Recently in Music Category
Many moons ago Warren posed the question:
So my question to all y'all is what I should put on [Zen Micro]. I've already
loaded a mess of my personal favorites on there; I'm just curious to
know what all of your current "top 3" albums are, in case there are
other bands that I don't know about that I might like.
As I am prone to do, I went a bit overboard with my reply. Warren and I were talking about this list last night, so I decided to go back and review what I wrote and damn if it isn't still close to relevant. I'm working on an update of course.
Jeez, what's with the trick question? Top 3 could mean anything...all time? This month? This year? Last year? This decade? Last decade? I refuse to give a serious answer until you pose a serious question. So here are my top 3 non-serious albums for you to go buy immediately, if not sooner.
Public Enemy - Fear of a Black Planet (actually quite serious, one of the best sociopolitical albums of all time -- a must have, even for a cracker like you)
Ned's Atomic Dustbin - God Fodder (Brit-pop, double bass guitar, hit single Kill Your Television, not a single skipper on the whole CD)
The The - Dusk (If you like Johnny Cash, this might intrigue you -- more blues than country influence. Also British).
and now for the rest of the stuff you should have
Ash - Trailer (The best rock band you've never heard of. This is their first album. Their second album was called 1977 because they're huge Star Wars fans. That's gotta be worth something.)
Billy Bragg - Don't Try This At Home (Socialist brit-folk-rock -- you'll love it Warren. Seriously awesome raw guitar playing though)
Chemical Brothers - Exit Planet Dust (First and best album -- another must have)
Descendents - Everything Sucks (Must have punk rock)
Electrafixion - Burned (Formed Echo and the Bunnymen members doing something a little more rock and roll and a little less foppy haired british 80's pop)
Frank Black - Teenager of the Year (Former Pixies front man. Easily a top 10 all time for me)
The Get Up Kids - Red Letter Day (only an EP, but some amazing indy rock)
The Housemartins - Now That's What I Call Quite Good (best of from one of the best bands from Hull ever - everything from drinking to gospel, you might think they were Irish...)
Inspiral Carpets - Revenge of the Goldfish (another top 10 all time, brit-pop)
James - Best of James (brit pop) Jane's Addiction - Nothing's Shocking (must have) Jesus and Mary Chain - Automatic (must have brit surf-pop/shoegazer)
Knapsack - This Conversation is Ending Starting Right Now (driving punk-pop out of Davis initially)
Leftfield - Leftism (one of the best "dance" albums ever, although it's not the crap dance you're used to hearing 'Yall ready for this' samples in. 10 top all time)
Ministry - The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste (one of the best "industrial" albums ever)
Operation Ivy - Energy (pretty much everything this Berkeley punk band ever did on one CD -- great stuff)
Pixies - Surfer Rosa/Come on Pilgrim or Doolittle or Trompe le Monde (One of the best rock bands to come out of the US)
Reel Big Fish - Why Do They Rock So Hard? (great pop-rock-ska)
SheeponDrugs - One for the Money (hard to describe duo from the UK, technically "industrial" but much more fun)
Therapy? - Troublegum (often overlooked Irish hard rock band)
Underworld - Underworld 1992-2002 (famous for the ending song in Trainspotting 'Born Slippy Nuxx 1995' also on the Trainspotting soundtrack which is a great one)
Violent Femmes - Add It Up '81-'93
I've decided that I really don't like them that much.
That is all.
Cory and I will probably always disagree on this issue because he is taking an absolute position. Truth be told we are generally both on the same side, which is that DRM isn't that awesome for consumers. Cory typically takes the stance that DRM is bad. Period. End of discussion. We can stop talking now. It's a stand on principle and it's not a bad stand.
I'm just not as good at taking such rigorous stands on topics that I generally file under "entertainment." Now, Cory would rightly argue that his stance on DRM goes way beyond entertainment. He has the vision to not only see that but to take the stance. DRM is bad. Period. End of discussion.
In trying to persuade others to draw that same line in the sand he will often make an example out of iTunes. People generally don't see iTunes as a big, bad DRM monster. Cory can point out all the ways DRM in iTunes screws you, the consumer, over. Cory can try and move iTunes off the middle-ground and onto the "DRM is bad" side of the line. The end game being if enough people draw that line and put iTunes on the other side they will stop buying products with DRM from Apple. Apple will be forced to go to the content owners and beg them to be able to see the content with no DRM. The bells will ring, a new day will dawn and consumers will be free once again.
To me the iTunes issue is a bit fuzzier. Apple is the one selling the products with DRM...but they are not selling their own content. They are a middle man who got a license with certain terms. I'd be willing to bet that the first condition is "You slap some DRM on that crap before you push it out to the suckers our valued consumers." Now the argument becomes that Apple must fight for Cory's stance and try to sell DRM-free products by getting a different license from the content owners.
"Yeah, uh...we'd like to sell these tracks with no DRM because it's bad for consumers. Please? Pretty please? We know that you don't really care about these people and just want to extract every last dime of their expendable income, but they would really like to get music they don't have to buy multiple times and all that. Why are you laughing?"
