Cities of the Plain

Culture Club - Weekend Edition

But what’s remarkable is what the confluence of these two events represents: The final decline of the record industry’s ability to define the popular narrative about music. With only a few exceptions, record labels have been started by business people who have a terrifyingly consistent history of exploiting the artists they were ostensibly trying to promote. The labels compounded these affronts by developing a contempt for the new way consumers have decided to consume music in this millennium, hastening the end of the era of the major record labels.

But today marks a clear and unmistakeable milestone, dramatically demonstrating that the only entities with the power to make news about music today are artists themselves (as in the case of the Beatles) or technology companies (like Apple).

-Blogging pioneer and tech guru Anil Dash claiming that the release of The Beatles: Rock Band and their remastered albums and Apple’s announcement of their new “digital LPs” made last Wednesday “The Day the Record Industry Died.” (Dash is right that record labels are dead…I just think it’s been happening for a while and there are many artists, including but not limited to artists like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, who have demonstrated that record companies are not a necessary entity in putting out music, generating buzz or creating news…sorry for the lengthy quote at the top.)

-The Houston Chronicle ranks the Beatles’ albums. If any band had a 25 month stretch now like the Beatles did from July 1964 to the end of 1966 (Hard Day’s Night, Beatles for Sale, Help!, Rubber Soul, Revolver), the collective heads at Pitch4k would explode
-Lots of good stuff from today’s New York Times: a review of Book of Rhymes by Adam Bradley (available here), a preview of Norah Jones’ The Fall, a Jay-Z profile (alternatively titled, “Don’t Hate Hov because the Blueprint 3 wasn’t his best work), and a feature on how Le Poisson Rouge (a venue in NYC’s the village) is turning to New York institutions like Julliard and Carnegie Hall to bring different, inventive projects to their neck of the woods

-All Tomorrow’s Parties stuff: from Brooklyn Vegan, a day one recap, dope viewfinder schedules. Our man on the ground will have his recap sometime early this week.
-5 indie rock songs for college football
-Bob Boilen recounts his first time on stage
-Speaking of NPR’s music team, they have an M. Ward show streaming on their site right now
-Also from Brooklyn Vegan: a review of last weekend’s Electric Zoo
-P4k profiled Gold Panda