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hmm, i just discovered mp3fiesta.com
Seems to be a legal site, with $1-$2 album downloads (10 cents a song, mas o menos), and an impressive catalog. I've just downloaded Springsteen's latest (Magic -- which is an E. Street Band production that sounds a lot like The Rising, btw), Apocalyptica, New Order's first (Movement), and Consolidated. That's a pretty wide spectrum of both new releases and catalogue material. They even have NIN's Year_Zero which I wasn't even aware was available digitally and Still (which Amazon sells digitally for full price).
WTF? No, really, WTF? iTunes and Amazon cost about 10 times as much. Perhaps sound quality is lower here, but that's of no consequence for iPod/pc playback.
Perhaps it's a sting set up by the RIAA, in which case my lovelies, I shall see you in five years once I get out of jail. :-p
The only annoyance is that after you buy an album, you have to download each track individually, but on Linux, Amazon makes you do that anyway. Time to grab one of the Firefox downloader extensions.
Seems to be a legal site, with $1-$2 album downloads (10 cents a song, mas o menos), and an impressive catalog. I've just downloaded Springsteen's latest (Magic -- which is an E. Street Band production that sounds a lot like The Rising, btw), Apocalyptica, New Order's first (Movement), and Consolidated. That's a pretty wide spectrum of both new releases and catalogue material. They even have NIN's Year_Zero which I wasn't even aware was available digitally and Still (which Amazon sells digitally for full price).
WTF? No, really, WTF? iTunes and Amazon cost about 10 times as much. Perhaps sound quality is lower here, but that's of no consequence for iPod/pc playback.
Perhaps it's a sting set up by the RIAA, in which case my lovelies, I shall see you in five years once I get out of jail. :-p
The only annoyance is that after you buy an album, you have to download each track individually, but on Linux, Amazon makes you do that anyway. Time to grab one of the Firefox downloader extensions.
Frankie's diner, an old friend on the edge of town
The neon sign spinning round
Like a cross over the lost and found
The fluorescent lights flick over Pop's Grill
Shaniqua brings the coffee and asks "Fill?" and says "Penny for your thoughts now my boy, Bill"
She went away, she cut me like a knife
Hello beautiful thing, maybe you could save my life
In just a glance, down here on magic street
Loves a fool's dance
And I ain't got much sense, but I still got my feet
The girls in their summer clothes
In the cool of the evening light
The girls in their summer clothes, pass me by ~~ Springsteen, "Girls in their summer clothes"
[LJ2ME] When my fears arise i blow them out
at first i thought it was too obviously crammed with reznor's year-zero soundscaping. but i get it now. saul and trent are a very organic fusion at this moment. Trent can write very intense lyrics when he's picking at his own emotional scabs, and while *he* doesn't get close to that level of power when he's trying social commentary, that's what Saul's all about.
So I don't think Niggy's sound is a case of trent not being able to sound like anything but himself, even when trying to make a hip-hop album. "Niggy" isn't Trent trying to do hip-hop. It's more like an in-between sequels, alternate take of year-zero. It's an iteration of year-zero. it ought to have a halo number. Saul's lyrics, notwithstanding their frequent use of "NGH" (which is often ironic at two or more levels), could easilly have formed the semantic content to year-zero. you might have to listen to Niggy a bit slant to hear that, but that's only fitting: saul's diction is down with dickinson's idea of truth and divinity.
Download it at niggytardust.com
funny addendum: my CD changer just tracked off the end of 'Niggy', and onto NIN's "Broken". Till the lyrics of "WiSH" kicked-in, I didn't quite notice that we'd switched discs!
New York Magazine interviewed Trent and Saul (unfortunately mostly about the distribution model rather than the music). Trent confesses to putting his money where his mouth his [when asked how much he paid for Radiohead's in rainbows]: "I bought the physical one, so I spent a whopping $80. [Pauses.] But, then I re-bought it and paid $5,000, because I really felt that I need to support the arts, so people could follow in my footsteps."
( what you don't have, you don't need it now / what you dont know, you can feel it somehow )
Andrew Love's video here: It's a Beautiful Day, to Speedskate
I'll make a full post about her soon, but Meaghan Buisson is an amazing woman. Achieved national level in something like 6 HS sports, and world-class level in inline speedskating while suffering from an eating disorder. Suffered a potentially career-ending injury, went to rehab, got her body eating healthy again, and now she's making a bid for the 2010 winter olympics, along with speaking out and being an activist about eating disorders. Yes, in 2006 she set Canadian national records for the shortest (300m) and longest (42Km marathon) inline races. While sweeping first place in all the distances at Nationals that year, she went on an off-day to set the world record for the solo marathon.
