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Did EMI Say OK And Give OK Go A Pass On This Too Shall Pass?

admin — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:03:27 +0000

Were the band Ok Go’s recent complaints about EMI’s YouTube sharing policies just part of a sneaky, low-key marketing campaign? Who cares. The band’s new brilliantly Rube Goldbergian video below is way too much fun to quibble about it. More thoughts after the clip.

While taking a look at the RIAA’s peculiar paranoia about Canadian pirates recently, we mentioned how Damian Kulash Jr. of the band OK Go had expressed his frustration about not being able to embed his own band’s YouTube videos because of EMI’s “Embedding disabled by request” deal in a NYT editorial. He sounded like a real rebel, sharing the straight dope about how stupid his own label was being about video sharing as promotion. Well, OK Go’s latest video, This Too Shall Pass is featured above, and is suspiciously embeddable. But none of the others – like the Here It Goes Again treadmill video that put them on the charts – are. Was this yet another Rube Goldbergian mechanism to get us to see their new video? If it was, it was brilliant. The video was streamed nearly a million times in the first two days it was available. OK Go was also ready with blooper reels, which adds to the fishiness of it all. But who cares. It’s a catchy tune, and the video is awesome. It was created by LA’s Syyn Labs over a month-and-a-half using a team of 50-60 people to build it. The band’s basic requirements were that it had to be built on a shoestring budget, not only synchronize with the beat and lyrics but play a part of the song, and end on time with it. Remember, this is 3 1/2 minutes with no cuts. Pretty impressive. Wired has more details about the engineering required if you’re interested.

So It’s Canadian Pirates vs. The RIAA, eh?

admin — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 20:01:35 +0000

In their never-ending quest for most absurd litigation to make its way into the apparently oblivious judicial system, the record industry is stepping it up a notch. No, it wasn’t enough to steal from their own artists and corrupt the legal system, or to sue a single woman for $80,000 per allegedly pirated song (oh wait, it got reduced to a mere $2,250!), or sue dead people, people who don’t even own computers, and the entire radio industry. No, now they’re taking on the country that – as we all know – is home to the most ruthless criminal networks of the Americas. You know, Canada. Who knew that aside from being a country full of pretty nice people whose greatest crime may be occasionaly finishing sentences with “eh?”, Canada is also a hotbed of profit-robbing music piracy? As far as I knew, the only threat that Canada had brought to the established music industry recently was a really awesome indy scene, but the RIAA sees things a little differently. Fortunately, this may be one of the last times that you’ll have to endure wingnuts like me ranting about this; dinosaur labels like EMI are soon likely to be laying about in massive heaps gasping for their last breaths like their metaphoric counterparts at the end of the Jurassic period, as they continue to blame their $2.7 billion losses on piracy rather than their failure to adapt to competition. I tend to get a little over-the-top when I discuss this topic; for a much more sane overview from an artist’s point of view, check out this New York Times piece by Damian Kulash Jr. of the band OK Go, in which he calmly describes how EMI’s disabling of the “embed” feature on YouTube has probably lost them exponentially more than what they made by “protecting” their property.

More Mashups: Girls Aloud Allowed, But EMI Goes GooGoo Over Gaga

admin — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:29:05 +0000

We’ve touched on mashups before, but hadn’t realized how deeply they’d been cross-infected with mainstream pop culture, and hadn’t considered the daunting task they bring to record labels operating with a Jurassic attitude toward media distribution and rights management. First of all, let’s look at an example of how not to do a mashup, and then take a look at an example of why issuing takedowns to mashup artists is probably not all that productive. So how not to do a mashup? Fox TV’s Glee “got hip” and jumped on the mashup train by taking the Police song “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” and Gary Puckett’s “Young Girl”, and having one of the stars of the show sing them as a mashup. The result was predictably horrifying. The problem? The music was obviously licensed, played by studio session players, and badly dubbed over by the actor. The net result is comparable to watching your friend who majored in drama but ended up being an MBA singing “Halo” at karaoke night. If anyone should get sued in the world of mashups, it’s the producers of Glee. On the other end of the spectrum, we have situations where a label like EMI issues a takedown when the repurposing of their property would probably do them more benefit than harm. The piece just linked to explains why EMI issued a takedown for NirGaga, the Lady Gaga Vs. Nirvana mashup. What’s wrong with that scenario? For me, the mashup made me remember Nirvana, who I hadn’t thought of in ages, and exposed me to Lady Gaga, who I would otherwise not go out of my way to listen to. In either case, it’s doubtful that the free distribution of the mashup would dent EMI’s profits, and in spite of EMI’s takedown, the video and song remain “in the wild”, and fairly easy to find, as evident with the YouTube link above. Another example of reaching a new and unlikely end-user (i.e.: me) is a series of mashups of Girls Aloud, the British reality TV superstar girl band that’s made millions and that I’d bet a million that – like me – you’ve never heard of before. Below are examples of Girls Aloud and a few other mashups (Devo vs Souljaboy, Lady Gaga vs Eurythmics) that – at least to my ears – make the unlistenable fairly listenable. I doubt major media companies will ever get this property management vs exposure equation, and will continue throwing the baby out with the bath water until they’re bankrupt. If you want a quick roundup of some of last year’s best mashups, check out CultureBully’s list, or Best of Bootie 2009.

