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Someone has already beaten you to it.

So, pretty much the artists are not being really paid too much, as anyone can tell you, where artists earn is in live performances. So, my opinion is that each RIAA CD people buy is only giving money to them [the RIAA] and almost nothing to the authors.

If people really want to support their artists they should go and watch them LIVE.

I hear this excuse all the time from people who try to justify (illegal) mp3 downloads--"the record labels rip off the artists anyway, so why should I support them?" To some degree, I can begin to understand how one might believe that enough to overcome the moral dilemma of stealing music. Sure, if the labels are stealing from the artists, why shouldn't you feel OK about stealing from the labels? Especially when you'll support the artist by going to see them live and buying a t-shirt at the show, right?

The problem is that when a band isn't selling records, a record label has little incentive to support them in the future. An artist can show overwhelming popularity, but without the album sales to back it up, why would a label invest more money in promoting them any further? I've seen it a dozen times with bands I know personally--sign a big-deal recording contract, the label doesn't recoup their investment, and the album gets shelved. At that point the band is really screwed, because they're usually locked into a three-album contract with a label that doesn't really want them any more. From there all they can do is break up (see Marvelous 3 v. Elektra for an example.)

It's true that bands make the most money from touring, so seeing them live really is the best way to support them. But remember that it's the record labels that invest in these bands in the first place to give them a shot to get out to the world. If everyone is downloading mp3s for free and no one is buying CDs, a record label isn't going to give the next band the chance to make it in the first place. Or that band who put out a phenomenal debut CD might not get the chance to make another one.

One more example: A friend in the industry told me that the Jimmy Eat World's Dreamworks debut Bleed American (which was unfortunately retitled after 9/11--but I won't get into that now) sold over 1.3 million copies, certifying it platinum. Sounds great, right? Well, the label hired a research group to take some polls and figure out exactly how many people actually had a copy of the album, whether it was purchased, downloaded, copied or whatever. They discovered that something like four million copies were out there. That's a pretty big difference in the eyes of the record company, and you can bet when it came time for the next record, Jimmy Eat World didn't get the same recording budget or care from the label as another artist who sold four million records.

Buying an artist's CD supports that artist, whether you're buying it from an unsigned band at their live show or from a big box retailer. Even if the artist only makes a dime from your $16 purchase, that other $15.90 tells the record label that it's worthwhile for them to keep putting out CDs for that artist. And to me, I'm willing to pay that money if it means the bands I like will get to keep making more music.

-leigh

i never heard of them either: allmusic bio

This might help to prevent a few people from sharing copyrighted material, but what's to stop the RIAA from suing due to the fact that someone could still find a way around the filter? Remember napster had a similar issue when it was used to trade music online. Even with the filters in place, napster had to shut down until its filters didn't even let one single copyrighted song to pass through.

Of course, what's the need of using software like limewire, kazaa, etc, go to Dmusic, allmusic.com, or even Epitomic.com. For movies, go to archive.org. For software, use your favorite search engine to look for any OSS, Freeware, or Shareware equivalent.

Allmusic is a good starting point for reccomendations. You can search an artist and it will give you similar artists along with artists who influenced that artists and artists who were influenced by that artist. It also is a good source for biographical and discography information.

The Yahoo subscription service also has a neat feature where you can queue up songs which are similar to a song/album/artist and listen to those songs, plus at $60 a year it is a pretty cheap way to find new music. I wouldn't reccomend it for building a music library due to the subscriptionyness of it though.

Kool Keith is Dr. Octagon, Dr. Doom, etc. But that is not the same person as Del tha Funky Homosapien

Kool Keith is Dr. Octagon, Dr. Doom, etc. But that is not the same person as Del tha Funky Homosapien

The bottom line is that as bandwidth and network performance increases and peer-to-peer use becomes more pervasive and legitimate (e.g. built into opera browser), the circumstances allowing people to receive high quality (in terms of a/v resolution) digital content over networks comes into place simultaneously with the means for effortless piracy.

I would love to be able to buy "I'm Alan Partridge" directly from the BBC without having to wait for it to come out on DVD (let alone come out on DVD in the US). I would love to watch the SABC news from south africa, in High Def. I would love to buy out of print records in full SACD quality, but only pay for the B-side.

