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Pop Musicology - "The Second Drummer Drowned"


Radiohead is doing something wild for their newest album, In Rainbows.

You go to the website.

You download the album. You listen to it.

Then you pay how much you think it's worth. Nothing? Fine, pay nothing.

It's astounding, and, as far as I know, the only 'big-name' act to shuck away the briny suckers of the record labels and do it their way. Total creativity, asking only for donations. As the post on The Sound of Young America notes:


"We don't yet know if the files will be DRM-free, but imagine people putting all their creative efforts into the creation of sound -- then giving it away without restriction, and asking only for donations in return. Throwing their work out into the digital ether without promise of compensation. Rolling the dice and feeding peoples ears (and minds) without certainty of feeding their own mouths."

As a once-lucid Courtney Love noted (after her PR people edited the document, I'm assuming. Have you ever read the posts that she writes herself?), musicians make almost nothing after expenses and fat-cats are paid out. Also read The Problem with Music.

Perhaps this is a better way to make a living, as an artist, than relying on the promotional car wash that the major records labels put out.





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PM has ceated a Monster!

March 21st 2007 17:20
Oh, just look at what's going on here at this old post about Lil Chris.

Those comments! They hurt! Is PM naive to think that these people should be locked up somewhere? God, the internet scares me sometimes... I mean, what are these people gaining from this? Are they just annoyed teenage girls or is PM having the piss ripped out of us by hilarious peers? One of them calls PM ugly! And we all know that's not true, right guys?

Guys?

Mmm, awkward.
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The Bees at London Astoria

March 20th 2007 12:53
Ooh, what fun they were on the 7th of March! Just look! There'll probably beE a review of the show up on DiS later this week and I can't be arsed to write another, so just enjoy the pictures, yessuh?

The Bees at London Astoria


The Bees at London Astoria


The Bees at London Astoria


The Bees at London Astoria


Go here to hear their entire new record, Octopus! It's pretty good, you know! Then go here to read a review wot PM wrote of it.
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A Finlay Video...

February 24th 2007 19:33
...of their slightly delirious 'Phantasmagoria'.

Oh, enjoy!

[ Click here to read more ]
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Dananananaykroyd Interview!

February 14th 2007 19:32
Woop, here's the reason PM has been so slack of late... typing up this bitch took forever, so recognise it, yuss?

Go here!

[ Click here to read more ]
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Gabrielle 25 take months to arrive...

January 25th 2007 20:39
A good six months ago, PM placed an order with Lawrence Music (run by prolific steel guitar player John Lawrence) for an EP by Gabrielle 25. I mostly was interested in having a copy of their sublimely lilting country song 'Every little thing I say gets you down', heard on one of my varied John Peel tapes, inevitably intended for some Wedding Present session or other. Just a happy accident that I came across it, I suppose. Gabrielle 25 have, to the extent of my knowledge, not done a great deal besides this EP and another album (which, entitled 'Twenty More Fish In The Sea', is ace).

So imagine my surprise when, this morning, after having long forgotten about the placed order, that particular EP should plop onto the doormat. Attached was a note from John Lawrence himself (he plays geetar on a few tracks, in fact) telling me that this was in fact his last copy, his personal copy! Zoinks! That's generosity. PM cares not that it was months late in its arrival, just that I might have deprived someone of their own work. So John, if you're reading, heartfelt thanks.

[ Click here to read more ]
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PM is watching American Idol...

January 20th 2007 14:43
It's weird, though, isn't it? Where the British version was balls-out entertainment every step of the way, propogated by the entertaining honesty of Simon Cowell and the subsequent separation of wheat and chaff till something we, the public, can be proud of remains. But this doesn't seem to run quite as smoothly in American Idol. PM is sat in the lounge watching the audition show, which is getting rather strange.

Them there be judges...

[ Click here to read more ]
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As you've probably heard, Sam Preston from the world's premiere Madness tribute act The Ordinary Boys has thrown a strop while on BBC2's 'Never Mind The Buzzcocks' quiz show. Host Simon Amstell read extracts from his wife Chantelle Houghton's not-too-challenging auto-biography, leading the singer to storm off in a pissy cloud.

Preston from the Very Ordinary Boys

[ Click here to read more ]
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And who's topped the Album list?

January 8th 2007 15:02
It's only the bloody Semifinalists... And it's only the 8th of January! Most end of year lists were done WEEKS ago, but not good old pioneering PM.

Album No. 1: Semifinalists – Semifinalists

[ Click here to read more ]
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Song No.1: Dananananaykroyd – Song One Puzzle

Do you want to have this song summed up concisely? Yes, you do.

[ Click here to read more ]
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Song No.2: Semifinalists – You Said

Semifinalists have, this year, provided a shock. Their utterly fresh, crisp, brittle, dangerously teetering, violent, tender, monolithic, whispered and thundered songs have the kind of personality and inhabitable world that comes after years of familiarity and exposure. 'You Said' is, without doubt, the finest example of this on the band's self-titled debut record. Beginning with the most naïve and wandering of choral washes and gentle laments, it soon explodes into the greatest pop riff of the year and some thrilling retarded guitar wizardry.

[ Click here to read more ]
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Tunng - Woodcat

January 3rd 2007 19:53
Song No.3: Tunng – Woodcat (from 'Comments Of The Inner Chorus' on Static Caravan records)

Now, PM has already posted extensively about this particular song and how it provided one of the live highlights of the year, but it doesn't hurt to keep on saying how very special this song is. Music is not often made with such a dense aura around it, and the sinister whimsy of 'Woodcat' is indicative of one of the densest yet. It is the exaggerated tale of a man desperately searching for someone to turn him into a hare so he can join his love once again. Simple! But the joy of 'Woodcat' comes not from the batty narrative, but the real heart of the song is in the painful observations. 'I miss having coffee in bed watching TV' lament singers Mike and Sam, in a way that bubbles perfectly with the lilt of its accompanying acoustic guitars and pleasant bleeps.

[ Click here to read more ]
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Yo La Tengo nearly top PM's list...

January 3rd 2007 14:34
Album No.2: Yo La Tengo – I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass (Matador)

Also providing one of PM's live experiences of the year clearly wasn't enough for YLT, so that they've recorded an album so consistently entertaining and beautiful is a wonderful bonus. Oddly, a large share of the many highlights of that show came from this record: the pulse of 'Pass the Hatchett', the Glenn Miller via Mud stomp of 'Beanbag Chair', and the shimmering guile of 'I Want To Go Home'… this is Yo La Tengo at their strongest and most reliable.

[ Click here to read more ]
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Finlay - Mary IV

January 3rd 2007 07:17
Song No. 4: Finlay – Mary IV

This song marks the moment when Finlay shed any vestige of exterior influence. All those people who said, on release of their first record, that they sounded so much like Pavement that Mark Ibold accidentally joined them (NB: not true, just made that up) can consider themselves utterly silenced forever. While they did sound a bit like Pavement, they were always careful to inject their own shambling idiosyncrasies to keep it just far enough away from their influences.

[ Click here to read more ]
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