirited first two acts. There's nothing wrong with that, but it just feels like there could have been a bigger payoff at the end.

So yeah. I'm going to take advantage of the $22 tickets until I'm no longer able, by which time I'll probably be addicted, which I guess has been the COC's fiendish plot all along. More material like this please, though. As my friend Adam says, you can swing a dead rat and find a production of The Magic Flute, but Nixon in China is far less common.

If you're thinking about going to the opera, check it out, the COC certainly puts on a good show.

===

Here's the broadcast of the opera's premiere in 1987, with introduction by Walter Cronkite. Don't just watch the first five minutes then shut it off, watch at least the first two parts. Obviously YouTube isn't the best forum for opera, but it'll give you a pretty good sense of what Nixon in China is about, even if the 2011 version blows it completely out of the water.