This issue is a complex one, and seems to be getting more complicated with each advance of technology. The world we live in supplies bombarding media on every front. Radio stations play music based on pre-programmed playlists (rarely requests), interested more in sustaining the largest possible market share at any given moment in time in order to sell the moments between songs to advertising. Imagine a time when the DJs used to actually care about the music or cared about what they did as opposed to worrying about appeasing advertisers and bosses in their role in a massive promotion machine. Aren't you tired of the music stations (video and audio) being nowhere near subjective about the artists they present? When was the last time you heard one of the hosts saying "we promoted the hell out of your last album, and it sold moderately well, but was really poor work compared to this album, which it appears you actually put some care into". Appreciate the promotion machine for what it is - a non-subjective "everything is amazing!" loudspeaker for people who will deny having had anything to do with their current product in five years time. These musicians are products of the same system. Seeing some of todays musicians identify themselves as entertainers is really a joke, unless you find over-rehearsed computer-synchronized, surgically-enhanced, creativity-devoid puppets to your liking. I am hard pressed to think of a contemporary musician who doesn't perform someone else's hand-tailored works. The majority of them (IMO) have lost the standard musician lust for what they do and pride in what they're performing, and instead we can see the hail-mary pass of theirs to the one-shot at fame through their transparent facade. The smart rich kids have always had an edge. They had the cars when they first got their licenses; they had the stuff that people would steal from them at lunch hour, and the toys that other kids would take and break out of jealousy. The invention of the homebrewable recorded CDs in combination with high-speed internet access, decent audio compression, and at the same time an evolving global computer data network let the kids on the edge who could afford these luxuries first get one over on the greedy music companies and their "1 album = 2 good songs + 14 filler tracks" formula. The problem is now that it's not just one or two coolkids getting one over on the system and feeling superior against the system, but its a scheme marketed to the "rebel generation" as part of their collective heritage. Who do you blame for this? Blame @Home or any other high speed home internet provider for pushing their services in every neighborhood when they knew damn well what the major use of 100kb/s bandwidth was for a youth market who use music as a movie soundtrack for their lives. Blame HP and Sony and everyone else who made a CDR drive that a moron could use. Blame Pacific Digital and all of the other junk CDR disc manufacturers for flooding the market with such a garbage low-priced product that the solid reliable brands had to create a product with a similar pricepoint in order to compete. Blame Adaptec for making EasyCD Creator the product it is, so idiot-proof that v4.0 now features an annoying agent in the corner of the screen bearing an extreme resemblance to MS Office's Paperclip Assistant. All of these companies oversold Mom + Pop HomePC these necessities, (nudge nudge, wink wink) with the constant throwback that "hey, this stuff can be used for legitimate purposes - only the baddies use it for piracy!". If any of these companies actually cared about their customers and their non-piracy uses, they might start shipping COMPETENT backup software with the drives (HP has a nice disaster recovery program shipped with their burners but it needs work) or educating their buyers on one of the amazing advantages of having a large-capacity backup device. Show them how to back up their c:\windows\fonts folder, or their registry, or their My Documents folder. None of the companies have thought of this, however, because they have been too busy making money off of everyone's love of making a mixed cd for the car while telling their friends how much they "don't get computers" and avoiding math whenever possible. Many consumers tend to believe that paying Shania Twain $13.99 for her newest CD entitles you to near-limitless rights when it comes to her and her squealing. In reality, you have purchased a (semi)permanent recording of her current batch of tunes. What you did not purchase was worldwide distribution rights to tempt potential buyers of that product to instead exploit technical vulnerabilities and bake their own CD instead. I'm personally mixed about this - Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis jr. were true entertainers in my mind. They always had money as a result of their endless travels displaying their talents; never worried about selling one more or one less record; appreciated their fans and didn't instead humour them just by actually showing up; and did what they did because they loved it, not because they were undecided in high school and just happen to have buoyant physical attributes. If only ANY but a select few of the artists out there today had as much talent, deserved as much exposure, or could hold anyone's attention without a three hour makeup job or any equipment. Lars Ulrich speaking about these topics only shows his ignorance - his entire diatribes almost seem to be "musician-speak" grammar checked for him by some exec. Lars, I knew people who hunted flea markets for years to find a bootleg copy of your band's "Garage Days" album because you wouldn't release more copies. So what pisses you off more, that someone is such a devoted fan that they spend months tracking down rare versions of your songs and b-sides and original rarities and classics that YOU won't sell them anymore; or is it that some 12 year old kids can now do a lot of that in a few minutes from their bedrooms? i guess the expectation these overhyped musicians have is that they are no longer flattered that anyone is listening to them anymore, only curious why this months check is bigger than last months but less than it potentially could be.