I dunno about the voice, but I guess she can get the nasally quality.
I still haven't seen "Control" yet. Probly tomorrow. Was really, really, planning on seeing it today, but I ended up going out in-line skating at 22:40. All I have to say about that is that Speedskating is hard. Hard hard hard. Harder for me to make progress in than figure-skating, because people don't really get much coaching in outdoor inline speedskating, and so even though it's *as* technical as figure-skating, most of us try to discover that technique via trial-and-error, mimicing other skaters in when we draft them.
If I were to ask a non-skater what do you think is harder: (a) doing double-jumps and spins with grace or (b) going forward as fast as you can for long distances, -- I'm sure most would pick (a). Turns out though that going as fast as you can on skates is just as technically involved. And if you look at the best technicians, the long track speedskaters you see at the winter Olympics, you see a similar grace in their movements as you do with figure skaters. Speedskaters don't exactly make it look easy; certainly at the end of a long-track 10,000m, you *see* the pain on the skater's faces. Even then though, they manage to create a near-perfect synergy of gravitation, muscular contraction, and the slice of steel through ice. They don't push themselves forward, so much as that they make speed happen.
Here's a photograph on a speedskater's blog that pretty much sums it up: http://andrewlove.org/blog/?p=417
And check the slo-motion parts in this video:
people confound two aspects of dl-ing: (1) it allows people to share their musical tastes with friends, put the word out about unknown music, lets new artists or established artists with new work to get heard outside of mainstream radio. (2) it lets people steal other people's creativity.
The technology is the same in both cases, and that's why people confuse them. When I grew up, my friends and i would trade music on cassettes. Then we would go out and buy more records from the bands we liked. That's how it should work. But with peer-to-peer and mp3s, you don't have to spend 180mins recording two albums onto a tape to share it with one friend: you click your mouse 5 times or so, and hundreds of people can listen to your whole music collection. Since the technology no longer limits how much you share, *people's* own ethics should.
To me it's a no brainer: download and listen to stuff you are curious about. Delete it if you don't like it. Keep it if you think it's ok, and you might want to listen to it a couple of more times. *BUY IT* if you end up putting it on your i-pod and listening to it every other day. *BUY IT* if you like it enough to share it with your friends. *BUY IT* if you're going to remix it or sample a lot of it and then share the result on the web. "IT" doesn't have to be the exact tracks you downloaded, but at the least should be some more tracks from the same artist, or concert tix, or their live DVD or whatever.
I think established artists should move to a voluntary payment system. Instead of DRM that prevents copying, DRM should do something like nag you with "suggested donation $0.99 if you like this track", and perhaps keep a count of your ratio of things you've taken/shared for free vs. what you payed for. That way "good citizens" who pay more get bragging rights.
- I made an unusual musical connection today. The shrilly thin treble voice used by female Bollywood singers (a vocal styling I detest), has a parallel in the female vocals of some R&B songs. It's not so extreme as the Bollywood case, but I do hear it, and it's meant to be sexy. I find it infantile, and perhaps the sexiness is supposed to come from the mixing of the pliant childish voice and the tawdry content. Give me Amanda Palmer's gutterral unabashed sexuality any day!
- I am at my best when at my most childlike, and at my worst when attempting to deny that, thereby sinking into petulant, willful childishness. I think it's because much of my adolescence was spent in trying to deny adolescent feelings like crushes, pride, unabshed sexuality, and also in missing and despising an absent, overly attatched, and sexually controlling mother. Sad that I am coming to realize this only on the verge of my 37th year, eh? Most people start figuring it out the mornings after drunken, anonymous college sex. I honestly wouldn't trade my own hormonally inebriated but otherwise sober, sweet, soul-arresting experiences of first kisses and inexperienced fumbling under waistlines that I had at 21 for any amount of teenage sex and rebellion, and it's certainly physically *safer* that I'm going through the rebellion phase now, as an adult. Psychically though, I'm decades behind in my development because of it -- but perhaps not; at least I know how to love, and I know that I can love. Learning that I don't always *need* to love, is probably a far less painful lesson than those learned by people afraid of, unaware of, or unable to love, and by their unfortunate partners as well!
it’s last call and you’re the last one leaving
and you thought you could change the world
by opening your legs
it isn’t very hard
try kicking them instead
and you thought you could change his mind
by changing your perfurme to the kind his mother wore
o god delilah why? ~ The Dresden Dolls, "Delilah"
- Mood:alive
- Music:"Delilah" ~ The Dresden Dolls
Should I choose a noble occupation?I'm not yet sure what Amanda's singing about there, but OMFG(oddess) I love her for it!
