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It is simply easy for someone to blame someone else, rather than looking closer at home. If there is trouble, blame someone else. Let's blame Marilyn Manson, South Park (Canada!), or Games.

It is a bit offtopic, but the story is killer.

"When Jonah was ten, an older neighborhood kid told an eighteen-year-old woman, 'I've got a buddy who's got the biggest dick you'll ever see. It's probably a foot long. He's kind of shy. Want to fuck him?' The woman said she did. So Jonah, who was five foot zero, maybe ninety-eight pounds and mostly bald in the crotch, agreed to meet this woman. ... He remembers 'fondling and fucking' and that the woman was probably on top, but all that is vague to him now. What still echoes is the woman's refrain: 'Holy shit! I've never seen anything like that in my life. Holy shit!'"

Read article...

> it's the music people pay for not the inane lyrics except in extremely > rare cases.

Some of us actually obssess over lyrics... when I get into some new music in a big way , the first thing I do is read the lyrics and see if there's anything good in there. Right now I've suddenly found that the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who I always thought were self-indulgent heavy-metal surfer druggy wankers, turn out a superb album . A friend kept playing it to me, and I suddenly found myself compelled to go out & buy it. Now I can't stop playing it - seriously, I'm playing it to death, at work, in the car, at home. Now the lyrics are on the inlay, but they're hard to read, and the inlay is one of those awkward fold-out types instead of a neat little booklet. Result: it's easier to have a browser window in the background so I can pull up, say 'Venice Queen' to find out what comes after "Does it go from east to west, y'all?" .

For various reasons the lyrics here as Morrissey half put it "say lots to me about my life" - it's quite a while since music reduced me to tears, but this did it (actually 'Dosed' did it). This is NOT inane.

That's $150,000 per song times 6 million copies for a total of $900,000,000,000 ?

Obligatory dose of clue for columbine historians.

One equation to rule them all, one equation to find them one equation to bring them all and in the darkness bind them...

You laugh, but (from the article):

Gielis has patented his discovery, and is developing computer software based on it. Using one formula to produce shapes will make graphics programs much more efficient, he says. It might also be useful in pattern recognition.

On another "note":

References

1. Gielis, J. A generic geometric transformation that unifies a wide range of natural and abstract shapes. American Journal of Botany, 90, 333 - 338, (2003). |Article|

Didn't this guy have a musical group or something?

I mean, a Johnny Cash cover of Nine Inch Nails? Sorry, but Hurt is NOT country music

You are right Hurt is not really country music, but Cash's cover is pretty good and the video quite powerful.

There's an article in Rolling Stone about Columbia pilot Willie McCool taking the first Weezer album into orbit with him. Apparently he was a huge fan of the group and got to know them fairly well before the flight.

Obligatory columbine link -- Marilyn Manson providing the best yet article about it

She looks pretty Icelandic to me.

Well ... Zappa, or at least his widow, is hardly indifferent to copyright. I think you may be seriously misinterpreting those lyrics.

Re the Sonny Bono Act, his widow: "I'm all for copyright term extension, to maintain the integrity of the artists' intentions," says Gail Zappa, widow of recording artist/composer Frank Zappa, "even though for most it's an uphill fight to get control." Frank Zappa got ownership of his masters before he died; his widow owns them but has sold the distribution rights to Rykodisc"

And a recent lawsuit.

There's a difference between the death of expression and the death of copyright.

Do a little googling for businesses getting sued for having music playing in their establishment and you'll have your answer (here's a hint: unless you're playing something completely non-RIAA, you're screwed). Now, for fun, here's a link to an article about Justin Timberlake being sued for assault in 2000:

www.rollingstone.com/news/newsarticle.asp?nid=1285 9

So who the heck has heard of Bill Wyman?

And why would anyone care about the former Rolling Stone?

His use of the domain name for individual promotion isn't any more critical to his career than the present owner. It certainly wasn't important enough for him to register it when it was available.

Perhaps he could learn a lesson from his former band mates? The Rolling Stones are well known, but nonetheless they've certainly have a reasonable understanding with the magazine of the same name.

