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This week in music
This week was very good for commercial music. Or, what I meant to say was... a couple of good albums by biggish names came out.
The big story for the music biz this week, of course, is that of Grey Tuesday. In protest of innapropriate copyright laws and the major labels' deathgrip on music, 170 web sites offered The Grey Album for download. Meanwhile, those of us with less tenacity simply changed our CSS files to make everything gray. By Tuesday evening, the New York Times, Wired, MTV News and BBC had covered the protest -- mission accomplished.
So what, exactly, were we protesting? Mostly it's silly copyright laws that -- while designed to protect arists and keep intellectual 'property' safe -- prevent artistic contributions to society that do more good than harm. The issue here is EMI's copyright to the Beatles' White Album. While rightly protecting the right to copy the recording for commercial benefit (Paul and Ringo have a right to be paid each time someone buys a copy, however little it is), current laws make it illegal to sample and reconstruct the music. Sampling for use in creating new music doesn't take money away from the Beatles or EMI, but it does result in brilliant music and new culture. How can that be bad?
The other point of contention is the way major record labels -- and there are only five, so there isn't a lot of healthy competition to keep 'em honest -- use these laws to put music in a stranglehold, stifling creativity and making a career in music very hard to come by. From Downhill Battle:
The major labels' business model requires them to have a steady stream of consistent products. The very nature of their operation produces homogenized music designed for specific radio formats and scientifically honed to hit-making models. Artists are signed and promoted based on the opinions of individual A&R executives, not the popularity of the music.
All the things the majors do to manipulate the music business cost money. Millions of dollars in payola, 8 figure executive salaries, poor choices of new artists, overpriced studios -- this money comes from musicians and fans, but benefits neither.
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In what is probably a coincidence, Brad Mehldau and The Bad Plus released long-awaited new albums on Tuesday as well. Needless to say, I bought them both from iTunes (though I don't feel so good about it these days). Coupled with Norah Jones' beautiful new release last week, it would appear that commercial jazz is alive and well!
Another interesting aside: Damien Rice's beautiful "Cannonball" has been remixed for radio, and will be released as part of an EP soon. The new version is an abomination of a great song. A sparse, down-tempo ballad with distinctive production qualities has been given drums, sped up uncomfortably, and been treated with whatever gloss they apply to stuff you hear on the radio. So it's perfect. Anyway, Mr. Rice sounds like the love child of David Gray and John Mayer on this particular mix. How do you think he feels about this?