Even that issue gets fuzzy because most people would point out, rightly, that Apple likes the DRM because it keeps people from using non-Apple hardware, and hardware (read: iPods) is where they are making a ton of money. Point conceded. (Disclosure: I own a small chunk of AAPL so I understand this point quite well)
So, now we get to the Bob Dylan issue which was Cory's latest volley. The crux of the issue was that 4 tracks from the iTunes store came as video files which cannot be converted (read: stripped of DRM) with the "burn and re-rip" trick. Cory mentioned that the CD, which is DRM-free, came with all the tracks and a bonus DVD with the videos. You see, you could rip the entire CD and get all the tracks with no DRM. Screw the man!
But today we learn that Amazon's listing was incorrect. Cory even says this is an important error. But what is so important about it? Well, the videos which are essentially 4 tracks of the album) are only on the DVD. The DVD is protected by DRM (the awesomely unbeatable CSS). No matter what store you go to, you get screwed with DRM. Now any place you can buy the CD is almost as bad as iTunes. The CD is still better because you can still rip the audio tracks to pristine DRM-free tracks that you can play on any device that your little heart desires.
Again, it's not like this error destroys Cory's argument against iTunes. He still has a line in the sand which says "DRM BAD!" so it doesn't really change much from his perspective on iTunes except that the people who sell plastic discs with bits encoded on them are doing things that are worse for consumers. Ironic considering these are the people they depend on for money...
I think it's a risky strategy on Cory's side. This was a failed attack in the war to push iTunes off the middle-ground. To some people this may strengthen the idea that iTunes is an acceptable middle-ground. It's very hard to sell absolute positions to the masses. Hell, I understand his position quite well and I still buy tunes and TV shows from the iTunes store.
Originally uploaded by hornbuckle.
I build my canopy of steel
It fulfills my sense of real
A chrome protection
Crank
Catherine Wheel
It's time for Vertical Hold's own Late Night Music Club. Tonight's special is The Damange Manual. Chris Connelly, Jah Wobble, and William Rieflin...how could you possibly go wrong with that? An industrial super group that actually makes music you want to listen to, go figure...
We have been worthless
we have been safe
in mind belittled by the threat
or our own ice age
it fades our fingers
that cannot grasp
the tools that injured,
bled or burned us in the pastA fall distorts us
and where we've been
re writing bastards as contendors
sight unseen
In place of angels - butchers hands
too wide to fit through doors of virtueBlame, demand
Blame and demand
No need of virtue
no time for chance
great plains of anger worked to death
by circumstance
ignite your answeres
they fought that hard
to waste your wonders and endeavours
from the startWe count for distance
from human nerves
we count for all the things we take
that we don't deserve
all contradictions
will wake us to stand
to fake the end as the beginningBlame and demand
Watch the vid for Sunset Gun.
Sometimes I think Party Shuffle in iTunes really likes screwing with me...
So, with the exception of the last few posts, I've kind of run out of blog steam. So I decided a change in venue was the solution. Tonight's post is brought to you by Woodstock's, their free wireless, and Sierra Nevada Best Bitter.
I've posted most of my political rants to a small group of unfortunate blokes via e-mail. There is also the fact that on the political front I'm getting outrage fatigue. I look around and wonder where all the conservatives went. Although, even as the idea that "Bush isn't a conservative" gains steam, he is entering lame duck territory. This means one of two things are going to happen over the next two years; a) a Republican is favored to win the 2008 election and a new cult of personality forms around him/her or b) a Democrat wins and the cult dissolves and suddenly we have half a country full of 'limited powers for the federal government' conservatives. The first option would suck and the second would be funny if not for the fact that nobody will see how stupid willfully blind the conservative base has been for the duration of the Bush 43 administration.
Anyway... The Diggnation Google Hate-a-thon for 2006 continues, although a split in the dynamic duo is forming. Alex is still strongly in the "Google is out of ideas" camp, while Kevin is starting to loose his grip on the hate. I'm almost done with The Search which goes into great detail about what Google plans for the future. Kevin and Alex would do well to read it. They are a bit too focused on what Google keeps pushing out of their lab doors. Let it go guys...there are much bigger things to worry about.
Speaking of things to worry about, Apple is facing an anti-trust suit. Isn't an Apple monopoly a contradiction in terms?
Mr Slattery called himself an iTunes customer who "was also forced to purchase an Apple iPod" if he wanted to take his music with him to listen to.
I guess he missed the "Burn to CD" feature in iTunes. All jackassery aside...a monopoly? Really? So soon? Yes, yes...almost a billion tracks have been sold by Apple via iTunes. Big. Freaking. Deal. Seriously, that is but a pittance off the offline music market. Did Apple engage in illegal business practices by killing Real's attempt to get a DRM formatted song onto the iPod? Apple would not doubt argue that Real was the one breaking the law, given the sorry state of reverse engineering laws in this country and probably win on that front. If Real thought they had a shot at defending themselves against the DMCA they would probably still be selling tracks for the iPod today. Which reminds me, if you do think that technology laws are completely broken, do join or donate to EFF because they help fight this nonsense...even if their site search is powered by evil.
Flickr, where I post all my photos online, has introduced Community Guidelines. I read them and I did like the fact that it started off with stuff they want people in the community to do and put that don'ts second. The bit about not being creepy is classic.
Don't be that guy. You know the guy.
Awesome. I wish all community-based sites had something like this, written with the same puckishness and plain language. Yeah, I'm looking at you digg.com, dailykos.com, and all the other community sites where I turn off comments (if I can) by default because the people who post comments on your sites are inane, mean, and generally just a waste of bits.
