Monday, January 28, 2008

Three Quick Links

First up is a follow-up post from the Last.fm Blog about the free streaming of full-length tracks on their website.

Second up is enlightening news from the MIDEM conference in Cannes, France that maybe; just maybe record labels should try a different approach than scaring, spying, suing, and overcharging their customers.

And link number three is a feel-good story from ESPN.com on a celebrity soccer game played over the weekend. If you scroll about halfway down (just under the pic of Nomar Garciaparra) who's name appears? Why, Rivers Cuomo, that's who! Not only did the football-loving pop songster play, he even scored a goal for his team! I wonder if he sported those old school rec specs for the match . . .

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Last.fm Is Cleared To Stream


According to an entry on the Last.fm blog, the company has gotten clearance to stream full tracks—for free(!)—from their website. Every single stream of a song will result in a payment directly to the artist, no middle men and no b.s. Pretty cool. The only downside is the streams are not unlimited.

There are a lot of details in their blog post, but basically they got all the record labels involved--majors, minors, and independents--to agree to it based on a subscription service they're going to roll out soon. During the interim you can stream each song three times and then a message is supposed to inform you about the subscription service. I'm not sure what is supposed to happen after that, but I tried it and no message about the subscription popped up and it definitely wouldn't let me listen a fourth time. I just got the old "Oops, we had a problem connecting" error message.

Anyway, when the subscription service is up and running, you'll get unlimited streams for a monthly fee. No word on what the fee will be or if non-subscribers will still be able to get three free streams. I'm pretty sure the standard scrobbling will continue. It would be suicide for them to dump that.

I like Last.fm and use it a lot, along with the desktop scrobbler. If you like music--and if you're here it's reasonable that you do--you should check it out.

RIAA Hires Former FBI Agent

Yup, it's true. You can read the full story over on Variety, but the RIAA has hired former FBI agent Kathy Loedler to help run its anti-piracy outfit.

When she still worked for the FBI she did things like fight organized crime and bust up huge casino cheating schemes. Oh, and she also happened to be running the RIAA case, but now they've just made it official and put her on the payroll.

What's next? Are they going to form their own private army of shock troopers to kick down doors and make downloaders disappear in the middle of the night?

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Ringo Runs Away From Regis

For some reason, this story makes me laugh. Something about Ringo getting huffy and giving Regis Philbin the cold shoulder is hysterical. Come to think of it, pretty much anyone giving sh*t to Regis Philbin for any reason at all would probably have me in stitches.

Wired Review of U2 3D



Way back in March of last year I blogged about the pending release of the film U2 3D. This concert movie was produced entirely in 3D by a company called Real D. And it's about U2, featuring them live in concert during the South American leg of the 2006 Vertigo tour. Pretty creative film title, eh?

The highly esteemed music writer (highly esteemed around this blog, at least) Eliot Van Buskirk got to see the film at an Imax in all it's three-dimensional glory and wrote a thorough review of the whole shebang. The short take is that he liked it a lot. The long take is that . . . well, don't read my version of the long take, just go read Eliot's article. And then go see U2 3D.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

New One On Me


Now here's something you don't see every day. Dr. Dre has a signature set of headphones. Called "Beats By Dr. Dre" these high-profile cans were speced out by Dre and Jimmy Iovine and are engineered and produced in collaboration with Monster. So not only are these the first signature headphones on the market (at least from a name with sway like Dre's) this is also a first for Monster, and the two parties chose to break this ground together.

I wonder what would happen if you listened to East Coast gangsta rap through a pair of Beats? Would Dre show up at your house with Snoop and take away your headphones?

Unwarranted Giggling

For some reason, the idea of Michael Stipe being dismissed from a jury made me laugh this morning.

Then I thought about it for a minute and realized that's actually a bad thing. I mean, isn't Michael Stipe EXACTLY the sort of person you would want on a jury making important decisions about his fellow Americans and standing up for what's right?

If I were being judged for a crime (whether I was guilty or not) I would take a whole bushel full of Michael Stipes on my jury.

Friday, January 4, 2008

Are You Tone Deaf? Let's Find Out

Ever been called tone deaf? Prove you aren't. Or conversely, you can prove someone else is.

This cool test for tone deafness comes straight from the labs of Harvard Medical School.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Happy New Year

Here's to peace on earth and good will toward men. And making music.