Compaq Canada has recently helped create TrailPAQ; in effect helping to convert 3700 kilometers of abandoned railway tracks into nature trails, with another 1700kms to come, among other things. That's a lot of trails, and far more potentially useful to the planet than broken, rusty railways ties. Read about Compaq's TrailPAQ program
Slashdot Mirror
This issue is a complex one, and seems to be getting more complicated with each advance of technology. The world we live in supplies bombarding media on every front. Radio stations play music based on pre-programmed playlists (rarely requests), interested more in sustaining the largest possible market share at any given moment in time in order to sell the moments between songs to advertising. Imagine a time when the DJs used to actually care about the music or cared about what they did as opposed to worrying about appeasing advertisers and bosses in their role in a massive promotion machine. Aren't you tired of the music stations (video and audio) being nowhere near subjective about the artists they present? When was the last time you heard one of the hosts saying "we promoted the hell out of your last album, and it sold moderately well, but was really poor work compared to this album, which it appears you actually put some care into". Appreciate the promotion machine for what it is - a non-subjective "everything is amazing!" loudspeaker for people who will deny having had anything to do with their current product in five years time. These musicians are products of the same system. Seeing some of todays musicians identify themselves as entertainers is really a joke, unless you find over-rehearsed computer-synchronized, surgically-enhanced, creativity-devoid puppets to your liking. I am hard pressed to think of a contemporary musician who doesn't perform someone else's hand-tailored works. The majority of them (IMO) have lost the standard musician lust for what they do and pride in what they're performing, and instead we can see the hail-mary pass of theirs to the one-shot at fame through their transparent facade. The smart rich kids have always had an edge. They had the cars when they first got their licenses; they had the stuff that people would steal from them at lunch hour, and the toys that other kids would take and break out of jealousy. The invention of the homebrewable recorded CDs in combination with high-speed internet access, decent audio compression, and at the same time an evolving global computer data network let the kids on the edge who could afford these luxuries first get one over on the greedy music companies and their "1 album = 2 good songs + 14 filler tracks" formula. The problem is now that it's not just one or two coolkids getting one over on the system and feeling superior against the system, but its a scheme marketed to the "rebel generation" as part of their collective heritage. Who do you blame for this? Blame @Home or any other high speed home internet provider for pushing their services in every neighborhood when they knew damn well what the major use of 100kb/s bandwidth was for a youth market who use music as a movie soundtrack for their lives. Blame HP and Sony and everyone else who made a CDR drive that a moron could use. Blame Pacific Digital and all of the other junk CDR disc manufacturers for flooding the market with such a garbage low-priced product that the solid reliable brands had to create a product with a similar pricepoint in order to compete. Blame Adaptec for making EasyCD Creator the product it is, so idiot-proof that v4.0 now features an annoying agent in the corner of the screen bearing an extreme resemblance to MS Office's Paperclip Assistant. All of these companies oversold Mom + Pop HomePC these necessities, (nudge nudge, wink wink) with the constant throwback that "hey, this stuff can be used for legitimate purposes - only the baddies use it for piracy!". If any of these companies actually cared about their customers and their non-piracy uses, they might start shipping COMPETENT backup software with the drives (HP has a nice disaster recovery program shipped with their burners but it needs work) or educating their buyers on one of the amazing advantages of having a large-capacity backup device. Show them how to back up their c:\windows\fonts folder, or their registry, or their My Documents folder. None of the companies have thought of this, however, because they have been too busy making money off of everyone's love of making a mixed cd for the car while telling their friends how much they "don't get computers" and avoiding math whenever possible. Many consumers tend to believe that paying Shania Twain $13.99 for her newest CD entitles you to near-limitless rights when it comes to her and her squealing. In reality, you have purchased a (semi)permanent recording of her current batch of tunes. What you did not purchase was worldwide distribution rights to tempt potential buyers of that product to instead exploit technical vulnerabilities and bake their own CD instead. I'm personally mixed about this - Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis jr. were true entertainers in my mind. They always had money as a result of their endless travels displaying their talents; never worried about selling one more or one less record; appreciated their fans and didn't instead humour them just by actually showing up; and did what they did because they loved it, not because they were undecided in high school and just happen to have buoyant physical attributes. If only ANY but a select few of the artists out there today had as much talent, deserved as much exposure, or could hold anyone's attention without a three hour makeup job or any equipment. Lars Ulrich speaking about these topics only shows his ignorance - his entire diatribes almost seem to be "musician-speak" grammar checked for him by some exec. Lars, I knew people who hunted flea markets for years to find a bootleg copy of your band's "Garage Days" album because you wouldn't release more copies. So what pisses you off more, that someone is such a devoted fan that they spend months tracking down rare versions of your songs and b-sides and original rarities and classics that YOU won't sell them anymore; or is it that some 12 year old kids can now do a lot of that in a few minutes from their bedrooms? i guess the expectation these overhyped musicians have is that they are no longer flattered that anyone is listening to them anymore, only curious why this months check is bigger than last months but less than it potentially could be.
Compaq Canada has recently helped create TrailPAQ; in effect helping to convert 3700 kilometers of abandoned railway tracks into nature trails, with another 1700kms to come, among other things. That's a lot of trails, and far more potentially useful to the planet than broken, rusty railways ties. Read about Compaq's TrailPAQ program