Posts Tagged ‘Spin’
His Tour Is Overpriced and Underattended. His Ideas Aren’t His Own. So Why Does Perez Hilton Have a Record Label?
In July, Rohin Guha, a writer for the pop culture site Black Book, noticed that the music tastes of America’s top gossip blogger closely mirrored those of a UK music site: Perez Hilton had endorsed six different bands, none of them yet familiar to American listeners, immediately following endorsements by Peter Robinson, editor of PopJustice. A Black Book commenter found that Perez embraced Britain’s Frankmusik, who Robinson has written about extensively since 2007, in the same timely manner.
Perez’s self-proclaimed “good ear” and subsequent blog endorsements helped him score a record imprint under Warner Bros.*
NPR Names the Best Music of the Year (so far), Why Music Magazines Are Dying
Last week All Songs Considered invited its listeners to vote for their favorite tracks and albums of the year (s0 far).
The results?
“In the end, Animal Collective edged out every other artist for both Best Album and Best Song. Artists like Grizzly Bear, The Decemberists and Neko Case weren’t far behind. One thing was clear: that 2009 has been one of the strongest years for new music in recent memory.”
MP3 tracks accompany the list for Best Songs of 2009 (so far), in case you’re not up to speed with what’s cool.
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DRM Is Dead, but Watermarks Will Live Forever
The former opinion comes straight from the RIAA, the latter is mine.
In a piece that we published today, I interviewed executives from Sub Pop, Definitive Jux, and Nasty Little Man, and music writers Jessica Hopper and Douglas Wolk about the state of music reviewing and copyright protections.
If you’ve never reviewed a copyright-protected promo, imagine the restrictions of DRM and then some: interruptions on every track during which a voice says, “This is a promotional copy”; poorly designed desktop media players; blood pacts.
Turns out labels know damn good and well that these sorts of restrictions interfere with the review process. And that made me wonder if labels are less concerned with pre-release coverage than they used to be.
The answer is yes and no. For an explanation, read Watermarks Break My Heart: Journalists hate them; labels love them. Why copyright protections aren’t going away.
