Wednesday, January 7, 2009 7:22PM - By davidhall
Thanks to Yoko Ono, it is now officially cool to have humanitarian-themed dance parties. At least that’s what Billboard’s 2008 Hot Dance Club Play Artist of the Year chart would indicate, placing Ono at #4 alongside Britney Spears, Rihanna, and Natasha Bedingfield.
Ono will release Give Peace a Chance (The International Remixes) on Feb. 18 as the last installment in her three-part digital-only remix singles series.
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Wednesday, January 7, 2009 6:00PM - By Morelli
In 2008, music single tracks sold 33% more than albums due to the increasing tendency towards online download sales and a fantastic 2008 release schedule. Young music fans have steered away from illegal downloads, and are progressively buying more songs online according to the BPI.
With 115 million tracks sold, big-selling releases by artists including Leona Lewis, Coldplay, the Killers and Take That helped the industry make record sales last year. Digital retailers and online stores have boomed with easy interfaces and mobile capability, and the future of the online music business is becoming more obvious. Cheaper is better.
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Wednesday, January 7, 2009 4:00PM - By davidhall
No doubt one of your top New Year’s resolutions was to expose yourself to as much new music as possible (everyone is as obsessed with music as me, right?), so check out a few of these new albums that you can get right now and some upcoming releases that are likely to exacerbate your musical addiction (but please, pace yourself).
- Tell it to the Volcano - Miniature Tigers: This new rock quartet from Phoenix released this debut gem in August 2008, but they are finally getting deserved exposure with a recently announced tour accompanying indie-rockers Deer and the Headlights through March. Miniature Tigers sounds like a cross between The Shins and The Fratellis with an occasional Weezer-esque guitar crunch. In other words: pure pop pleasure.
- Brighten the Corners: Nicene Creedence Edition - Pavement: Although it is a remastered re-release (released Dec. 9), Pavement’s new edition of 1997’s Brighten the Corners features a 24-song second disc of B-sides and rarities that some candid moments in the band’s career. Recommended tracks: “Harness Your Hopes” and “Stereo.”
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Wednesday, January 7, 2009 3:00PM - By Morelli
Now you can mix your own songs on the go! Tonium’s Pacemaker, unveiled Tuesday at the CES press event in Las Vegas, is not just a portable music player but also a portable mixer.
You can mix tracks together, reverse the playback direction, increase or decrease music speed by 100 percent, and employ audio effects such as reverb and delay. The Pacemaker also has a publishing platform for sharing music, with embeddable widgets!
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Wednesday, January 7, 2009 1:15PM - By Matt Unangst
Apple announced yesterday at Macworld in San Francisco that it would eliminate the copyright protection software currently in place on all music the company sells. CEO Steve Jobs had been calling for the elimination of the software, known as DRM, since early in 2007, but had met resistance from the record companies, although the record companies had permitted other retailers to sell music without the DRM software. The new music sales will be higher-quality than previous iTunes downloads, at 256 KB per second AAC encoding instead of 128 KB MP3.
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Tuesday, January 6, 2009 4:00PM - By Seraphina
Ron Asheton, The Stooges‘ guitarist, was found dead in his Ann Arbor, Michigan home this morning.
After Asheton’s personal assistant was unable to get a hold of him, detectives found his body on his living room couch. It seemed to appear that he had been dead for several days. There is no confirmation for his reason of death, although police suspect a heart attack may have been the cause. An autopsy is pending.
The band had this to say about their friend:
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Tuesday, January 6, 2009 3:00PM - By Morelli
On 28 February 2009, ‘Section 92′ of the Copyright Amendment Act will come into effect in New Zealand. The act states that any Internet user accused of sharing copyright works is automatically guilty, and the punishment is abrupt disconnection from the Internet.
From the act:
“An Internet service provider must adopt and reasonably implement a policy that provides for termination, in appropriate circumstances, of the account with that Internet service provider of a repeat infringer.”
Until now, file-sharing control has tried to implement the ‘3 strikes’ rule, where a gradual reaction to copyright infringement is enforced. This ‘graduated response’ involves formal warnings and limiting infringers connection speeds. So, cutting off Internet connections and websites based on nothing more than accusations is being considered, to put it lightly, too authoritative. Both ISPs and artists are resisting the legislation, pronouncing that Internet access is a basic human right.
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Tuesday, January 6, 2009 1:23PM - By Matt Unangst
The old people of England have their knickers in a knot over the possible demise of morris dancing. What is morris dancing you may be pondering? It’s a renaissance form of dance that enjoyed a resurgence, along with folk music in the 1960s and ’70s. The most important part of this type of dance is wearing crazy outfits that involve bells on one’s knees and crazy hats. Since most young people do not find it fun to dress up as old coots and do quaint little dances, some are forecasting that the form may die out within the next 20 years.
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Monday, January 5, 2009 7:00PM - By Emily
There are quite a few new album releases on the docket for this year already. Here’s a round-up of some of the new releases that have been recently announced:
Beastie Boys: January 27th
The Beastie Boys are reissuing the old favorite: Paul’s Boutique. The reissue will be digitally remastered to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the original release of the album.
The new disc will have all the artwork originally included with the vinyl in an eight-panel digipack. Album purchases will also receive a foldout poster and a free downloadable track-by-track commentary.
Razorlight: March 2009
Razorlight will be releasing their third album in the US this Spring. The new eleven track album “Slipway Fired” is a follow-up to their 206 self-titled album that made it’s way to number one on the UK charts. The band has also planned a very brief North American tour traveling to NY, LA, and Mexico City.
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