You might find these handy if Facebook gets any “MySpacier”

Nothing. Well, there are good things about it, but nothing great. Frankly, Google’s really starting to get on my nerves. They have a little bit too much of that Lord of the Rings “One Ring to rule them all” thing going on. Yes, it’s kind of cool that if you search for a band or a song, you now suddenly have the ability to play it right there in your search results. The other touted features – like the ability to search lyrics and get the same results for instance – are so inconsistent that I’m surprised the best and brightest at Google decided to include them. And the omission of iTunes and Amazon from those clickable previews is a mixed bag; yes it’s great to see less monolithic companies being promoted, but the fact is that this is probably just Google’s way of launching their own monopoly. It will be interesting to see how that plays out; so far their key partners include Lala, Rhapsody, Pandora, Imeem, and MySpace. I personally buy all my digital music at either Amazon* (which accounts for 10% of U.S. digital music sales) or iTunes (which accounts for 69% of U.S. digital music sales), and have no problem with that. If Google’s foray into the market generates competition and lower prices, or gives indy artists more exposure, excellent. If not, it’s just more search engine clutter, and another annoyingly distracting sales channel that benefits no-one. But don’t listen to me, try it yourself. Here’s a search box…

I secretly hold dear a belief that there’s an incredible harmony at the core of the chaos that is contemporary user-generated media. Well, an Israeli artist named Kutiman proves it with his project ThruYOU. You know all those misanthropic, socially awkward musician types you might find playing music in videos on YouTube, as if they were stars in some imaginary band? Well, even they didn’t realize it, but they WERE. Kutiman did something absolutely INCREDIBLE – and I can only imagine to be mind-numbingly tedious – by sorting through an amazingly diverse collection of YouTube tutorial and demo clips, and then assembling them into mashups and grooves that are in my opinion imminently listenable. I hope this guy gets some kind of distribution deal or financial reward for this stuff. One of my faves, I M New, is featured here. The easiest way to watch them in order is at ThruYOU, but he also of course has a YouTube page. He seems like a very cool and mellow guy; just check out his version of an “about” page. He also apparently does original work; see his MySpace page. Kind of cool dubby jazzy funky grooves, but I personally think his gift is with the mashup.

I’m really not too fond of pop culture criticism; I think mom was right when she said “If you don’t have anything nice to say...”, so let me preface what I’m about to say with a little disclaimer: My inability to discern the differences between any two U2 albums is probably a result of my own shortcomings. That being said, I haven’t been too thrilled with the band U2 since precisely the time that this became the case, or worse yet, since the moment I also became unable to tell if it was maybe a Coldplay song and not U2 at all. And I really lost my love for them when they sued Negativland, whose song is featured here in that audio-only YouTube clip (Warning: Lots of swearing by Casey Kasem). Well now, to give the added impression that they’re as out of touch with reality as a Beltway insider bailing out banks, they’re launching their latest release by making it free on MySpace until March 3rd. Shouldn’t they have maybe used Eons.com? Having taken a very quick listen, I’ll give them one thing; it sure as heck sounds like a U2 album. Keep up the good work lads. See you in Vegas in a few years. I mean that in the most positive possible way; Vegas is pretty cool, from what my grandma tells me.

*Confession: I’ve used Facebook addictively the last few weeks myself.