Why couldn't the *former* member compromise about this as well (especially since the owner was born wtih that name)? billwyman.org or williamwyman.com or any of a dozen variants are readily available.

And he's got plenty of good reasons

The man who told the world "I Won't Back Down," "Don't Do Me Like That" and "Don't Come Around Here No More" doesn't need any assertiveness-training course. Tom Petty's determined, sometimes defiant attitude has collided with the music business throughout the years. For instance, in 1982 Petty recorded Hard Promises with the Heartbreakers, only to find that his then-record company had plans to use his name to initiate a new, higher $9.98 list price for albums. Petty withheld the tapes and threatened to retitle his record $8.98 in protest.

That same spirit is alive and well on Petty's latest album, The Last DJ, which takes a hard look at the lack of moral grounding in the music business. The title track has kicked up considerable controversy, with some radio stations seeing the song as a slap in the face and banning it. But Petty is not just biting the hand that feeds him. Music is only the beginning of what's pissing him off these days. "The Last DJ is a story about morals more than the music business," he says. "It's really about vanishing personal freedoms."

Read More

Or maybe this is the result?

In the early 90's Hip-hop was very much on its way to becoming the next big thing.

And yet, this is the result.

didn't Madonna release some sort of electronica music album recently? Actually, if I remember from interviews or something, didn't she claim to invent it?

But in all seriousness, there is a pretty decent article on rollingstone.com about top DJ's and the rave scene and so forth.

Marilyn is no more extreme than Alice Cooper or Lou Reed or freakin' David Bowie. Sure, he looks pretty crazy, but no crazier than the dude that works in the local video store (and he's spent a lot more on his wardrobe). I'm no fan of his music, but reading interviews with him he is hardly "freakish" or "extreme"; he votes Republican; his views are not that far out of the mainstream, and after his music was blamed for Columbine he wrote one of the most intelligent responses to the tragedy that I came across in the media that spring (including on slashdot; my apologies JonKatz). The only reason he's so controversial is that he's intentionally giving the finger to the religious right, which is most likely his family background. So he takes a lot of his symbolism from Christianity and performs in a manner that is provocative and mocking. Of course it pisses those people off, it's meant to, but it's hardly a threat to your children unless you want to keep them closed-minded. (It's definitely not a threat to your children if you believe in Zeus, as the parent post implies!)

You got to admire how clever he is too (though admittedly he's picking on an easy target); in response to many of the criticisms of his treatment of Christianity he promised in this interview to "balance my songs with a wholesome Bible reading" so fans can "examine the virtues of wonderful 'Christian' stories of disease, murder, adultery, suicide, and child sacrifice. Now that seems like 'entertainment' to me."

Yes, me too. With a bowl of hot grits in one hand and my new Rolling Stone / Natalie Portman issue in the other it's a little hard to navigate at times.

Thanks for the help!

Yes, me too. With a bowl of hot grits in one hand and my new Rolling Stone / Natalie Portman issue in the other it's a little hard to navigate at times.

Thanks for the help!

Yes, me too. With a bowl of hot grits in one hand and my new Rolling Stone / Natalie Portman issue in the other it's a little hard to navigate at times.

Thanks for the help!

To do so would raise anti-trust issues. Reporters always get this wrong. The RIAA reports the number of records shipped to stores, not actual sales. Go to their market data page and you will see, it's only shipments, shipments, shipments and not sales.

Record stores don't buy records. If a record doesn't sell, it is sent back and the label/distributor eats the cost. Only if a store sells a record does it pay.

The latest RIAA numbers are deceptive because they factor in the disproportionate drop in singles shipped (~80%). The drop isn't the result of a drop in market demand but rather a conscience decision by the labels to stop shipping music in the singles format! This was done in a sort of bait-and-switch gambit to force consumers to migrate from singles to full albums.

Not only does the slight-of-hand work to trip up lazy reporters, it also works as a good tool to alarm busy senators and representatives.

