7 ms·

Danger Mouse's EMI-killed CD will be released as a blank CD-R, just add download

66 points by Xichekolas 17y ago

Xichekolas 17y ago
It's becoming increasingly hard to argue that the labels are fighting p2p for the sake of the artists. How they can sue their customers, stifle their content producers, and stay in business is amazing.
- JoelSutherland 17y ago
  The labels are distribution companies in the era of the internet. Staying in business without suing customers and stifling content producers would be amazing. http://mattmaroon.com/2009/05/01/hacker-news-disease/ http://mattmaroon.com/2009/05/01/hacker-news-disease/ Edit: Perhaps I am being misunderstood. I am saying they are screwed and dragging things out to hold on to profit. How is this a controversial position?
  - swombat 17y ago
    I don't buy the Matt Maroon argument. I've worked in large corporations and observed general incompetence at many levels. You only need to look at the state of the finance industry today to see that highly paid experts can get things wrong on a massive scale. That's not even a function of intelligence - it seems to be more a function of the level of isolation they live in. How thick are the walls of your industry's bubble? For the finance industry, it was thick enough that it's not even completely burst yet. The music industry, similarly, seems to have an exceptionally thick bubble (probably thickened with dried up bits of Coke, discarded LSD papers, and the money they accumulated over the last 50 years of ripping off the general public and their own artists). I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that these smart people, who, outside of that bubble, would probably think like you and me, really do believe their own bullshit - if only because they spend all day surrounded by people who keep repeating it. Smart people aren't immune to brainwashing.
    - DarkShikari 17y ago
      Smart people aren't immune to brainwashing. If anything--they're more susceptible. http://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscience/dp/0716733870 http://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscie... is a great book on the topic.
      - jamesbritt 17y ago
        Years back I used to go to Mensa meetings in NYC and found that the most distinguishing feature of the crowd was not what the thought or believed, but how they expressed themselves. Overall, the Mensa folk (for the sake of argument, "smart people") believed much the same things as the average person on the street, but they had a much better vocabulary. (Actually, one thing else was interesting: beliefs held seemed to be more extreme. E.g., higher numbers of hard-core socialists and libertarians than mainstream population.)
        grandalf 17y ago
        interesting... I have always wondered about the correlation between intellect and the decision to make huge life decisions based on one's own beliefs. Simply having a consistent set of beliefs (or seeing the inconsistency in mainstream beliefs) will make someone seem more like a hard core libertarian or socialist. But what does it take for such a person to hit the street and start trying to make change happen? Are such people ever revolutionaries? Or are they content to have a logically consistent worldview but sit on the sidelines?
        swombat 17y ago
        Historically, most famous revolutionaries, from Che Guevara to Ghandi or Trotsky, were well educated, often coming from solid middle-class backgrounds (e.g. Che Guevara was the son of a doctor).
        tome 17y ago
        Che was a doctor himself, according to http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/g/u.htm http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/g/u.htm
mynameishere 17y ago
Danger Mouse, who is half of pop group Gnarls Barkley Jesus, this guy's whole life is one big ripoff.
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  While I'm not into the 'mixologist = artist' thing myself, in an age of abundant content it's a valid choice. If you're writing a consumer application and there are great libraries available for much of the functionality, you'd probably use them, right? Is it so bad to do that with music, especially when ~80% of pop music is just a thinly-disguised rearrangement of the same 3 chords?
  - zandorg 17y ago
    Tons of songs are just: Play a bass note, play it an octave higher, lower, higher, with a 4/4 beat. Then there's a note, play a note higher, one note higher, back to the first note. For instance, The Music Sounds Better With You by Stardust, Drop the Pressure by Mylo [Edit addition] I should also point out that in a big way, modern music is about the clarity of the production, and not necessarily the melody or lyrics.]
    - patio11 17y ago
      modern music is about the clarity of the production It is also, in a big way, a function of the tribal effect of being part of a mass-media phenomenon, something which the labels are all-but-essential for. Disney could make any of a hundred thousand girls into the next Britney Spears. (Typically folks recoil in horror at the notion that their enjoyment of music would be affected by this. What can I say... branding works and is not evil?)
      - jamesbritt 17y ago
        "Typically folks recoil in horror at the notion that their enjoyment of music would be affected by this." Any links to support the claims that branding works, and that modern music is a function of the tribal effect of being part of a mass-media phenomenon?
ericwaller 17y ago
Here's the NPR stream they mentioned: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104129585 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1041295...
mikedouglas 17y ago
Edit: bad link.
- nickmolnar 17y ago
  That Rapidshare link isn't a valid RAR file. I posted a working torrent of the album here: http://neekolas.tumblr.com/post/108678640/my-first-torrent http://neekolas.tumblr.com/post/108678640/my-first-torrent
  - rms 17y ago
    The 192 KB/s version is 65.4MB.