Girls Aloud’s “Long Hot Summer” and Beastie Boys “Body Movin’” are both arguably fairly weak on their own, but the mashup actually kind of rocks.

I enjoyed Devo’s “Whip It” in its day, but certainly never think of listening to it now. And Soulja Boy’s “Tell`em Crank That” isn’t likely to find its way on to my play list, but mash them up, and you have an altogether new experience. A sort of “gangstas smokin’ hillbilly crank” experience, to be specific.

Somehow Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams” rescues Lady Gaga’s “Let’s Dance” from its feeble slapback-echo-driven 1986-ness by mixing it with some over-sequenced 1982-ness.

Reality meets reality: Kelly Clarkson’s “Walk Away” mashed with Girls Aloud’s “Love Machine” has a synergistic effect that works better than either tune on their own.

The one that EMI cease-and-desisted: Lady Gaga Vs. Nirvana (NirGaga)

Danger Mouse – Dark Night Of The Sales

admin — Sun, 17 May 2009 04:01:34 +0000

In the record industry’s bizarre ongoing pursuit of its own demise, the release of Dark Night Of The Soul (the new Danger Mouse collaboration with Sparklehorse) has been blocked by EMI. Not to worry though; for the time being NPR is streaming the whole thing, and it’s also pretty easy to find as a bittorrent. The release was originally to include photography by David Lynch, so Danger Mouse is cleverly selling the package as designed, except with a blank CD-R, and the notice “For Legal Reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will“. The obvious implication being that you can download the music for free, buy the retail package, and burn it yourself. We’ll leave that up to you; the book and poster version with blank CD costs fifty bucks and they’re already taking orders prior to the May 29 release date. We’ve only given this a quick first spin, but it sounds promising. No standout singles or dance tracks; instead some well-crafted moodiness, with appearances by an eclectic variety of vocal talent including Suzanne Vega, Iggy Pop, Frank Black, Nina Persson of The Cardigans, Julian Casablancas of The Strokes, and others. See the full track list below.

The songs on Dark Night of the Soul were written by Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse, but feature a different vocalist on each track.

Revenge (Flaming Lips)
Just War (Gruff Rhys of The Super Furry Animals)
Jaykub (Jason Lytle)
Little Girl (Julian Casablancas of The Strokes)
Angel’s Harp (Frank Black of The Pixies)
Pain (Iggy Pop)
Star Eyes (I Can’t Catch It) (David Lynch)
Everytime I’m With You (Jason Lytle)
Insane Lullaby (James Mercer of The Shins)
Daddy’s Gone (Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse and Nina Persson of The Cardigans)
The Man Who Played God (Suzanne Vega)
Grim Augury (Vic Chesnutt)
Dark Night Of The Soul (David Lynch)

Viva La Jaydiohead – Jay-Z Meets Radiohead

admin — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 04:01:13 +0000

What’s black and white and comes in rainbows? A pair of brilliant mashups of Jay Z’s Black Album. If you missed Danger Mouse’s 2004 Mashup The Grey Album, try to get a copy (Illegal-Art.org has a torrent link). It’s a masterful mashup of The Beatles’ White Album and Jay-Z’s Black Album. The legal fuss that EMI created at the time probably only served to promote the release, as did the clever Grey Video that repurposed original black-and-white footage from a 60′s Beatles concert. Since then there have been a few other attempts at mashing up Jay-Z, like OJAYZIS (Jay-Z vs Oasis) or Viva la Hova, a mash with Coldplay’s Viva la Vida. But none have been quite as listenable as this year’s Jaydiohead produced by NYC DJ Minty Fresh Beats (who’s apparently since re-branded himself as Max Tannone). Hail to the Thief!