Imagine an online record store that sold everything on allmusic.com!

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:6a u67ur080j3

instead of an online record store that looks like a local sam goody (itunes)

One of the major things preventing these products from being available is the lack of a universal, accepted DRM systems.

As far as keeping "backups" of your purchased content, if all of the content is purchased over a network, then certainly if local copies of your purchased content are damaged or lost, then you'd be able to re-download it, the DRM system would easily identify the download as legitimate (because you already paid for that item) (I know itunes doesn't do this, but others do)

And if it all is too cumbursome (which it doesn't have to be e.g. itunes) people will bag it and continue to purchase content by traditional means.

If, however, the product is better quality, more convienient, cheaper, and there is a greater selection, then by all means bring it on.

"/me gets started on the Rhythmbox patches."

Then quickly discovers it already does this using Allmusic

Whoops, I forgot to link to AllMusic. I just tried out the samples. It's Windows Media, so I don't think /. will like them.

<falsetto>
Touching you, touching me
touching you, god you're touching me.
</falsetto>

That's what you're doing.

come on!!! Ford Prefect == BLACK GANGSTA RAPPER (Mos Def) ?!?!??!?!?!

Mos Def, while black, and a rapper, is by no means a "GANGSTA RAPPER". You seem to be using "gangsta" and "ghetto" as insulting synonyms for "black".

And Mos Def was a professional actor before he started rapping, anyway - so I don't see how his musical career is relevant.

I agree that they probably shouldn't have cast a guy from Brooklyn to play Ford Prefect, and the fact that they chose a black actor does look like tokenism - but I don't remember Ford's race being at all significant to the book, or even mentioned (whereas Arthur is clearly a stereotypical white Englishman). And again, Mos Def's being a rapper no more makes him a poor actor than Clint Eastwood's writing his own scores makes him a bad director.

Anyway, the real problem with Ford Prefect is that the joke of his name is mostly lost on Americans. I sometimes which they had renamed him "Ford Escort" for U.S. consumption.

On a related note, the soundtrack album by the Vince Guaraldi Trio is about the only Christmas music that I find tolerable.

Riddle me that, Ziggy.

It was released on CD, as well as a couple if different remix albums, also produced by Jeff Wayne.

They also made a pretty mediocre PC game based on Wayne's work, and using a lot of the music. (badly edited, in some cases).

It was released on CD, as well as a couple if different remix albums, also produced by Jeff Wayne.

They also made a pretty mediocre PC game based on Wayne's work, and using a lot of the music. (badly edited, in some cases).

Oh come on now...there's even a song called "51st State" that came out in 1986 http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:53 rp28ot054a...so the idea of the UK being the 51st state is atleast that old.

you will undoubtedly find a Picture of Nectar

...with allmusic.com. Start at any artist/group, then think of a very different artist. Then see how few clicks on "Same personnel," "similar artists," "influenced by," etc you can make to get to that band. It actually tests your knowledge of music. Those who know more know which bands and artists are more likely to fill in the gaps.

I will try to answer these questions with a minimum of pretentiousness.

That's the average over a time period. Usually I will only buy one or maybe two and then go on a stock-up spree where I get, for example, 3 or 4 Funkadelic albums, or more Keith Jarrett records, or trying to complete some singles from a specific band. I do almost no shopping at music-only chain stores (Tower, Sam Goody) or online (with the exception of import CD singles). I shop almost exclusively at a local record store and are more than happy to buy a CD or two on a whim during these stock-ups simply because it is being featured. Usually the clerks will have a small write-up "Linkin Park meets Winston Marsalis!" that seems to get my attention. Also, a lot of these CDs come from places that are either used-cd or deep-discount warehouses. We're talking average cost of a CD $6 or below. The other day I got Songs in the Key of X, Beautiful Stranger, White Town's Women in Technology, and about 5-6 other CDs for $1 each. I would say safely the price of each CD I buy is, on average, under $10.

The only "chain" music store I ever support is the Virgin Megastore on Times Square because their music selection is ridiculous. Not as expansive as Amoeba in LA, for example, or stocked with obscure titles like Kim's Video in NYC, but it does the trick.

Some other parent asked about which labels I support, and I don't really support specific labels. If I see something interesting, the artist being on Nonesuch or Astralwerks or Def Jux might get me off the fence into the "buy" side but I figure as I'm not supporting ClearChannel-approved entertainers, I'm ok.

