jonny_rat

trying to think of horrible things (dog sandwich, margaret thatcher) to get rid of this blasted semi-on

I rather like that this article had a sort of innocent, read-your-report-to-the-class tone about it. Is that irishy pub near the animal wall/the bridge still open? Don't ever go there

Others have mentioned the qualitative differences between, say, healthcare professionals and art critics. I think the difference there is generally so obvious that it's hard to talk about without seeming patronising, so let's narrow it down further and think about the crucial differences between even videogame and music critics.

A music critic has a very limited set of objective criteria to work with, because there are no definitive structures for music. On one hand, you could say anything that obscures the message of the music (whether that's the melody, the rhythm, the lyrics, whatever) is an objective criteria; but on the other hand, ambiguity and noise and lo-fi has its places in music too.

Not so in videogames journalism. Lots of games have an underlying structure; a set of core mechanics that can -not- be enahnced by obscuring them. Putting some distortion on the lyrics of a song may or may not enhance it; putting a filter on the screen of a game of chess so that you can't make out the pieces can only hurt the game.

But what if your filter changes the rules of the game? Perhaps it adds a sort of 'fog of war' to chess? That is the role of an expert in videogames criticism; to identify changes in the underlying ruleset, to relate them to what has gone before, and talk about how successful the individual title has accessed the rules of the basic game.

This role doesn't exist in music journalism. "Song X is better than song Y because it has better guitar playing." "Eh, I prefer the sloppy sort of solo." Perhaps the guitar player who did song X could replicate the 'sloppy' solo in song Y, and this is something that an expert music journo might like to pick up on; but this makes no functional difference whatsoever to the average listener/consumer.

So while experts are indeed experts, some experts are fundamentally more useful than others.

WHEN YOU WERE SITTING DOWN

That cover looks like an Ibiza chillout compilation. I wonder if Zero 7 are on this one

and I'll say it again; Silversun Pickups attain the same giddy heights of Smashin-Pumpkins-apery as Our Lady peace.

http://open.spotify.com/user/jonny_rat/playlist/3vKhwewAIBUErwaaynlSmF

shit is uncanny yo

= that picture

but turgid is not the word. There's flair and ability on every page.

Don Delillo's White Noise, which features an Airborne Toxic Event as a metaphor for, oh, some stuff. Airborne Toxic Event. Or maybe it does mean trump gas.

but if the 'solutions' to this horse-has-already-bolted situation involve inviting Draconian data legislation into our lives, then better to lose even those lovely, non-greedy bands.

There are more important things than music. In the wider scheme of things, it doesn't matter how things were 3-6 years ago, or even 30-60 years ago; because the rules have changed, and there's no going back. Other than pulling the plug on the big magic router that makes the internet. Best ban home taping while you're at it, too.

I don't think anyone in here is really, beyond a turn of phrase; even the original article.

One thing that I think people can say for sure, though, is that it's unlikely that we'll be looking back in 30 years time and going "oh, do you remember when there was a music industry? that was totes awesome."

Especially the point about phones and MP3 players. Spotify/last.fm/etc with a 3g phone pretty much achieves most of it already.

but that's likely to be a viewpoint that's more attractive to industry insiders than the rest of us. For me, DRM isn't a problem because I'll never pay a penny for anything with it, and the loss of Muxtape and its ilk is a very, very, very small price to pay for avoiding the intrusive and awkward measures suggested in Option 1.

The majority of p2p data transfer is almost certainly copyrighted material. But it's also a great way to distribute open source material.

but not the only one. I'd suggest that the ethics of the independant labels of today will carry through to whatever system we get in place tomorrow in some shape or form; big business shapes the vast majority of music even today, and has done so for a while, but there's still room for the little guys to do the specialist stuff while there's a market for it. With respect to Bacardi and RT, the question is which is better at predicting what bands people want to hear; if Bacardi end up better at that, more power to them. I think RT are enough of a business concern by now to operate under the same principles..

In practical terms, I think we'll see independant labels (or whatever that translates to) operating with corporate 'backbones' (for file delivery and management) in much the same way that websites today use Google Ads to generate revenue.

and that relates to the 'money lost' argument. That isn't 48 billion lost to the industry; nowhere near that amount was ever going to be spent on music. This is a key, basic principle: every album downloaded does not equate to a sale lost. It's a fallacy-riddled argument, and it irks to see it used to generate snappy, headline grabbing numbers.

