As I mentioned last time, I am finally delivering a long-promised post on the topic of the future availability of content. I’ll acknowledge up front that I am likely a voice crying in the wilderness. Most people like to consume mainstream content. They like movies with big names, they want music from the pop charts, [...]
Persons A, B & C: Ownership and Purchases in the Digital Age
In two previous posts (here and here), I touched on something about content today that I think is both important and poorly understood. I wanted to take a moment to re-argue this before moving on to a new aspect of this issue. We are in the Digital Age of content and it didn’t take us [...]
The Festival of Light Strumming and Heavy Beats
I try to have a little something for everybody during this annual seasonal music celebration. And since Hanukkah began at sundown this past Sunday, here are a couple tunes to assist your Maccabee-boy in getting festive. Here’s a dub remix of the traditional “Oh Chanukah.” It fascinates me how little has to be done to [...]
“Everything I’m Not, Made Me Everything I Am”
The new Kanye dropped on Tuesday. Longtime readers will recall that I am quite enamored with both the hip-hop genre and with Mr. Kanye West. You may recall my earlier post about the official mixtape, which previewed the Graduation album and also included a couple tracks featuring raps over indie rock, specifically Thom Yorke and [...]
Breaking the law
If I haven’t stated this point clearly, let me be explicit: Pop culture is not about rules. Pop spits in the face of rules. It breaks classical standards of art, it violates societal standards. It’s rude, it steals, it thumbs its nose at you. But if it works it works. If you like it, that’s [...]
Barrelhouse Music
Last summer, I did a little mini series of songs with piano in them. As I said at the time, the piano may seem delicate for rock, but it is a percussion instrument and it also has great range of expression. Here’s one cut from the brand new LCD Soundsystem album Sound of Silver and [...]
Rhoda Morgan Does Timba
Rhoda Morgan first came to attention as a contestant on the second season of Pop Idol, the British version of the program known in the States as American Idol. After the show finished in December of 2003, Morgan moved to New York City to begin working on her music career. Lots of names are dropped [...]
Good riddance
Time is an illusion. Yes, it takes about 24 hours (these things aren’t precise) for the Earth to rotate, exposing us to a complete cycle of sunlight, but it depends on where on the globe you are and what time of year it is. And it’s about 365 days to move around the sun. But [...]
Kevin & Bean Kristmas: Chosen People in da House!
[This is part of The John M. Higgins Memorial Xmasganza.] Moving into the final stages of our holiday madness… One of the things John and I collected were the annual Kevin & Bean Christmas CDs. They’re the morning team at the radio station KROQ in Los Angeles, where they’ve been since 1989 (the same year [...]
Wishing You A’ Irie Christmas
[This is part of The John M. Higgins Memorial Xmasganza.] Two wicked reggae jeggae selections for yuuts. Ya nuh see it? But first, I wanted to say this: As I was listening to some of Higgins’ CDs today, wading through selections, a friend of mine stopped by. He made a disparaging remark about reggae. Granted, [...]