New Sound Now - Murder, Contrast, and We7
This week on New Sound Now: What happens when your boyfriend doesn’t let you listen to Bruce Springsteen, spotlight on the Contrast podcast, SXSW streaming, REM and iLike, and what happens when a music store slaps ads inside your mp3 in order to give them to you for free.
Show notes + Links
Show music : Bryan Cox’s “Let’s Go To Work”
Australian woman stabs boyfriend because he didn’t let her listen to Bruce Springsteen records, though one assumes there’s got to be more to that story.
Tim Young’s Contrast Podcast, a collaborative effort that sounds impressive.
Continuing 2008’s year of live streaming, SXSW has a few live net concerts this weekend.
Be Your Own Pet have put up the first of a three-part webisode in the hopes of promoting their new record, out in a few weeks.
REM is putting up their new album as an iLike stream two months before release. I personally think this is a step backwards after Radiohead’s and NIN’s antics in the past while. What do you think? Leave a comment.
We7, the new online music store where everything is free! Well, for a price. See, every single mp3 is shackled to a 10 second ad. I don’t really have anything to add after the rant on the show, but if there’s something I’m either missing about the service or you’d like to defend it (or attack it further) then by all means leave a comment. I’d love to hear it.
Videos
Kaki King - “Pull Me Out Alive”
Tim said,
March 17, 2008 at 11:08 am
Hi!
Thanks for linking up to the Contrast Podcast … I’m glad you’ve been enjoying it. The next few episodes are mixed at the moment, but please do feel free to perhaps come and take part from episode 109 onwards!
Cheers,
Tim
mel said,
April 23, 2008 at 11:32 am
So whilst you slag off the WE7 concept, I don’t see you coming up with any alternative. You clearly DON’T get it! If the industry carries on like it is the artists are getting less and less. This is ruining the music industry and ultimately the listener will suffer! At the moment anyone downloading music illegally is stealing it. We7 offers users the chance to download quality music at no cost. The ad pays the artist and writers and can be removed after 4 weeks anyway. The user then ends up with a track that is free, legal, shareable, can be downloaded to any player. That is a win-win scenario for everyone.
newsoundnow said,
April 24, 2008 at 9:04 pm
The only thing that frustrates me about WordPress is that it won’t let me directly reply to a certain comment, such as Mel’s here.
Mel, first of all, thank you for writing in. I always appreciate direct communication with the people who run these websites and companies. And while I also appreciate your pitch, it suffers from one small string of skewed perspective.
Yes, the music industry would be ruined by your theory. But what is becoming clearer and clearer lately is that musicians aren’t exactly suffering. I talked about this on my show this week–Read this post from the Financial Times that states that songwriters and musicians are actually raking in record royalty payments and tell me that these people are suffering.
The reason I criticized We7 is primarily to do with the attachment of corporate advertising to what should be a pure art form. I realize that the marriage of advertising and art has been long established in all sorts of art forms, but that doesn’t make attaching an ad to a free song any less weird. I guess personally I find it off putting that whenever I hear the song, I’ll probably also be thinking of the ad. I’m sure ad companies are counting on this kind of subliminal action, and it weirds me out a little.
As for alternative ways to save the music industry, it is a) not my job, since I’m at best an amateur video blogger, and b) a moot point, since it doesn’t appear to need saving. The internet broke open the dam, creating a great equalizer, where both monster pop sensations and small garage bands compete on the same stage. In the last five years, we’ve seen the rise of the indie artist, the establishment of $9.99 as the standard price for a record (which, evidently, hundreds of millions of people have accepted), the large-scale abandonment from big-box CD stores (who never had the public good in mind anyway), and, perhaps most impressively, the resurgence of vinyl.
If you want my opinion on what the music industry should “look like”, then I guess my personal view is that we should accept the death of the CD as a viable medium and go the route many indie record labels are heading–selling vinyl with MP3 codes. That way, you get the best of both worlds.
chris said,
May 3, 2008 at 10:28 am
newsoundnow, i agree with some of your points but i dont think you understand the reality of the situation
is pop music - the most popular type of music and the type of music that is on We7 and other ad supported sites - art? is Britney Spears, Leona Lewis, Justin Timberlake art? are you seriously arguing this?
90% of the pop music that kids buy is very very manufactuared, marketed and corporate - and that goes for a lot of your so called alternative and non mainstream music (have you bought the John Lennon trainers??? Have you seen the amount of Nirvana merchandise you can buyt these days?)
The fact is that advertising touches all areas of life. Music doesnt operate in a vacuum, cut of from the rest of a market economey driven society.
you may not like it, but advertsing is playing a greater part in music