If I did I'd only show up late and sick
And they would stare at me with hatred
Plus, my only natural talent's wasted on
My alcoholic friends
~ "My Alchoholic Friends", The Dresden Dolls
peace out, my lovelies.
- Mood:mindfully euphoric
- Music:"Dirty Business" ~ The Dresden Dolls
Hey! Another music post. Hey! And it's not about NIN. No way? Way.
The Grey Album is old news, I know. Heck, last year I attended a college lecture mistitled "open source music", which paid high praise to DJ Dangermouse. But this is the first time I'm hearing it. And fuck, I had to listen to this particular track five times straight. In a way it does to Jay-Z's vocals what Apocalyptica did to Metalica's melodies and harmonies.
stay in the movie, dawg!
Anyway, I really, desperately need listening suggestions for underground hip-hop. "Underground" as in interesting, like El-P, Mos-Def, etc, not as in unsigned. Anyone?
Here's a nice tidbit I found: decent quality audio files from Trent Reznor's 2006 Bridge-school benefit. It's NIN for piano and string quartet. I especially like "Non-Entity", which has the strings sounding like Apocalyptica. I don't know who arranged the songs. If it was Trent though, I really wonder why he doesn't release some non NIN material. I can guess: NIN is his craft, while "Trent for string quartet" is something more of a gimmick. He might have some classical training, but he's no Yo-Yo Ma, and he knows it. With Pro-tools and a digital studio as his instrument, though, he's at his best, right? On the other hand, if Sting can do early music and Jazz, why in the world shouldn't Trent expand his musical palette?
In other news, I'm going ice-skating today, for the first time in about 2 weeks. Phwew.
The new Nine Inch Nails album has been available for streaming off their website for a few weeks now, and it's out in stores now.
( The surprising, and insidious, thing is how groovalicious it is. )
( Anyway, there are definitely a few keepers on the album. )
They plan on eventually releasing all the tracks in Garageband format (see 3/13/07 entry), so that fans can remix and play with the songs. Open-source pop music!
( Some quotes plucked from the ether that characterize Trent's latest effort: )
A final note of advice: don't listen to the album too much. It's best when you hear it with somewhat fresh ears.
( The surprising, and insidious, thing is how groovalicious it is. )
( Anyway, there are definitely a few keepers on the album. )
They plan on eventually releasing all the tracks in Garageband format (see 3/13/07 entry), so that fans can remix and play with the songs. Open-source pop music!
( Some quotes plucked from the ether that characterize Trent's latest effort: )
Don't give a shit about the temperature in Guatemala
Don't really see what all the fuss is about
Ain't gonna worry bout no future generations and a
I'm sure somebody's gonna figure it out
Don't try to tell how some power can corrupt a person
You haven't had enough to know what it's like
You're only angry 'cause you wish you were in my position
Now nod your head because you know that I'm right—all right!
... ...
There's a lot of me inside you
Maybe you're afraid to see~ NIN, "Capital G"
A final note of advice: don't listen to the album too much. It's best when you hear it with somewhat fresh ears.
( My real criticism is that the political content seems too shallow for my taste. Sometimes TR overcomes this by leaving the speakers of a song unnamed... But beyond punning on who the speaker of a song's ideology is, the ideologies themselves seem rather flat and shallow... To put it differently, Trent could be a truly great songwriter, as opposed to 'just' a great songcrafter, if he studied the irony of a Dylan or Ani DiFranco a bit. )
A second criticism is more of the reception that the album is getting from some fans. This noise stuff isn't new or groundbreaking. As usual, Trent is simply taking the more experimental work of others, and putting it to use in a way that will be palatable to a broad audience -- albeit one of open-minded people.