The real statistic of note in the latest report is that 90% of all units shipped are CDs and their dollar value slipped only 2.7 % from the year prior which is not shocking during an economic downturn.

Here

Here

Daft Punk was *always* about being the thing that they parody. Read this review. He seems to get it. Also, "One More Time" is more subversive than anything else they've done. It's *fantastic*. Sure, it sounds silly at first. So listen again, watch the four videos, and read this review.

Not that I think these people are cool or anything, but how about:

Master P: Believe it. A couple years ago, I read that he was in the top fifty list of richest men under 40 from his record label empire that he runs, No Limit. He made 365 million in one year-- that topped Michael Jordan. He turned thirty this year.

Michael Dell: Currently aged 34 years. Started and has run Dell computers through his 20s. Now has 21 billion dollars.

Seth Warshavsky: At the helm of the largest online porn entity-- IEG (Internet Entertainment Group) at age 24. He started and has run the company responsible for profitting off the online Dr. Laura nude pics and the Tommy Lee and P. Anderson video. In 1997 it grossed $20 million. Granted, unlike Dell, this guy has some morals and taste.

Just wanted to point out that legal downloads from musicians who WANT you to download can be found at:

IUMA
UBL (Artist Direct)
mp3.com
vitaminic
mp3.fr
rollingstone.com
Amazon.com has a free downloads section in the music department

And for money:

emusic.com

This is my take on florida. It may not jive with yours, so that's why I present it.

Gore made the politically astute move of supporting Elian's stay in the US. The cuban-americans are supporting him for that. But they actually make up only a small fraction of the voting populace of the state. The stronger vote in Florida are the retirees. Many of which are jewish. They like Lieberman. They also are big Sammy Haggar fans and love the notion of Gore putting Social Security funds in a three-lock-box.

Until such issues become solid legislation and real attempts to strip our liberties rather than conflagaration to get square middle class votes, and on that day we should fucking fight like a heavyweight champion - until then let's consider what's truly important. Neither of the candidates during the debate apart from scurillious scaremongering had anything intelligent or definite to say about the supposed "culture of violence". It's just hype

The next president will appoint 3 supreme court justices.

What the candidates' position on space exploration might be.

A fossil fuel crisis is looming. Our demands outstrip what's needed. Next president has the power to declare areas in Alaska a national monument to prevent oil drilling. May I remind you that the only the only single remaining natural salmon runs in the US is now in Alaska.

These are some of the issues I don't think have been highlighted enough in favor of assurances to people about their money. What's more important to me is which candidate is equipped and intelligent enough to understand that science governs progress at this point in time, and is prepared to understand it's appliance.

The number of bits per second was static, and it wasn't increasing; meanwhile, processing power was expanding geometrically, logarithmically, explosively - Al Gore as quoted in RollingStone.com article

Wow, Al, logarithmic growth, now there's speed.

Neil Morton and Steve Park, two former Shift editors, have launched Myvideogames.com, a webzine that promises to offer literate commentary on game-culture and storytelling. They claim they want to do for video game reporting what Rolling Stone did for music journalism.

I'm not usually a Katz-basher, but this one really seems to be stretching its content past the breaking point. And he didn't even get URL right!

- Michael Cohn

-Earthman

-Earthman

I think the article that is quoted from can be found on Rollingstone.com. I found it by going to the offspring homepage, clicking on their own press release, then the rolling stone story, then 'more about the offspring'. Pretty funny stuff.

(Feel free to hover that link before following. Can't say as I blame as of late.)

If you read in further, Offspring goes into saying that they support the distribution of mp3s over the internet. They support the idea in general; countering a Wired article saying they would be pressing charges against Napster.

More information as well as quotes from Offspring can be found at the Rolling Stone.