Secondly, the 'if-you-love-music-you'll-agree-with-this' attitude is off. Most of the solutions that get suggested for this problem are banadages, designed to prolong the way that the music industry works at the moment. The first suggestion - that we voluntarily throw away a significant chunk of our data-related rights, when we should be fighting to keep them - is one of these. The second is a step in the right direction, but still based around monetizing the systems we have now (not to mention the technical concerns; what about the growing data-transfer needs of download-to-rent movies, for example? How are the two data types going to be discriminated?).

A third way is not to think in terms of taxing and limiting access, but in terms of providing a service that people want to pay for (the flat rate option outlined in the article is almost certainly the way to go in the medium term). That means no DRM, fast downloads, integration with a range of devices, and - the key thing - lots of very good bands.

Change needs to happen from the ground up, and we have to realise that the people making a living from music today probably won't be the same ones making a living from it tomorrow. Middle-men and low-tech labels will struggle, but they'll be replaced with something else. A lot of bands will get cut off in their prime, but there are always new bands.

God, that was long; and worse, it makes me sound a bit like Ayn Rand. What a cunt!

find the note-tracking on the guitars (and presumably the drums, too) in this one? I'm still completely unable to adapt to the very slight timing changes in GH3 (in comparison to the first two games).

Saying that, I don't think I'll be picking this (or the RB set) until the instruments are far more reasonably priced. £45 for Guitar Hero with controller I could handle; this is too much.

phew.

reminded me when the class idiot got in a blind rage. that's the kind of stuff he'd be shouting through tears while windmilling his arms.

A grasshopper!

an indie-rock lumberjack match.

That's the magic.. letter.

Not a shower.

I think it took a good three or four spins until it started clicking. It's a lovely, glitch soaked thing, though, and it really does start to come together; I'm stuck into Gloomy Planets at the moment.

It's like having teeth pulled. Cut'n slice her vocals all you like, it doesn't take away from the fact that they're -her- vocals.

In fact, her voice popping up towards the arse end of the album kinda sets the whole thing off for me. It's caught in a slightly dreary electro postrock middleground thing; there's some lovely production, but man it gets boring quick. Mr Milk was their key reference track before because it had a really strong melody through it, but here it just sounds like someone's ripped out the vocals. And, oh, worst of all, a lot of it (Toes?) sounds like electronic noodling. Noodling!

I am jack's unfortunate disappointment.

although they don't sound all that alike, there's something like a.. similar feeling between them.

I'm not sure about many of these.

I don't think there's a hint of MBV in Silversun Pickups' music; I think they're doing a passable Smashing Punpkins impression at best. Which makes them.. well, it pretty much makes them Our Lady peace, doesn't it? Burn.

M83: increasingly less so. Saturdays = Youth seems to have gone down the French electropop route. But the earlier albums: definately.

With Autolux, again, I think it's too great a compliment. They're loveable in small doses, but they're just too plodding: live and on record.

Deerhunter and APTBS are more reasonable, especially the latter. How about Asobi Seksu?

with Dirty Projectors for long enough; their set here pushed me firmly into WUB territory. It was wonderful, and they're looking more confident and comfortable than ever.

Also: Fanfarlo. Ace!

how to make an anthem with a drum machine. Just say the name of the song to someone, and see if they go:

"BUH TSH
DER-NER-NER-NER-NER-NER-NER-NER
BUH TSH
DIGGA DIGGA DIGGA DIGGA"

is the most blackly beautiful, affecting thing I've heard for a long time. Now that's how you do a quiet/loud transition! And there's something about Gibbons' digitally repeated voice echoing through it that.. I dunno, it's disturbing and wonderful at the same time.

in places; and the Sparklehorse comparison works too (although they don't get bogged down in.. well, in weirdness in that way that Mr Linkous does).

Although (in, I guess another kind of Sparklehorsey-type way) I think it all kinda works despite the vocals. They don't really.. help, if you know what I mean. They're fine on stuff like Short Red Blinks, but I find that they're a little distracting on the lusher tracks.

arguable points when applied to filesharing, however? I'm guessing that (e) could come under that banner; the difference between that one and the others seems to reflect that 'line' that's generally drawn between people 'pirating' for profit and personal use. Kinda harks back to the days of FAST.

