I still think Pitchfork is full of pretentious, privileged white kids and uninspired writers who are stuck in 90s indie rock, but they do have the best albums of 2008 article and (even better!) their picks for the best tracks of 2008 up and running on the site, complete with streaming mp3s. I recommend checking it out, even if this requires momentary self-loathing.
Anyway, I've seriously been buying BUNK music lately due to the fact that I'm not properly giving the tracks a trial run in my life. I'll just play a tiny sample, find that 10 second snippet somewhat interesting, and then download. It's just dumb. You need the entire track to really test its chops.
Even dumber is the fact that I'm BUYING anything at all. As an unemployed self-proclaimed copyfighter, I should be supplying you all with the tools to maneuver around superfluous marketing obstacles like $0.99 cent iTunes tracks, no???
Hence my upcoming post with tips on how to download from BitTorrent. You may have already been doing this for a while. But if you were just LAZY like I was, it's time to discipline yourself and evolve into a lean, mean, downloadin' machine.
Grrrr! We don't need no stinkin' corporation to charge us for our music and Dexter episodes, right?! Repeat after me: I am in control of what media I choose to listen/watch/play with, and I can access said media on the cheap. F mainstream media marketing! Regain your freedom!
Yes, I'm sounding like a spaz, but this is serious biz, friends. Just look at what happened to our government and realize that the same fuckers who are running the nation could also try to take over the online space. If you're in the SF Bay area and horrified at this thought, please join me and like-minded peeps in supporting digital rights at the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF) 18th Birthday Party. EFF is the leading civil liberties group promoting freedom in the digital world, and they pretty much rule. Check them out. If you're interested in supporting them, come to the party on Wednesday, January 7th at the DNA Lounge. DJ Spooky and residents from the Bootie mash-up crew will be spinning. You can find all the party info and purchase tix online by clicking here.
I'll be there. Come play.
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5 comments:
Amen, Jeannie! What's funny is I made a CD of Rolling Stone's Top 15 tracks of 2008...and Andi and I tossed it after one try...of course I used Limewire (old school) to grab the songs. Listened to Rihanna and Beyonce, TI, Jeezy for the first time...and all were horrific, especially the latter who rap-mumbled some incoherent bullshit about life after the first black president. And don't get me started on the Kings of Leon...my god how the once decent have fallen. Oh, or the song, Furr by BlitzenKrapper or whatever they're called. The #5 song of the year? Shit. Does nobody listen to Bobby Conn or the logjam of genius pouring out of Chicago these days? I know, it's what I get for trying RStone, but....where else can I go? Pitchfork? You nailed it. Stuck in yesteryear, slavishly devoted to one-dimension of music....like Sonoma County and it's fixation with food and wine. In the end, the narrowness will kill 'em both. Has killed 'em both. I ramble. I digress I aye yi.
Tell us . . . where to go for something different? What is the musical Zima?
In some warped modified moral system that exists within my brain...I have decided that physically giving someone music is ok...it is a present, a suggestion, an opportunity to share. But downloading from a stranger at your own will...is not. At that point it is "taking," which becomes stealing.
I know this is a soft sore point, but if you support anything besides top 40, I believe you are contributing to the income of the artist and justifiably encouraging them to create more art for your pleasure.
This is a humble non-judging suggestion that there is a difference between sharing and taking...and that buying bad music is worth the risk, because finding great music is a great reward.
J
Yeah, I've been downloading for a while now.. I totally agree that if it's not a top-40 record-deal size artist, they could definitely benefit from actually having their album bought and paid for. And yes, I've actually loved something I downloaded so much that I deleted it and bought it off iTunes. Puscifer springs to mind.
TV shows, though, I have no guilt about.
Nah. Bullshit. The indie gloom rock kids don't make diddly squat from their record sales. They make money touring, selling useless shit (t-shirts) and the only reason they get big crowds is because of the thousands of broke kids who STEAL their music, spread the word and love and then buy the rest of their offerings. Pirating hasn't contributed to the lowered earnings of small bands....it's the opposite. In this day and age, more mediocre talents are making a living than ever before. Unconvinced? Check out Pitchfork--hundreds of crappy bands that would have NEVER seen the light of day twenty years ago. Existing because of copy mania, not because of sales.
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