purpose
The BackChannel is a location for links and conversation that are not necessarily related to the free music and other stuff on daytrotter.com. These might be things that just caught our attention and made us smile, weep, scream, or laugh, and might include philosophical rantings or poetic waxings. Opinions expressed here belong to the person who wrote 'em. They are not official Daytrotter propaganda.
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BackChannel Archives
What a Wonderful World
25 October 07 | Mr. Daytrotter
Jolie Holland and Booker T. Jones record Louis Armstrong, “What A Wonderful World.”
This is an interesting pairing. And the song is a choice, old chestnut. I know I’m looking forward to hearing it…
Sir Elton, Technophobe
2 August 07 | Mr. Daytrotter
Sophomoric reasoning from Elton John:
“The internet has stopped people from going out and being with each other, creating stuff. Instead they sit at home and make their own records, which is sometimes OK but it doesn’t bode well for long-term artistic vision.
“Hopefully the next movement in music will tear down the internet. Let’s get out in the streets and march and protest instead of sitting at home and blogging. I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span.”
[ From Rupert Murdoch’s London tabloid The Sun, 1 August 2007. ]
One certainly cannot accuse Sir Elton of being as smart as he is prolific. A broad generalization such as John’s assertion that the internet is stifling creativity and dumbing down the quality of music (“In the early Seventies there were at least ten albums released every week that were fantastic. Now you’re lucky to find ten albums a year of that quality.”) exposes him as a luddite and sophomore.
I was around during the 70s, and while I do suffer an occasional nostalgic pang, I have to say I don’t miss those years all that much. And I certainly don’t remember the 10 albums a week that our friend claims were being released during first half of the decade. Of course — there were good songs and good albums, but 520 fantastic albums a year from 1970 -1975? If that were true we’d have a musical canon of 2600 fantastic albums for that period. I challenge his lordship to produce the list. As for his claim that there are not ten fantastic albums produced a year in the post-internet era, I say bull. And I put it to you, readers — send us your list. 10 fantastic albums produced this year. Or 10 from last year. Or from any year since 2000 for that matter. Send your list to us and we’ll compile a list to send to Sir Elton.
Blender's Top 25 Music Powergeeks
17 July 07 | Mr. Daytrotter
Blender listed the names of the folks they think are the most influential people in music on the web:
1. Steve Jobs: Apple (Technology corporation)
2. Tom Anderson and Chris Dewolfe: MySpace (social-networking site)
3. Chad Hurley and Steve Chen: YouTube (video-sharing site)
4. Doug Morris: Universal Music Group (recording company)
5. Ryan Schreiber: Pitchfork (indie-rock magazine)
6. Ian Rogers: Yahoo! Music (music portal)
7. Martin Stinksel and Felix Miller: Last.FM (music community site)
8. Greg Bildson: LimeWire (file-sharing program)
9. Christian Schmid: RapidShare (file-hosting service)
10. Coran Capshaw: MusicToday (online ticketer and merchandiser)
11. Scott Lapatine: Stereogum (indie-rock blog)
12. Mitch Bainwol: RIAA (music business trade group)
13. Perez Hilton: PerezHilton (gossip blog)
14. Anthony Volodkin: The Hype Machine (mp3 blog aggregation)
15. Tim Quirk: Rhapsody (subscription music service)
16. Vadim Mamotin: AllOfMp3 (discount retailer)
17. “Oinkylicious” Alan: Oink’s Pink Palace (invite-only file sharing site)
18. Jason Tate: AbsolutePunk (indie-punk news and community)
19. Bram Cohen and Ashwin Navin: BitTorrent (file-sharing service)
20. David Pakman: EMusic (online music retailer)
21. Matthew Perpetua: Fluxblog (mp3 blog)
22. Brett Woitunski: PureVolume (indie-punk community site)
23. Eric Garland: BigChampagne (online music research firm)
24. Bob Leftsetz: The Leftsetz Letter (music business blog)
25. Pete Wentz: net-obsessed star of Fall Out Boy
[list via Perezhilton.com]
Stewart Copeland: Police Disaster
2 June 07 | Mr. Daytrotter
Police drummer Stewart Copeland posts about the band’s show in Vancouver. Apparently Police was having an off night. The money quote: “The mighty Sting momentarily looks like a petulant pansy instead of the god of rock.” Worth a read, if for no other reason than to take in Copeland’s total transparency — not a quality one typically associates with big stars.
Hit Men
25 May 07 | Mr. Daytrotter
I was in my car this afternoon, listening to NPR’s Science Friday with Ira Flatow. His guest, Mike McCready, CEO of Platinum Blue was describing the software they’ve developed which can (with surprising accuracy) analyze mutlidimensional patterns in a particular song and compare that pattern to other songs that have been hits and help to determine if the song has what it takes to be a hit. The justification for the software being that the entrenched music industry needs to know upfront whether a single has sufficient chance of being a hit before a record company is going to put millions into marketing said song. Curious. Here’s a blurb from the Platinum Blue website:
Shining light on the Next Generation Music Industry
By providing technology services that help people see music and the music market in a completely new way, Platinum Blue is helping the entire music industry to optimize both the supply and the demand sides of the music chain. Improved decision making for the supply side and the most intuitive search, discovery and recommendation tool for the demand side. Platinum Blue is a cornerstone to the next generation music industry.
Sounds so romantic, doesn’t it? “Supply and demand sides of the chain.” What the hell are they thinking? It’s interesting that they can develop a pattern analysis tool to predict the market’s predisposition to purchase a particular piece of music, but music and poetry can’t be reduced to mere marketability. (Unless you’re the RIAA.)
Thank god there are still artists in the world who make music inspired by soulful reflection, wrought of human experience. Many can be found just around the corner at our humble little website…