Third (since YZ seems to go in a hip-hop direction but pull back): when's Trent going to do, or at least produce, a proper hip-hop album (yeah, Saul Williams, I know...)? I wish he'd schmooze with the Def-Jam folks a bit, and get involved there. He's not going to revolutionize alterna/industrial/rock; but he *could* bring a real refreshing breath of fresh ideas to mainstream hip-hop.
http://link.brightcove.com/services/lin
Not so good a song live, though the studio version is growing on me. Aaron seems to have taken a few too many Valiums, to judge from his lack of antics through most of the song. :p
If you're following this whole year_zero thing, you can see a video of "The Presence" at http://yearzero.nin.com/. But you already knew that if you're following it. If you're not a YZ-geek, well, it's not worth seeing. Wait for the music.
art is resistance
NIN promises a new full-length release in April. The marketing for this one is just plain fun. First, they've set up a bunch of websites purportedly created in the 2022 world that the album describes. The sites are ( the usual suspects for a dystopian future world )
Parallel to this Alternate Reality Game (ARG), USB drives are being left in bathroom stalls at NIN concerts. The drives contain
CD quality
mp3s of tracks from the forthcoming NIN album (thusfar three have been leaked), along with other files that contain clues to the ARG. There are more clues in tour T-shirts, and numbers to call with recordings on them. The latest (and most disturbing) is 216-333-1810 (in conjunction with the leak of the song "Me, I'm not" and the uswiretap.com site). WARNING The recording at that phone number is a simulated cellphone call from a girl in a nightclub where people get locked-in and massacred. Not pleasant to listen to (for me, much worse than the torture stuff in the Broken movie, which was clearly simulated), and you can find transcripts online if your interested in the ARG, but not getting the heebie-jeebies.Oh yeah, the Songs... You can find the dload sites at echoingthesound.org and other places. As these are unofficial "official" leaks from NIN, they're not pirated. Go get them and listen.
"Survivalism"
was the 1st leak (and indeed is officially released to radio stations). It's OK."My violent heart
" was next. People have called-it Public Enemy-ish, which is kindof like saying Stravinsky is Mozart-ish because they use the same instrumentation. I'm not sure what to classify it as. It's fun as hell to dance to with it's crazy beat."Me, I'm not"
Anyway, Year_Zero, is a damn geeky and fun concept for an album release.
You can listen to two tracks: "survivalism" and "my violent heart", from the forthcoming Album _Year Zero_ on nin's myspace player. Release date is april 17th 2007. That's what, about four years early for a Trent Reznor production?
on [12_13_2006], Trent said:
on [12_13_2006], Trent said:
Is it possible I am actually finished writing and recording a new nine inch nails record? Apparently so. We begin mixing in January!
Juggling fifteen all-new tracks around. Testing sequences. No leftovers from "with teeth". Highly conceptual. Quite noisy. Fucking cool.
- Music:my violent heart -- nin
The same station (a very good one) interviews Ann Powers, an LA Times reporter saying that Tool are "mainstream metal". What? After pimping Dylan, she hypes a band called Mastodon, who definitely sound metal, so what's up with misclassifying Tool? Perhaps I just haven't heard them enough (I probably know APC better in fact), but I'd call them "rock" or "alt-rock" if I had to, but metal? Hrmm. I don't like Powers' picks much anyway.
Yeah. God save the fucking
Ironically -- since I'm ambivalent about the meaning of having "Latin Grammys" -- Cristina Gonzalez' "Year in Latin Music" picks from the same show are *really good*. Lenina, Calle 13 ("the Dela Soul of Regaeton"), Los Tres (Indy-rocky) can all be enjoyed without a knowledge of Spanish or Portuguese.
I shall have to edumacate myself on this in short order.
It is quite amazing though, that a 10 year old can film herself playing Chopin, and then have people intelligintely critique her. It's almost something out of Science Fiction. Except that it's just everyday youTube. No wonder Google bought them!
In other news, my therapist rocks. She's "the One" (metaphysical Gong-fu and all) as far as therapists go. We had to stop a few years ago since sho got pregnant, but we're back in business. All hail the power of cognitive-behavioral compassion!!
Another thing that bothered me was a 7 year old trying to use aggressive hip-hop choreography. Doesn't work, and in case no one told you, chest isolations might have worked for Rosie Perez in "Do the Right Thing" but that was 1989 and she wasn't an 8 year old.
Fortunately there were a lot of other skaters who had good programs at all levels, including the last kid to go on who had triple jumps, and spins advanced enough for what you see at Nationals. Even the hockey players who were waiting to get on the ice after the show where applauding.
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/fridayre
He goes to #1 in Norway apparently.