As far as the parent, I honestly expanded by knowledge of music and my musical vocabulary about ten-fold once I hit college and downloaded gigabytes upon gigabytes of different music. I was introduced to George Benson, the Greyboy Allstars, MC Paul Barman, the Rolling Stones (i.e. not their classic-rock staples), etc. To this day, I still have friends approach me about good music they've heard, etc. Previously I've recommended sites like PopMatters, Pitchfork, and AMG for a good way to browse around and find out new artists.

Cheers.

I listen to hip hop and I agree. But 90% of music I hear on the radio is garbage and that's probably where you're hearing your hip hop.

H-H is horrid imo - endless, short, electronic loops of intensely annoying sounds, weak and/or stupid lyrics, bad singing (if they even sing at all), it's overly produced, etc. etc.

If the hip hop you know is "endless, short electronic loops" then - in my opinion - you're not listening to hip hop. The definitions get nit-picky, but in my mind if the MC (the guy with the microphone) doesn't have a DJ backing him up doing the music, it's not hip hop. It could be called rap, though. (Hip hop as a genre, to me, would have to embody more than one of the aspects of hip hop culture - MCing, DJing, breakdancing, and graffiti.) So music with a DJ is what you're looking for. The music should be as good as the lyrics.

Now, beyond the instrumentals - if the music you know has weak and/or stupid lyrics, we have to find you new music. The reason I listen to hip hop is because of the lyrics, not in spite of. Because the lyrics are smart, because the rhymes are rhymes I've never heard, etc.

Without rambling on for days, let me list a few albums or artists you might like to check out. Jurassic 5 - any album. Blackalicious - any album, but check out the newest one Blazing Arrow. Lyrics Born - Later That Day. Maroons - Ambush. Zion I - any album. Dilated Peoples - any album. Mos Def. The Roots. Talib Kweli. All of these groups have smart, generally positive lyrics. If you find someone you like, visit www.allmusic.com and see who they've worked with on other songs, and check out those artists too.

If you're interested in turntablism (creating music with other records as the primary source) check out some of the great turntablists - The X-ecutioners, Rob Swift, Cut Chemist, DJ Z-Trip, DJ Shadow. (Rob Swift is in the X-ecutioners, but he has a few solo albums.)

It will be different music than what you're used to, probably, but it'll also be different than the overproduced "blazin' hip hop & R&B" trash they play on the radio. Give it a chance, and listen to the lyrics and pay attention to what the DJs are doing - maybe you'll find something you like.

I'm not talking about file sharing, I'm talking about internet radio stations.

I'm willing to bet that the same people that are buying satellite would listen to internet radio. I think that all the 15 mins of music with 30 mins of comercials really puts off a lot of tradional radio listeners these days. These people are turning to internet and satellite to avoid all this BS. You only need to listen to commerical radio once a month to memorize the playlist.

Turn on internet and satellite and you'll have to listen a whole month to hear the same song again, if it really does play again. Plus with internet radio you can get an artists name (not sure how this works with satellite).

My point is that if it weren't for these new technologies I probably wouldn't have found anything new.

That and AllMusic which is a great resource for researching a genre or even an artist that you like.

You can use All Music Guide. Put in some of your favorite bands and see what it suggests, to see which bands are similar. Or check out the genres to which your favorite bands belong, and find possibly interesting bands through that.

Here's the link to AMG. AMG likes you to register, otherwise you won't get all the things it offers (such as full listing of bands in a genre).

For example, if you were to search for some band, you'd find e.g. the genre "Stoner Metal" and from there you'd find some bands, which you might (or might not) like.

I'd like to see an open alternative to AMG. Something which would allow linking!

Remember the band Oasis? They sued their own fans who put up fan web sites about them, claiming copyright infringement. Heard an Oasis record lately? I haven't.

(dunno if the link will work; if not, head to the All-Music Guide and look it up.

(dunno if the link will work; if not, head to the All-Music Guide and look it up.

Well, when you see the list of the top grossing musicians of 2004 it roughly breaks down like this:

The majority of the acts seem to be highly succesful, artistically relevant artists, although the majority of those are way past their prime (the Stones, Aerosmith, the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac) and haven't made anything terribly important recently except new T-shirt designs based on their third Greatest Hits compilation (which might have one new song or a remix of an old song).