66 points by Xichekolas 17y ago

It's becoming increasingly hard to argue that the labels are fighting p2p for the sake of the artists. How they can sue their customers, stifle their content producers, and stay in business is amazing.

JoelSutherland 17y ago
The labels are distribution companies in the era of the internet. Staying in business without suing customers and stifling content producers would be amazing. http://mattmaroon.com/2009/05/01/hacker-news-disease/ http://mattmaroon.com/2009/05/01/hacker-news-disease/ Edit: Perhaps I am being misunderstood. I am saying they are screwed and dragging things out to hold on to profit. How is this a controversial position?
- swombat 17y ago
  I don't buy the Matt Maroon argument. I've worked in large corporations and observed general incompetence at many levels. You only need to look at the state of the finance industry today to see that highly paid experts can get things wrong on a massive scale. That's not even a function of intelligence - it seems to be more a function of the level of isolation they live in. How thick are the walls of your industry's bubble? For the finance industry, it was thick enough that it's not even completely burst yet. The music industry, similarly, seems to have an exceptionally thick bubble (probably thickened with dried up bits of Coke, discarded LSD papers, and the money they accumulated over the last 50 years of ripping off the general public and their own artists). I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that these smart people, who, outside of that bubble, would probably think like you and me, really do believe their own bullshit - if only because they spend all day surrounded by people who keep repeating it. Smart people aren't immune to brainwashing.
  - DarkShikari 17y ago
    Smart people aren't immune to brainwashing. If anything--they're more susceptible. http://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscience/dp/0716733870 http://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscie... is a great book on the topic.
    - jamesbritt 17y ago
      Years back I used to go to Mensa meetings in NYC and found that the most distinguishing feature of the crowd was not what the thought or believed, but how they expressed themselves. Overall, the Mensa folk (for the sake of argument, "smart people") believed much the same things as the average person on the street, but they had a much better vocabulary. (Actually, one thing else was interesting: beliefs held seemed to be more extreme. E.g., higher numbers of hard-core socialists and libertarians than mainstream population.)
      - grandalf 17y ago
        interesting... I have always wondered about the correlation between intellect and the decision to make huge life decisions based on one's own beliefs. Simply having a consistent set of beliefs (or seeing the inconsistency in mainstream beliefs) will make someone seem more like a hard core libertarian or socialist. But what does it take for such a person to hit the street and start trying to make change happen? Are such people ever revolutionaries? Or are they content to have a logically consistent worldview but sit on the sidelines?
        swombat 17y ago
        Historically, most famous revolutionaries, from Che Guevara to Ghandi or Trotsky, were well educated, often coming from solid middle-class backgrounds (e.g. Che Guevara was the son of a doctor).
        tome 17y ago
        Che was a doctor himself, according to http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/g/u.htm http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/g/u.htm

mynameishere 17y ago

Danger Mouse, who is half of pop group Gnarls Barkley Jesus, this guy's whole life is one big ripoff.

anigbrowl 17y ago
While I'm not into the 'mixologist = artist' thing myself, in an age of abundant content it's a valid choice. If you're writing a consumer application and there are great libraries available for much of the functionality, you'd probably use them, right? Is it so bad to do that with music, especially when ~80% of pop music is just a thinly-disguised rearrangement of the same 3 chords?
- zandorg 17y ago
  Tons of songs are just: Play a bass note, play it an octave higher, lower, higher, with a 4/4 beat. Then there's a note, play a note higher, one note higher, back to the first note. For instance, The Music Sounds Better With You by Stardust, Drop the Pressure by Mylo [Edit addition] I should also point out that in a big way, modern music is about the clarity of the production, and not necessarily the melody or lyrics.]
  - patio11 17y ago
    modern music is about the clarity of the production It is also, in a big way, a function of the tribal effect of being part of a mass-media phenomenon, something which the labels are all-but-essential for. Disney could make any of a hundred thousand girls into the next Britney Spears. (Typically folks recoil in horror at the notion that their enjoyment of music would be affected by this. What can I say... branding works and is not evil?)
    - jamesbritt 17y ago
      "Typically folks recoil in horror at the notion that their enjoyment of music would be affected by this." Any links to support the claims that branding works, and that modern music is a function of the tribal effect of being part of a mass-media phenomenon?

ericwaller 17y ago

Here's the NPR stream they mentioned: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104129585 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1041295...

mikedouglas 17y ago

Edit: bad link.

nickmolnar 17y ago
That Rapidshare link isn't a valid RAR file. I posted a working torrent of the album here: http://neekolas.tumblr.com/post/108678640/my-first-torrent http://neekolas.tumblr.com/post/108678640/my-first-torrent
- rms 17y ago
  The 192 KB/s version is 65.4MB.