Has there ever been a case that (e) has been used to bring legal, rather than civil proceedings against an individual? Would it stand up for filesharing?

but the word 'illegal' is still innaccurate here. Copyright infringement being a strictly civil offence, and all.

Agreed on most of the rest of what you said, although I'd add in that I'd only ever be able to support something like this if it involved minimal issues of privacy and regulation. This is maybe a little paranoid of me, but I think any UK government would love to see a severe neutering of many aspects of the internet, and it's very hard not to see something like this as a first step.

it was Lucy's fault for inviting 357 of her friends.

printed, verbatim, pauses for thought and all, on the internets.

It's all good to ask difficult questions, but basic courtesy - not just journalistic courtesy or anything like that - should demand that some context should be given for stuff like that. If I was phoned up for an interview about the work I do, and then found out retrospectively that it was going to be included in a negatively framed article, hell; I'd be very irritated.

I'm not trying to sound like a dick, here, by the way; it's an interesting point of discussion and all.

but when you're calling him up to speak to him with a definate, set agenda, I think it's only fair to tell him what that is. You've put him on the back foot from the off otherwise, and there's something a bit unpleasant and paparazzi-ish about it: "this guy is successful, so he deserves all he gets."

Which would be fair enough if it didn't produce an interview that made my skin crawl. It did. It's an article that says more about the interviewer than the interviewee, and.. well, that's not supposed to be the point of interest here is it?

ramshackle isn't it? Why include questions if the respondent misunderstood?

I don't think the interviewer comes across very well at all here. You can ask questions like these without sounding you're trying to get a rise out of someone; if this was a chance to 'respond to the critics,' had he even been briefed on what this was about?

buying a Finest cranberry muffin at Tesco's self service tills, but putting it through as a standard blueberry

music blogs (and when have you ever read successful music blog that doesn't have MP3 links, often via rapidshare, megaupload, etc) are being linked to album sales:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080209-blog-social-network-buzz-correlates-to-better-album-sales.html

It's just a correlation at this stage - no cause and effect - but has implications for something like this. Where's the line drawn? Downloading a track or two to sample it? If that's deemed 'okay,' I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who could get by on a daily diet of Hypemachine tracks.

you might like to hear.

it's interesting to keep an eye on what's going on in mainstream stuff. Not only that, it's difficult not to: for many people, 'avoiding' the radio playlists can be nigh impossible.

'dodged the point' is unfair; I was just, I think, expecting to see the 'other other' side of the Adele argument, as I'd'a thought the 'other' one was pretty rampant on here.

Still, though; was that a Dubstar cuss I done saw? To that, I give a Darth Vader-style NOOOOOOOOO.

but I feel like the point was rather dodged at the end. There's no revelation in that another middle-of-the-road artist has fallen under the media spotlight; and there's no revelation in that most of the music journalism industry is complicit in these affairs, either (whether by choice or by self-deception is another matter; I'll come back to that in a minute). Of course bland inoffensiveness - 'niceness' - sells, because it can appeal to a wide range of people.

This might sound like the whimperings of a prisoner who has learned when to bend over and let the burly tattoed man behind him just get on with it. But 'nice' and 'exciting' don't often intertwine, do they? (Although the getting-on-a-bit broadsheet writers might claim they do.) I don't see DiS giving out high marks for niceness. Better to not worry about what's going on in NiceLand, and appreciate it out here on the fringes. Down here, with us, in Dirtytown.

Unwillingly complicit journalism? Well, for all the complaining about Adele, here's another DiS headline with her name on..

at no. 1 in the charts.

I've no problems with the suggestion that Neon Bible isn't as good as Funeral, but musically, it stands on its own two feet as far as I'm concerned.

Talk about material for Pseud's corner.

Fuck Buttons were pretty incredible at ATP. Had the audience twisted 'round their little fingers, they did.

WANK

They've got a song called Shinji Ikari.

They've.. there's.. I..

..fuck.

ARE THEY WRITING THIS MUSIC FOR ME

IS THIS 'MY' MUSIC NOW

I NEED TO SIT DOWN AND HAVE A THINK

is car-crash stuff for yes_.

"How to be so wrong that you make the front page"