The Rolling Stone interview linked from the offspring's website (http://www.rollingstone.com/sections/news/text/ne wsarticle.asp?afl=&NewsID=1069 4&ArtistID=153) said that the reason they came out was that Wired pissed them off saying they were thinking about suing. Anyone see the Wired article about how The Offspring is ripping off Napster? http://www.wired.com/news/cu lture/0,1284,36733,00.html

An interview in Rolling Stone quotes them as saying some very interesting things. My personal favorite being:

While Metallica have filed suit, citing the loss of revenue due to the online swapping, Holland disputes the idea. "From what I can tell it's not taking any money from people," he says. "I think it's expanding bands' fan bases. For us, when our last record was relatively new, about a year ago, we were the most downloaded band on the Internet . . . and geez, it certainly didn't hurt our record sales. We were doing great at that time. We were in the top ten for like six months or something," Holland says. "Somebody told me 'N Sync's record was available on Napster like three weeks before it came out, and obviously it didn't hurt their sales either. So I think it's good. It's the spirit of music; it's the spirit of rock & roll. More people coming to the party. Not less."

An interview in Rolling Stone quotes them as saying some very interesting things. My personal favorite being:

While Metallica have filed suit, citing the loss of revenue due to the online swapping, Holland disputes the idea. "From what I can tell it's not taking any money from people," he says. "I think it's expanding bands' fan bases. For us, when our last record was relatively new, about a year ago, we were the most downloaded band on the Internet . . . and geez, it certainly didn't hurt our record sales. We were doing great at that time. We were in the top ten for like six months or something," Holland says. "Somebody told me 'N Sync's record was available on Napster like three weeks before it came out, and obviously it didn't hurt their sales either. So I think it's good. It's the spirit of music; it's the spirit of rock & roll. More people coming to the party. Not less."

Courtney Love, of the band "Hole", railed against the RIAA and record industry at a New York conference on Digital Music Tuesday.

And I quote:

"It's become quite fashionable lately for artists to express outrage at music piracy, and I'm a fashionable gal. Stealing artists' music without paying for it is absolutely piracy -- and I'm talking about major labels, not Napster," she remarked, citing major record labels as the single greatest threat to artist subsistence.

She is desperately trying to break off from Geffen to go "DIY".

Here are the links:

news page on the hole site

and the rolling stone article

But that doesn't mean I'd ever consider going into my school or something and doing that. That's the difference between sane people who watch a movie like that, and insane people. Insane people would go kill people after seeing that(or at least some people would like to believe it's that simple).

I don't understand why everyone thinks this...yeah, the violence looked cool, but it was also very specifically emphasized that it was 'fake' and, (in the real world) very costly (the fact that they did feel the effects IRL).

What everyone sccreaming 'it's the media's fault' doesn't realize, (while they are at incredible fault for the way they portrayed the whole columbine thing and others) is that people were shooting in schools (jonesboro, etc) before The Matrix ever came out. These boys were not sociopaths, made by watching one too many horror flicks; they were sociopaths who happened to like horror/action movies.

If violent movies/music were why people kill; we'd all be dead by now (ayone watched the tv news lately?) Thera are so many other factors it's amazing and any psychologist who's not being paid for a tv interview should be able to explain that.

Marilyn Manson (who the Columbine boys actually did not listen to) wrote an article about how he sees the media as involved. It's interesting; probably not what the average parent would expect.

WB, etc will not stop any deaths by doing this, and i doubt they're even trying to. What they will do is possible remove the media connections to them and 'wash their hands'.

I think everyone should take a step back from this and look at why we are doing all these crazy things. It all leads almost directly out of Columbine. It was tragic to be sure, but to make major changes in laws and/or our society after 15 people die in a fairly isolated incident is ridiculous.

I think on one level my response to this would be "well, how many people do justify a change?" because i think it would be an okey thing if there were some isolated cause for it. But that's completely unrealistic.

"guns don't kill people...violent movies and trenchcoats kill people"

I have numerous friends in the music industry - both at management level and performers - all of whom are hip to the idea of free online distribution of some of their recordings. If that brings more people out to their shows to buy tickets and t-shirts then they're thrilled.

There's an article about mp3 over at Rolling Stone entitled World War MP3 - a worthy read to get industry perspectives on this subject.

Cheakamus