Although Cohen didn't make the VH1 100 favorite lyrics poll, Sting, U2, Johnny Cash, REM, Dylan and Nirvana were all on the list, and have all covered Cohen's songs or, in the case of Nirvana, alluded to him.
That table was generated by the geekspeak:
He goes to #1 in Norway apparently.
Although Cohen didn't make the VH1 100 favorite lyrics poll, Sting, U2, Johnny Cash, REM, Dylan and Nirvana were all on the list, and have all covered Cohen's songs or, in the case of Nirvana, alluded to him.
| Band | song titles (rank) | no. mentions | avg rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Beatles | A Day In The Life (33), Yesterday (44), Eleanor Rigby (68), Hey Jude (81), Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (88), Sergeant Pepper (98) | 6 | 68.6667 |
| Radiohead | Creep (9), Karma Police (42), Paranoid Android (62), No Surprises (97) | 4 | 52.5 |
| U2 | One (1), Where The Streets Have No Name (11), Pride (In The Name Of Love) (39) | 3 | 17 |
| The Smiths | How Soon Is Now (2), There Is A Light (27), This Charming Man (37) | 3 | 22 |
| Robbie Williams | Angels (7), Feel (69) | 2 | 38 |
| Marvin Gaye | What’s Going On (10), I Heard It Thru The Grapevine (90) | 2 | 50 |
| Eminem | Lose Yourself (6), Stan (34) | 2 | 20 |
| Elvis Presley | In The Ghetto (38), Suspicious Minds (85) | 2 | 61.5 |
| David Bowie | Heroes (19), Space Oddity (47) | 2 | 33 |
| Bob Marley | Redemption Song (4), No Woman No Cry (89) | 2 | 46.5 |
That table was generated by the geekspeak:
awk ' {the_rank=gensub(/([0-9]+)\)/,"\\1","g")Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose,
In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes,
But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back,
Up front there ought 'a be a Man In Black.
Johnny Cash, Man in Black
In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes,
But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back,
Up front there ought 'a be a Man In Black.
Johnny Cash, Man in Black
You said you'd never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He's not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And ask him do you want to make a deal?
Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He's not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And ask him do you want to make a deal?
Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone
They declared me unfit to live said into that great void my soul'd
be hurled
They wanted to know why I did what I did
Well sir I guess there's just a meanness in this world
Bruce Springsteen, Nebraska
be hurled
They wanted to know why I did what I did
Well sir I guess there's just a meanness in this world
Bruce Springsteen, Nebraska
- Mood:painted
Jonathon Schwartz played Dylan's "If you see her, say hello", which was an unexpected surprise for a show that concentrates on Sinatra, Big Band, Jazz Vocal, oh and Sinatra. Could've sworn Schwartz announced the song as being from "Blood on the Rocks". A lil too much New Year's cheer on his or my part I guess.
What I want to know is how did Dylan get away writing a lyric like "She still lives inside of me, we've never been apart"?
Yes, in rhythm and sound it works spine-tinglingly well to complete the beautifully evocative:
"We had a falling-out, like lovers often will
And to think of how she left that night, it still brings me a chill
And though our separation, it pierced me to the heart
She still lives inside of me, we've never been apart"
Still, it's, well, maybe the weakest line of the song, let's leave it at that.
I really should stfu, cuz it says what it says, and there's no need to dress up a cliche if the cliche is real -- it's up to the context to reclaim the meaning, and up to the audience to actually *listen* to what it says and not the tired overplayed sound of it.
It's a cliched thing itself to cite the line "Cliches Happen" from the nineties TV show, My So-Called Life (mscl), but it comes to mind for a couple of reasons.
( the appeal of MSCL... )
I never got to see thirtysomething or relativity, two of Bedford Fall's other three productions on ABC besides MSCL. I did watch the third Once & Again quite intensely ( the best show on TV you are not watching ... )
I think it was the portrayal of divorce and remarriage, from the point of views of parents, children, Exes, and even grand-parents that hit me with eye-tearing aptness. I'm not saying it was transformative art or anything (and on that note I really should see Squid & the Whale). But it was relevant.
The course of my growing up was ( abruptly wrenched at a faultline ... )
As for my Mom, I really can't say we've never been apart, or even that we're all too connected now, but she always *has* been a part of me. Fleshing that cliche out into skillful thought and action is my biggest challenge.
*)( footnote ... ) back
2)( casualties of emotional warfare ... )
