I found this via Idolator:
"So I paid full price for a crippled CD from Warner Bros. And I pay for my music! Why are they trying to restrict my ability to open the CD on my Mac and rip into iTunes?? It’s conduct like this that will cause people to stop buying CDs and download illegally instead." (rockstarfamily.com)
Someone at Warner must have spent the last year in hibernation. This sounds like a story from one year ago…
My sister is visiting us in Paris with her three children. They arrived yesterday evening. During dinner I put on some music, as I always do.
Imagine my surprise when my oldest nephew (6 years old) asked his dad: What’s that, daddy?
He had never seen an LP or a record player before…
I don’t think this article ("Ye cannae change the laws of physics!") provides any new insights, but it uses some nice images:
Trying to make Digital Rights Management (DRM) work in the real world is like asking engineers to do "Star Trek" style magic, rather than real engineering. DRM simply cannot work. (…)
Engineers know that DRM doesn’t work, that it can’t possibly work. Yet just like Scotty when Captain Kirk calls from the bridge asking for the impossible they can’t seem to help producing ever more complicated versions of the same broken system. (…)
Claiming that this process can ever be made secure from the people you’ve just given all this information to is like believing you can create a secure bank vault by drawing chalk lines on the pavement, piling the money inside and asking customers to "respect these boundaries".
There has been a lot of talk about Wilco selling a bunch of songs from Sky Blue Sky to Volkswagen for some TV-commercials. (I saw it first on Stereogum, there was even an official statement from the band, which I first saw on Pitchfork)
The story gets a special twist, when you read the recent interview with Comets on Fire on Pitchfork, concerning last year’s album Avatar (which I recommend):
Ethan Miller: Take a listen to the record. Come on, do you think these songs are going to be in Volkswagen commercials?
I don’t think it’s connected, but it still made me smile…
So the Jesus and Mary Chain have not only reunited for some shows:
"The reunion is not necessarily about any nostalgia trip," frontman Jim Reid told Uncut. "There will be a new record, otherwise there wouldn’t be any point to reforming." (SPIN.com)
I wonder what that will be like… After all those years.
But I’m already sure to buy it, anyway
It’s a black thong and a white sweatshirt, but there is no doubt that it must be the same person… 
You can see the original on Google maps.
Found via BoingBoing
I got Shellac’s new album, Excellent Italian Greyhound, today, in vinyl, of course.
I’m listening to it for the first time, as I type, but so far I can already say it meets expectations…
When unpacking the album, I discovered a CD in the packaging which contains the album, in addition to the high quality vinyl. It’s not mentioned on the cover anywhere and there’s no label on the CD, so it’s a really pleasant surprise. Most of all it provides a hassle free (and legal) way to have the album on the ipod.
There is no real reason, not to buy the vinyl version, even if you don’t have a turntable, as you get the CD anyway and you get to enjoy the wonderful artwork in the original size…
Today is Sgt. Pepper’s day, and anyone reading music-blogs knows that Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was released 40 years ago today.
It’s quite common to say that this is the greatest pop-record ever recorded (and I do agree), but for me it’s simply the first pop-album I’ve ever heard. In fact, my parents were never interested in pop-music, and all of their records were classical. The one exception was Sgt. Pepper’s which some trendy friend of theirs gave them as a gift, probably about the time it was released.
I don’t actually remember how I first came across the record in my parent’s collection, it must have been about 30 years ago. I do remember that there were still the card board cut-outs, which I thought were great. In a strange way the album appealed to me, in particular the songs that were telling stories like the title track (musical), She’s leaving home (sad), Mr Kite (funny) or When I’m 64 (science fiction). I also remember thinking that Within You, Without You was unbearable, but it didn’t matter, because it was the first track of Side two, and you could simply skip it after when putting the needle down after turning the disc (vinyl ruled/rules).
It’s amazing how time has passed since and I still enjoy listening to the same vinyl record today, bringing back tons of memories. But it’s also strange to think that I discovered pop-music through the greatest record of all time, and have bought hundreds of records since, that aren’t quite as great…
So Apple has started selling DRM free tracks (iTunes Plus). It’s not actually mp3’s, but Apple’s own m4a-format. DRM-free means you can copy them as much as you like to any device/computer and listen to them. Just like you can take a CD and listen to it in any CD-player. Progress!?!
But the story does not end her. Some smart people have had a closer look at those files :
Such is the situation with Apple’s new DRM-free music: songs sold without DRM still have a user’s full name and account e-mail embedded in them, which means that dropping that new DRM-free song on your favorite P2P network could come back to bite you.
Besides any potential privacy aspects, I believe that this is actually quite a smart move, and even more so because people can convert the files into mp3’s without the personal information, taking into account an acceptable loss of sound quality. If you’re really concerned about sound quality, you should buy vinyls or CD’s anyway.
Found via Stereogum
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