Saturday, November 29, 2003
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
I also read Robert Christgau's recent take on Ted Leo, in which he sums him up as an "Indie Lifer"! My god, the horror, the horror!! I often read Christgau's round-ups (excuse me, "Consumer Guide"--what is this, Radio Shack?) because they offer quick takes on a bunch of CDs at once, with Entertainment Weekly-style school grades. It's compulsively readable. Agree with him or not, his selection is wide and is useful to read because it can expose you to titles you wouldn't normally read about. (Or that you've forgotten about--he often takes months to get around to popular discs.) But, just for the record? His taste stinks. He has way too much of the contrarian in him (a common critical flaw), and too much of the snob (ditto).
Have you heard there's a new musical about Boy George playing on Broadway? And the "boy" is in the cast? But not as himself? And that Rosie O'Donnell is involved in the American production? Huh, have you?
Friday, November 07, 2003
Unbelievable! Today's news reports that Penn State will be providing free legal downloading of music to its students using the new, corporatized Napster service. The money is coming out of an already-existing student fee. It's good news, in the sense that it continues the now-clear trend of encouraging people to download music in a way that profits the musicians. But from all accounts the new Napster service is pretty bad. Still, it will improve, and I'll bet other colleges will follow suit and broker contracts with better services. The terms of the contract are interesting--the students can listen to that music as long as they're students, but if they want to burn it (so they can keep it after graduation), they need to pay the now (thanks, Apple!) standard 99cents per copy. (At least that was my understanding.)
Monday, November 03, 2003
Some interesting articles in the Times lately:
- One article about The Shins' new album tosses off the idea that selling 100,000 copies is "indie platinum"!
- Another talks about a demographic that's saving the music industry, if only for the moment--boomers, the idea being that they buy rather than download. More on that whole topic in a minute
- Finally, an article today profiles a real-life "School of Rock" and its teacher, and the guy seems to feel the film ripped him off. Looks to me like he's squandering his 15 minutes mumbling threats of legal action when he could be riding audiences' goodwill to greater fame.
So, back to boomers and music. This reminds me of a nice campaign Tower Records had to promote a recent 30%-off sale on all CDs last weekend here in Chicago: "We know Tone, not Toner." And they had another good 1-liner or two like that with sharp visial to drive home the notion (and to me this is a great selling point) that, gee, downloading music, burning it, printing labels and cover art--do it routinely and it starts to feel like work. If you can get a good price, wouldn't you rather just buy it? That's a powerful argument, and with top $18.99 CDs being marked down to $11-something, I definitely was inspired to buy quite a bit. Of course, I have a full-time job and am lucky to have some disposable income. I wonder if the trend of young people downloading over buying is partly a function of not having much money. Will they grow out of it and into buying? An interesting question.
Another thing I've noticed, and the Times article gets into this above, is this current spate of middle-aged artists covering oldies all of the sudden. Yeah, you expect Streisand and Midler to do it. But Rod Stewart singing standards?! (yuck!) Now Cyndi Lauper has one coming out (might be better than whatever she's been doing for the last 15-20 years). And Michael McDonald has one--but the difference there is he's covering Motown oldies, which is a more interesting project to me. Truer to what he's always been about. I cringe at the idea of Rod singing Tin Pan Alley, though. When there are so many legendary pop/jazz renditions of those songs to savor and treasure (and I've only just begun). People, people, check out Ella Fitzgerald, for god's sake.