The minority of those acts are talentless label-driven/label-created "products" (Matchbox 20, Christina Aguilera, to some extent Justin Timberlake, Eminem & 50 Cent). Note that Britney Spears does not even appear on that list (I'm sure she's on the Top 100).

Some acts no longer exist (the Beatles), some are gaining revenue based on their fame or past work (Queen Latifah, Ice Cube). Some acts are succesful despite the labels (most notably Phish, the Dead, Jimmy Buffet).

It also appears that 2% of the most succesful artists are children of Ravi Shankar.

A lot of the artists on there are country acts, which you don't really hear about too much on filesharing discussions. And some of them you probably have never heard of (Eros Ramazotti, Trans Siberian Orchestra, Bill Gaither, Maná).

And out of all those 50, you can probably argue that only a handful (say, 8 or so), are artists who are really pursuing art and pushing boundaries as oppposed to touring based on past fame or ability.

But when you see that the top 10 artists netted (not tour-grossed) roughly $1bn, I'm not shedding any tears.

It's (almost) happened already; the glorious Ether Song by the Turin Brakes has the title track embedded at the end of track 12 (Rain City).

www.allmusic.com - quite a popular site, too. There was an awful lot of angst amongst Firefox users when AMG redesigned their site (an extension was even developed by one user to neaten up the new, non-standards-compliant site), but as of a week or so ago it just plain doesn't work in Firefox.

Still, not nearly enough to make me want to stop using FF.

Kiss and Make Up? So is Gene Simmons going to play the head villain?

> Whitney Huston's national anthem was only valued at $3.18 (perhaps she should be as upset as anyone). (Or does the disk only contain that one piece? In which case, um, I'm not at all sure what to say - especially if I'm to steer clear of legal action.)

The album contains two songs (totalling 3 minutes and 49 seconds), not one. What a deal!

Gangster rap has been going strong for 15 years already.

That's not at all true - the genre's been going strong for 20+ years.

Every rap video has the same

Judging a musical genre by its videos is hardly fair! You could make the exact same criticisms about the pop & rock genre by talking about Avril Lavigne or Slipknot videos.

Just as in other genres, there's huge differences in style and quality between different musicians.

Most ravers probably aren't fans of XTC, not even in lace. Perhaps you meant the drug ecstasy, instead.

Like AMG. Ugh, I used to love browsing through there, but they just released their site "upgrade", making things even more obtuse and non-standards-compliant than before.

Of course, I actually did a lot of reading up on web standards a year or so ago (oh how the world has changed since 1996, when I last did anything of the sort) and started to design/code based on standards then made corrections for MSIE. I should have done long ago, but better late than never.

Our tools are nowhere near 100% converted yet but at least we're finally moving in the right direction, and then something like this comes along -- over and over again. It's making me wonder how much of a priority shift I might see in the coming months to move away from IE entirely.

Don't take my word for it -- we're not the only corporation who has design problems because their code/css is designed solely for MSIE.

You could even argue that.

I could play a single note at a pitch that almost feels like a "why?" or other simple phrase. In which case it's a single note and it feels like it has meaning; fade and attack taking the place of changed pitch.

As for #1, that's much easier to picture - heck, I had a bass teacher years ago that was a master of it. He could play an entire song just bouncing between rhythm and attack on a single note.

Result, if I listen carefully, I can hear a slight difference. It's not the sort of difference that would make me throw out all of my CDs. It wasn't the sort of difference I'd notice if I weren't actively listening for the difference.

