According to Billboard, musicians make next to nothing from streaming their tunes online. As streaming music becomes ubiquitous, the major labels are getting extremely nervous about its low return. Billboard reports that Micheal Jackson made the most money through non-subscription online streaming last year, with $10,000. Yes, that’s thousand, not million. Warner Bros is supposedly gonna bail on streaming as a preferred model of distribution. It looks like the major labels will have to go back to the drawing board for the 100th time. They have been rearranging the chairs on the Titanic since Napster, but that won’t stop them from trying to extract their pound of flesh. Look for self-destructing mp3s in the near future.
-Daniel Wipert
Here’s what you need to know about my relationship with Prince. He is my Lord and Savior, my Yahweh, my God Almighty. I don’t even feel like I have the authority to write about him because I love him so much, and usually feel the same way about when others write about him or make comments online about him. I will cut a bitch over Prince, trust that. That being said, here is this week’s news on Prince. Last Friday Prince gave Minneapolis’s public radio station, The Current, an exclusive new track called “Cause and Effect.” Not only did he show his support to public radio by showing up at their birthday party a few weeks ago, but by giving them this world premiere as well. So here it is, take a listen. I don’t think anything new will ever really compare to his past work, but he’s still a legitimate musician and probably the best living guitar player in the world right now. That’s just my opinion.
-Felicia
It’s tough not living in Chicago when that’s where many of your favorite bands come from. By residing just eight hours northwest, I was completely unaware until this week about the January 23rd reunion of the cult Chicago supergroup Cap’n Jazz (featuring members of The Promise Ring, Joan of Arc, and American Football) that went down at the Empty Bottle. It was actually part of a larger anniversary bash for the Joan of Arc collective, which begins with lead singer-songwriter Tim Kinsella and over the better part of two decades has included such notable projects as Owls, Ghosts & Vodka, and Friend/Enemy. Dubbed at the venue as the Joan of Arc Don’t Mind Control Variety Show, many of these outfits got together for brief unannounced 15-minute sets (many of them in the same room together for the first time in years), and one of these bands was the one that started it all when five of the essential members fo the collective were going to high school in Waukesha, Wisconsin together: Cap’n Jazz. Luckily the band is now booked to do two more official reunion dates at the Bottom Lounge in Chicago on July 17th and 18th this summer. For more info, check out True/Slant’s coverage on the event: http://trueslant.com/leorgalil/2010/01/23/the-capn-jazz-reunion-set/
-Chris Polley
In the spirit of the fusion of movie and music this week: It was revealed through an interview with CBS’ “Early Show” that actor Johnny Depp found inspiration for his Mad Hatter through an unlikely indie source. He said that director Terry Gilliam turned him on to the indie-rock-faux-proggers Sunset Rubdown and that a few of their songs “defined the Hatter for [him] perfectly.” Although he doesn’t namedrop any specific songs, they do play “They Took a Vote and Said No” off of Shut Up I Am Dreaming. For my money I would have pegged “Winged/Wicked Things” as the most Hatter-esque song in their library. So maybe this news will inspire some of us more disaffected youth who are fearful of Burton ruining another classic and coasting on decades worth of the same “out-of-the-box weirdness” to actually go see this film.
-Cooper Foyt
I considered doing an entire post last week about how ridiculous this is, but, despite my initial misgivings that I’d been pranked by the internetz, Frankie Muniz (yes, Malcolm) is now playing drums in a band. And not just any band: Shitty Phoenix quartet You Hang Up, a pop-punk outfit that, like many modern pop-punk bands, clearly thinks they’re the most deeply emotional band on the planet. Muniz, who previously stopped acting in order to be a racecar driver in the Atlantic Championship, learned to play drums from (who else?) Zac Hanson. Yes, the cute little one from the Hanson brothers. While this story has tickled me pink since I first heard it, sitting through one of their songs has proven impossible. It’s pretty terrible when 20 seconds into a track, I know a band’s entire library by heart. Also, check out the facial hair on Cody Banks!
-Christian Hagen
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If you didn’t read today’s post on our new One-Month Difference feature, check it out! Here are the albums up for their OMD scores this week:
-Today: Surfer Blood, Astro Coast
-Tues, March 2nd: Charlotte Gainsbourg, IRM
Keep checking back every week to see what reviews we may have updated!
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And now, this week’s Playlist!
Chris P. - Only one new song caught my ears by the lobes and wouldn’t let go this week: “Corridors” by Shearwater from their latest, The Golden Archipelago, is the barn-burning track that interrupts an otherwise gorgeously constructed work of epic orchestral folk-pop, and frankly, just like when Rook came out in 2008, nothing else can compare for the next couple weeks. Stop reading this and start listening.
Dan – Javelin “Vibrationz”
Brooklyn-based sample happy duo makes chill summer groove.
Best Coast “When I’m with You”
Lady from the West writes a 60’s pop song about being lonely and then presses the distortion pedal and pops the reverb.
Christian – With the Oscars coming up, and my upcoming post on the best and worst Oscar-winning songs, I started thinking of my favorite musicians-turned-actors. There are two that will always stand out in my mind: David Bowie and Mos Def. Seriously, these two need to do a movie together, just so they can do a duet on the soundtrack. I would die and go straight to improbability heaven. (Note: I don’t count Will Smith and Mark Wahlberg, because their music was, um, barely music)
BONUS TRACK
Cooper – This week I was looking back a little bit at one of my favorite mixtapes from last year, Themeslves’ theFREEhoudini and found myself re-infatuated with the track “Rapping4money” which finds a reunited Doseone, WHY? a.k.a. Yoni Wolf, and Odd Nosdam who used to go by the moniker cLOUDDEAD. These three used to put out some of the most formless abstract hip-hop together and really went in an interesting direction on their label anticon. They haven’t put out a proper album together in a few years, and each artist has gone off in distinctly different musical paths (Doseone has embraced a relentless break-neck rapping persona while Yoni Wolf has found a niche in the more traditional(?) indie rock genre) and that’s what makes this track so exciting. It’s a wonderful blend of what each artist has excelled at in their time alone. Yoni offers up his off-beat self-critical verse backed by languid linguistic gymnastics before Doseone slithers in with a sneering rapid assault delivery that is every bit infectious as it is impressive to hear. Here’s hoping to a cLOUDDEAD reunion in 2010.