But it's not just audiophiles who pimp the differences. All Music Guide has a blurb similar to the one below on all of the reviews of the Rolling Stones CDs that were re-released in SACD format. (Taken from the review of Beggar's Banquet):

[The Rolling Stones' London/ABKCO catalog was reissued in August of 2002, packaged in digipaks with restored album artwork, remastered and released as hybrid discs that contain both CD and Super Audio CD layers. The remastering -- performed with Direct Stream Digital (DSD) encoding -- is a drastic improvement, leaping out of the speaker, yet still sounding like the original albums. This is noticeable on the standard CD layer, but is considerably more pronounced on the SACD layer, which is shockingly realistic in its detail and presence, yet is still faithful to the original mixes; Keith's revved-up acoustic guitar on "Street Fighting Man" still sends the machine into overdrive, for instance, it just sounds like he's in the room with you. Even if you've never considered yourself an audiophile, have never heard the differences between standard and gold-plated CDs, you will hear the difference with SACD, even on a cheap stereo system without a high-end amplifier or speakers. And you won't just hear the difference, you'll be an instant convert and wish, hope and pray that other artists whose catalog hasn't been reissued since the early days of CD -- Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, especially the Beatles -- are given the same treatment in the very near future. SACD and DSD are that good.]

Well, frankly, it can't be done... At least not within the CD. My only guess is that the CD has software that auto-loads, tells a server that the CD has been burned n times and that it now can no longer be burned. If I change my hosts file, EAC is not going to care what the CD is doing. In fact, all "copy protected" CDs I've been able to rip or make copies of for myself using EAC (including this very excellent one:Soulive's Turn It Out Remixed ). Once you rip the WAV files and copy that, the little auto-run software is gone.

That's the problem(?) with DRM. You need to implement it in hardware AND software at the same time for it to be able to "work" (see: DVD Region Codes) and even then it's not really going to work (ibid).

Now TO BE FAIR, this idea has its heart in the right place. I don't think anyone but the most extreme zealots would argue that a person should be able to make 10,000 copies of a CD by another artist. But where is that number? It's higher than "just a couple" but probably around "several".

Or, this could be a way to make DRM seem friendly and logical, have everyone implement it, then change it so it's what we all know it's going to turn out to be: crippling and crippled.

For a site that shows relationships between artists, as well as in-depth analyses of the smallest of genres and other great information you might want to try out AMG All Music Guide

Unfortunately I've not had the chance to hear "Brittany", but if they are, as you suggest, better than Autechre, Capitol K, Ratatat, and everything on Merck Records, then I have got to go download a couple of their tracks to try them out!

Or did you mean "Britney"? As in "Britney Spears"?

As for iTMS, I wasn't talking about it, and neither was the individual to whom I was replying.

That person was however talking about popular music, and it could be argued that the artists I mentioned are not particularly popular. I would have expected someone to point that out as a rational rebuttal to my argument.

Regardless, most of the "good" popular music from 20 years ago is also not free and therefore the subject is moot. And the good music that I like nowadays is not free, and I'm not going to give it up (and stop supporting the artists in any way whatsoever) just to grind a political axe against the RIAA. Most of these artists are indies anyway, on indy lables, so I'm not supporting the RIAA anyway, except perhaps for some labels that might be subsidiaries of larger RIAA labels. I think Astralwerks would fit that bill, but then I haven't bought anything of theirs since the last Chemical Brothers album came out.

Many of his Library of Congress recordings have been released as "Lead Belly". Document Records "Complete Recordings of..." series are under the name "Leadbelly" His gravestone says "HUDDIE (LEAD BELLY) LEDBETTER"

Many of his Library of Congress recordings have been released as "Lead Belly". Document Records "Complete Recordings of..." series are under the name "Leadbelly" His gravestone says "HUDDIE (LEAD BELLY) LEDBETTER"

I like They Might Be Giants, but I'll be damned if I'm paying $20.79 (let alone $62.79 at the $2.99/song level) for their song "Fingertips". You might also want to reconsider picking up that track Descendents tracks "All" (1 second) and "No, All!" (2 seconds).

I like They Might Be Giants, but I'll be damned if I'm paying $20.79 (let alone $62.79 at the $2.99/song level) for their song "Fingertips". You might also want to reconsider picking up that track Descendents tracks "All" (1 second) and "No, All!" (2 seconds).

Just be glad you don't have to pay normal price for this.

I don't know what the other 49 incarnations of Marduk are doing right now, but one incarnation of Marduk is busy Fistfucking God's Planet.

But if you like concept albums, I will suggest Dream Theater's Scenes from a Memory and Symphony X's V.

But if you like concept albums, I will suggest Dream Theater's Scenes from a Memory and Symphony X's V.

OK, and Allmusic (a source I find to be quite reliable) gives "C'mon C'mon" 4.5 out of 5 stars. (and Trust Company got a respectable 3).